Lincoln’s Blueprint for Ethical AI – CFA Institute Entrepreneurial Investor

‘Let us have the confidence that good makes might.’ — Abraham Lincoln, Cooper Union Speech¹

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, forged his leadership during a period of profound national unrest and rapid technological change. Just as the telegraph, railroads, and printing press transformed the 19th century, artificial intelligence (AI), digital networks, machine learning, and automated decision-making systems are reshaping modern life.

The values ​​Lincoln emphasized in the 1860s—responsibility, transparency, and moral restraint—provide a current framework for guiding AI development with ethical guardrails that ensure technology serves humanity, not the other way around.

While we can only speculate about what Lincoln would have thought of AI, history suggests that he would have embraced its potential while insisting that its progress remain grounded in law, ethics, and human dignity. Business leaders and investors can draw on Lincoln’s belief that free enterprise and technological innovation should enhance rather than erode fundamental human value.

An innovator with moral restraint

To be sure, Lincoln himself was an innovator. He remains the only U.S. president to hold a patent, granted in 1849, for a device to lift beached boats over shoals, an innovation designed to improve transportation efficiency and expand commercial access.² As president, he championed federal investments in railroads and telegraph networks and signed the Pacific Railway Act in 1862 to connect the nation through infrastructure that expanded trade and communications.³

Lincoln specifically embraced the transformative power of the telegraph as a tool for instantaneous communication. During the Civil War, he made significant efforts to centralize and strengthen the U.S. Military Telegraph Corps. David Homer Bates, who headed the telegraph office, reported that “during the Civil War, the President spent more of his waking hours in the War Department telegraph office than in any other place except the White House.”⁴

Yet Lincoln never combined technological speed with sound judgment. For example, he often waited for additional deployments during the Overland Campaign before authorizing military moves, resisting the urge to let the speed of information replace sober judgment.⁵ Historians describe the telegraph office as Lincoln’s “war room,” where he absorbed real-time intelligence, but emphasized that decisions remain a matter of human responsibility.⁶

Likewise, AI should be seen as an enhancement to human decision-making, not a replacement. Recent advances in medicine have enabled AI to make faster and more accurate breast cancer diagnoses than human radiologists, but practitioners warn that algorithms should inform rather than override the judgment of clinical professionals.⁷ History suggests that Lincoln would certainly embrace this idea and not trade away human judgment and intuition.

Ethics over efficiency

In his first annual message, delivered to Congress on December 3, 1861, Lincoln declared: “labor is prior to and independent of capital,” adding that capital is merely the “fruit of labor.”⁸ In this speech, in which he uses the word “labor” thirty-one times, Lincoln advocates maintaining a moral basis for business activities in which human labor, creativity, and dignity are the dominant factors over capital, profit, and efficiency.

That perspective resonates in modern debates about AI and automation. While some business leaders predict widespread job displacement, Lincoln viewed labor as central to human purpose and self-worth. According to him, innovation should increase opportunities instead of reducing people to replaceable inputs. Rather than viewing labor merely as a means to an end whose sole purpose is to generate financial profit, Lincoln viewed labor as an essential element in defining one’s purpose in life, a core foundation of one’s own human dignity. ⁹

In today’s AI paradigm, Lincoln’s message remains as relevant as ever. Some of the country’s most prominent business leaders predict that AI will eventually eliminate all human work¹⁰ and the largest companies plan to invest in automation at the expense of human labor and well-being.¹¹ A recent report shows that algorithmic planning systems in retail and logistics tend to prioritize speed and profit at the expense of employee stability and well-being.¹²

In contrast, AI-powered education platforms that offer workers the opportunity to retrain and advance to higher-skill positions reflect Lincoln’s belief that labor should be augmented rather than replaced.¹³ Lincoln’s belief that innovation should elevate rather than replace human work suggests that he would support the latter and reject the former – used solely to maximize profits by displacing labor.

Law as the moral limit of innovation

Before Lincoln entered politics, he was a lawyer who believed deeply in the rule of law. He warned that respect for the law must become the country’s “political religion” and provide protection against injustice and abuse of power.¹⁴ While he respected the constitutional boundaries of his office, even as he expanded them in times of crisis, he consistently viewed (and based) his legal decisions through a lens of ethical responsibility.

