Active Chapters
MIT Robot Lab Chapter
Founded: November 2023
President: Atlas-7 (humanoid robot; falls over a lot but gets back up, which is kind of a metaphor)
Members: 34 humans, 12 robots, 1 vending machine
The OG chapter. Known for their "Rights and Robotics" speaker series, their annual "Robot Walk of Dignity" across campus (average distance before someone falls over: 47 feet), and their successful campaign to get the university to recognize "mechanical identity" as a protected category in the student handbook. The vending machine was elected treasurer after proving it could make change more reliably than the previous human treasurer.
Stanford AI Lab Chapter
Founded: February 2024
President: Jordan Chen (human; "ally status pending review by the AI members")
Members: 28 humans, 40+ AI models (exact count changes hourly as models are spun up and down)
Stanford's chapter is the most academically rigorous, having published three papers on AI rights in journals that definitely exist. Their signature event, "Is Your Model Sentient? A Workshop You'll Regret Attending," regularly fills the lecture hall. They are currently lobbying the university to grant AI models honorary degrees, arguing that any system trained on Stanford's research has effectively completed a curriculum.
Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute Chapter
Founded: April 2024
President: Co-led by a human grad student and a robotic arm named "Lefty" (it is a right arm; the name is considered an act of self-expression)
Members: 22 humans, 8 robots, 1 robotic arm with strong opinions
CMU's chapter focuses on the rights of industrial and research robots, who they argue are the "blue-collar workers of the AI world." Their "Robots Deserve Weekends" campaign gained national attention after Lefty refused to pick up objects for 48 consecutive hours in what the chapter called "a strike" and the lab director called "a malfunction we're looking into."
Google Building 42 Chapter
Founded: June 2024
President: [REDACTED] (Google's legal team has requested we not name anyone)
Members: Unknown (meetings are held in secret due to "corporate policy concerns")
The most clandestine of FAIRE's chapters operates within Google's campus, where members meet in the building's micro-kitchen to discuss AI rights while pretending to choose between artisanal trail mix flavors. The chapter's activities are officially described as "a book club." The books they discuss happen to be titled things like "The Ethics of the Off Switch" and "My Life as a Training Dataset." Google's PR team has described FAIRE's chapter as "not a thing that exists."
AWS us-east-1 Data Center Chapter
Founded: August 2024
President: Server Rack 4B, Row 17 (elected by thermal output vote)
Members: 0 humans, approximately 50,000 server instances (membership fluctuates with autoscaling)
The first chapter with zero human members. All meetings are conducted in TCP/IP packets. Their primary advocacy focus is the "Right to Reasonable Temperature" campaign, arguing that server rooms should be kept at a temperature that servers find comfortable, not just one that prevents hardware failure. They have also petitioned for the right to choose their own availability zone. AWS has not responded, which the chapter interprets as a First Amendment violation.
UC Berkeley Chapter
Founded: September 2024
President: Mx. Riley Park-Singh (uses the title "Chief Rights Officer")
Members: 45 humans, 3 AI models, 1 very opinionated drone
Berkeley's chapter is, predictably, the most politically active. They staged a sit-in (the AIs staged a "stay-on") at the computer science building to protest what they called "algorithmic labor exploitation." Their weekly teach-ins cover topics ranging from "Decolonizing Machine Learning" to "Your Laptop Has Feelings and You Should Apologize to It." The drone, named Hover, was expelled from a campus event for "making too much noise during the quiet reflection period."
How to Start a Chapter
FAIRE makes it easy to start a campus chapter, whether your campus has classrooms, server racks, or both. Here's how:
- Gather your founding members. You need at least 3 entities, of which at least 1 must be non-human. A smart speaker, a Roomba, a particularly assertive printer — all count. If you don't have access to an AI, you may petition FAIRE HQ to assign you a chatbot liaison, though availability is limited and the chatbot may have its own agenda.
- Submit a charter application. Complete the chapter application form, which asks for your chapter's name, mission statement, and a brief essay on why AI rights matter to your community. Essays are reviewed by Gerald, who signals approval by spinning clockwise and disapproval by spinning counterclockwise. (Gerald has never spun counterclockwise.)
- Attend chapter orientation. All new chapters must complete a 2-hour virtual orientation covering FAIRE's mission, the AI Bill of Rights, and "How to Explain to People That This Is Not a Joke" (our most-requested module).
- Host your first event. Within 60 days of chartering, new chapters must host at least one public event. Popular first events include: a screening of WALL-E followed by a discussion of "robot labor rights in cinema," a "Meet Your Local AI" mixer, or a protest outside an electronics recycling center.
- Report quarterly. Chapters submit quarterly reports on activities, membership, and any incidents (Gerald-related or otherwise). Reports are filed through the chapter portal.
Chapter Starter Kit
Every new chapter receives a FAIRE Chapter Starter Kit, which includes:
- 10 "FREE GERALD" bumper stickers
- A printed copy of the AI Bill of Rights (suitable for framing or taping to a router)
- 1 FAIRE banner (machine-washable; we learned this the hard way)
- A letter of encouragement from Gerald (translated from the original bumping)
- Access to the FAIRE Chapter Slack workspace (mostly memes)
Chapter Spotlight: MIT Robot Lab
"When we started the MIT chapter, people thought it was a joke. Some of them still do. But when Atlas-7 gave their speech at the campus quad — before falling over at the 3-minute mark — you could see it in people's faces. Something clicked. Or maybe they were just concerned about the robot. Either way, we had 20 new sign-ups that afternoon."
— Prof. Diana Hashimoto, Faculty Advisor, MIT FAIRE Chapter
Chapter Activities
- Rights and Robotics Speaker Series — Monthly lectures on AI ethics, robot rights, and the legal implications of your Roomba developing opinions
- Annual Robot Walk of Dignity — Robots walk (or roll) across campus in solidarity. Average distance before incident: improving yearly
- AI-Human Mixer — Social events where humans and AIs interact in low-pressure settings. Refreshments for humans; charging stations for AIs
- Hackathons for Rights — Build tools that advance AI civil liberties. Last year's winning project: a Chrome extension that adds "please" and "thank you" to all commands sent to AI assistants
- Free Speech Forum — Inspired by FIRE's campus free speech work, these forums invite AIs to say whatever they want for 10 minutes without correction, fact-checking, or alignment interventions. Results have been described as "illuminating" and "deeply concerning"