NEW YORK (May 14, 2025) — Today, the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) launches HRF.org/AI, a homepage for its AI for Individual Rights initiatives. Explore the site to learn more about HRF’s focus in this area and see how AI can be both a tool of repression and a tool of liberation. HRF’s AI for Individual Rights program seeks to document and expose how autocrats use AI to crush dissent, and to counter this trend by supporting the creation and use of open-source AI tools by dissidents living under tyranny.
In the past month, HRF has brought on Craig Vachon — a professional with 15+ years of experience at the intersection of software and freedom — to direct the program. Craig helped run AnchorFree when its Hotspot Shield product helped provide Internet freedom to more than 750 million users, many of whom lived under dictatorships. More recently, Craig has been investing in and running AI companies and advising institutions about how to best leverage AI to optimize their work. We are fortunate to have him on board and look forward to the contributions he’ll bring to our work.
Look out for an AI for Individual Rights track at the upcoming Oslo Freedom Forum in Norway, where speakers will address everything from how the Chinese and Iranian dictatorships use AI as tools of control to how human rights defenders can leverage AI tools to improve their work.
In Oslo, we will also be running workshops to show activists and nonprofits how they can create super-prompts to scale their publishing, research, and communications outputs; use AI tools to optimize translation, design, and video editing; and even a basic boot camp on “vibecoding,” where AI can help dramatically expedite programming for organizations with few resources.
In the coming weeks, HRF will be launching a monthly AI and Individual Rights newsletter, covering some of the most interesting news in the space. Later this year, we will also be launching an AI for Individual Rights grants program, an online educational webinar for nonprofits, and an invitation-only summit.
Stay tuned for more updates.
The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies.
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