AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI… They say that repeating a word enough times causes it to temporarily lose meaning. 🧐
I have just found out from AI, AI, AI (sorry, couldn’t help it!) that this is called ‘semantic satiation’ and it is basically your brain getting tired and stopping to connect a meaning with a sound (or in AI’s words: a result of neural fatigue in the brain's meaning-association pathways).
If we were to do our own Spotify-style 2025 Wrapped for Business and Human Rights, I’m pretty sure that it would go something like this. 🎶
Your top three songs:
1. AI and human rights: Agh! What do we do with this!
2. The business case for rights, or not the business case. That is the question
3. The laws have arrived! …Well, sort of… Oh, no, not quite yet
The impacts of AI on business and human rights are huge, and we are only now seeing the tip of the iceberg. We’ll need to uncover more of that iceberg, and fast, to ensure the iceberg doesn’t morph into a massive underground iced block.
This is about how AI shapes the jobs available to workers, and the quality of those jobs.
This is about how AI, and the people building it, can find themselves caught in the crossfire of freedom of expression debates.
This is about how AI can quietly entrench precisely the ways of thinking we’re trying to move away from: bias, outdated worldviews, and assumptions that need to stay in the past.
This is about how AI can replace meaningful stakeholder engagement when it comes to human rights due diligence.
Which is why I was so pleased to see that the IHRB’s Top Ten list for 2026 includes not one but two themes related to AI and human rights. Spot on. 🙌
And while we’re at it, remember that my number one priority theme going into Geneva was about you - about your wellbeing and mental health as a business and human rights practitioner.
If you are feeling tired, it’s normal.
If you are feeling overwhelmed, it’s normal.
If you are feeling disheartened, again, normal.
We are only trying to change an entire system fast enough that we can have a meaningful future as a civilisation.
Have empathy for yourself and what you’re trying to do. And take time this Christmas to ground yourself. And remember: you are not alone. People and planet are rooting for you to succeed, and we are all in this together ⭐️
Anna
PS: So lovely to get your feedback on my first LinkedIn newsletter! Thank you!!! 🙏 I woke up on Wednesday with this in my head: It will be interesting… it will be fun… and it will be actionable. So that became the tag line for it.
1,300 subscribers now in 24 hours - are you subscribed? You won’t want to miss next week’s edition I know it - watch this space, no I mean that space over on LinkedIn
(Also: we’ve just closed our RSVP list for the Human Rights in Business Lab as we’ve had a lot of interest and want to make sure it’s a meaningful conversation. Don’t worry, we’ll be back with it next year)
PPS: Read next week’s newsletter to find out what my actual Top Song on Spotify was, and why!
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