IOWL publishes new work examining Human Calibre, AI and the values governing capability

BELFAST, 18 September 2026 The Institute of One World Leadership (IOWL) has published two new pieces of authored work examining the relationship between rapidly expanding artificial-intelligence capability and the human judgement governing its development and use.

The publications approach the issue from different directions. Professor Michele Russell's When Capability Outruns Calibre examines AI, neurodivergence and the human qualities institutions recognise, overlook and reward as technology enlarges what people can do. Prof Noel Ferguson's Who Gives AI Its Values? asks the prior question behind AI alignment: who defines the values to which AI should be aligned, and what governs the humans and institutions making those choices?

When Capability Outruns Calibre

Russell's article begins from the observation that AI can enlarge human capacity without automatically enlarging human judgement. It examines cognitive difference, institutional recognition and the risk created when organisations become increasingly sophisticated at evidencing qualifications, experience and skills but remain less systematic about evidencing the judgement with which those assets will be exercised.

The article connects that issue to IOWL's Capacity Conundrum™ and to what the Institute describes as the HR Blind Spot™: organisations may know a great deal about what a person has achieved and what that person can do, while knowing much less about how the person is likely to exercise growing discretion and authority.

It also develops the concept of Calibre Risk™. Faster or more powerful capability can enlarge the consequences of poor judgement, making Calibre a performance and risk question as well as an ethical one.

Who Gives AI Its Values?

Ferguson's conceptual position paper examines the values question behind AI alignment. It responds to Microsoft AI's publication on 14 September of a draft Humanist AI Code of Conduct for public consultation, which sets out intended behaviours and values for Microsoft's AI models.

The IOWL paper asks what positive baseline governs the people who decide what aligned AI should value. It argues that technical expertise can implement model behaviour but cannot, by itself, determine how competing interests should be balanced, what counts as legitimate human flourishing or when capability should be constrained.

The paper compares Microsoft's draft Code with IOWL's Positive Value Leadership™ architecture, including 24 Positive Values across six Exemplars: Probity, Potency, Planet, People, Perception and Participation. The comparison is presented as conceptual analysis, not as an endorsement by Microsoft or a claim that Microsoft has adopted IOWL frameworks.

Different questions, one underlying issue

The two publications meet at the same IOWL distinction. Capability concerns what can be done. Competency concerns whether it can be done effectively. Calibre concerns the judgement and values governing what should be done, how it should be done and with what regard for consequence.

IOWL is not arguing that technical safety, regulation, governance or model alignment can be replaced by human-development frameworks. Its proposition is that all of those systems ultimately depend on human decisions about objectives, limits, trade-offs, incentives and acceptable consequences.

The publications form part of IOWL's wider public research programme around Human Calibre, Positive Value Leadership, integrity, employability, productivity and responsible performance.