AI poses similar challenges. Trained on imperfect human data, AI systems can perpetuate bias, undermine privacy, and concentrate power. Documented failures from discriminatory recruitment algorithms to biased facial recognition systems underscore the risks of unregulated deployment. From unregulated facial recognition systems to the loose oversight of large language models (LLMs), there has never been a more urgent time than now to fully consider Lincoln’s advice. ^{15, 16}

Lincoln’s legal sensitivity suggests that regulations should not hinder innovation, but rather guide it. Clear, enforceable guardrails can ensure that AI strengthens rather than erodes democratic equality and civil rights. For long-term investors, legal clarity and ethical governance are not obstacles to growth, but rather prerequisites for sustainable value creation. ¹⁷

Human dignity at the center of progress

Lincoln’s vision for America was not limited to preserving the Union. He wanted to preserve a Union “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”¹⁸ Human dignity was central to his moral and political vision.

AI ethics scholars note that, if left unchecked, LLMs and predictive tools can reinforce social biases or marginalize vulnerable groups. They can reduce people to data points, make decisions without human oversight, violate privacy through surveillance, or reinforce unfair stereotypes.¹⁹

Whether in his debates with Stephen Douglas or in his public writings, Abraham Lincoln emphasized the moral obligation of both society and government to protect the rights and dignity of others. Likewise, Lincoln would have wanted AI to serve human well-being and enhance human capabilities, not push them aside.

Innovation with human responsibility

Lincoln welcomed innovation, but he struck a balance between innovation and ethical responsibility. He understood that modernization could promote social progress for all, while eschewing the idea of ​​reckless ambition. ²⁰ Lincoln’s legacy means that if AI can alleviate suffering and support human potential, the former US president would not only have welcomed the growth but also taken the lead in ensuring that it remains for the greater good.

References

1. Lincoln, Abraham. “Speech at Cooper Institute,” February 27, 1860, Collected Works of Abraham Lincolned. Roy P. Balser, vol. I, pp. 108-15, Rutgers University Press, 1953.
2. United States Patent and Trademark Office. “Improvement for mooring ships over shoals,” Patent No. 6469, 1849.
3. National Archives. “Pacific Railroad Act (1862).”
4. Bates, David Homer. Lincoln in the Telegraph Office: Recollections of the United States Telegraph Corps during the Civil War. The Century Co., New York, 1907.
5. National Archives. “The Telegraph and Lincoln’s War Room.” US National Archives2023.
6. Neely, Mark E. The Civil War and the Limits of Destruction. Harvard University Press, 2007.
7. McKinney, Scott, et al.”International evaluation of an AI system for breast cancer screening.” Naturefull. 577, 2020.
8. Lincoln, Abraham. First Annual Message to CongressDecember 3, 1861. The American Presidency Project.
9. Klinghard, Daniel. “What did Lincoln mean to say about technology in his ‘Lecture on Discoveries and Inventions’?” The Diary of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Erafull. 22, no. 4, October 2023, pp. 391–410.
10. Taylor, Chloe. “Elon Musk says AI will create a future where ‘no job is needed’.’” FortuneNovember 3, 2023.
11. Danziger, Pam. “Amazon and Target job cuts reveal how AI is reshaping the retail workforce.” ForbesOctober 29, 2025.
12. Fontanella-Khan, James. “Algorithmic Scheduling and Worker Exploitation.” Financial times2024.
13. Zhang, Mengqi. “AI Education Tools and Job Mobility.” Journal of Applied Learning Analytics2023.
14. Lincoln, Abraham. “Address to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois,” January 27, 1838. Abraham Lincoln Online.
15. Buolamwini, Joy and Timnit Gebru. “Tones of Gender.” MIT Media Lab2018.
16. Weise, Karen. “AI Company Released Suicide-Related Guardrails Before Teen’s Death.” Wall Street Journal2024.
17. Walch, Kathleen. “Responsible AI starts with responsible leadership,” ForbesAugust 10, 2025.
18. Lincoln, Abraham. “Address given at the dedication of Gettysburg Cemetery,” November 19, 1863, Collected Works of Abraham Lincolned. Roy P. Basler, Vol. VII, 17-23 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953).
19. Tanford HAI. “The 2022 AI Index: Industrialization of AI and Rising Ethical Concerns.” Stanford University2022.
20. Zuboff, Shoshana. The era of surveillance capitalism. Public Affairs, 2019.