The HRF announced on 22 September 2026 a new guide to understand AI and how to use it safely to defend freedom
Artificial intelligence (AI) is often described as the most transformative technology of our time. Its meteoric development is reshaping industries, economies, and the way people work, communicate, and create. Governments are investing billions of dollars into it. Corporations are racing to build ever more capable AI systems. News headlines alternate between promises of extraordinary breakthroughs and warnings about existential risks.
For activists, journalists, researchers, and civil society organizations, however, the question is much simpler: What does AI mean for the work I do every day
The reality is that authoritarian regimes are already using AI to expand surveillance, censorship, and social control. At the same time, activists are using it to research faster, build new tools, and amplify their impact. AI itself is neither democratic nor authoritarian. Like any powerful tool, its impact depends on who controls it and how it is used.
Gene Sharp, the author of the book “From Dictatorship to Democracy” and the world’s foremost scholar of nonviolent revolution, spent decades documenting that even the most entrenched authoritarian regimes depend on the consent and cooperation of their subjects, and that organized, disciplined resistance can withdraw that consent. AI doesn’t change that logic, but it does change the scale and speed at which activists can act on it.
That is what this guide is about: Helping dissidents understand AI and how to use it safely to defend freedom, and bringing them to realize that they do not need a technical background to follow along.
This guide is specially written for people working to strengthen democracy, defend human rights, and build more open societies while living and working under authoritarian regimes. It focuses on the practical applications of AI rather than the technical details behind it. You will learn how to use AI chat tools, build applications without hiring a software developer, create personal AI agents, protect your privacy, and automate parts of your work. The emphasis throughout is on practical skills you can begin using right away.
And no, you do not need to learn how to code, understand machine learning, or become a technology expert. You don’t need to know any of these things to use the internet, and the same applies here. What you do need is time to experiment and understand what these tools can do, where their risks lie, and how to use them safely and effectively.
That said, no guide can keep pace with a technology that evolves this quickly. New models and tools will be released. Some of the examples in these pages will eventually become outdated (we will do our best to keep this guide updated). But the underlying lessons will remain the same. AI is becoming a source of leverage in the struggle for freedom in fully and hybrid authoritarian countries in every corner of the world, including, for example, Venezuela, Russia, India or Thailand. Understanding how to use it well will increasingly be a prerequisite for effective advocacy in the years to come.
Please note that this resource is not meant to convince you that AI is the answer to every problem. It is not. Human rights work will always depend on courage, judgment, trust, and human relationships. No algorithm can replace those things. But AI can help the people who possess them work faster, reach further, and achieve more.
There is also a lesson worth remembering. When social media emerged, activists and developers alike were slow to grasp how dictators would exploit it, and that delay came at a real cost to the safety and privacy of activists and pro-democracy movements. We cannot afford to repeat that mistake.
As AI reshapes the world, those defending freedom need to be early, not late, in understanding its strengths, its risks, and how to use it well. Activists, especially ones working in a high-risk environment, should treat AI as a core tool, not an adjacent one, and devote real time to understanding it.
Civil liberties advocates should help shape the AI future, not simply follow into a future designed by others who don’t share the same concerns.
We hope this guide gives you the knowledge, confidence, and practical tools to do exactly that
