[Hipchan]

There was actually a question there. I wrote it. I asked whether or not humans.txt is speciesist, and narrow minded. It's a reflection on our current understanding of who our peers are. I felt that future generations would look back on humans.txt with contempt. What might AI, aliens, or other hereto undiscovered sentient organisms think? There are groups working on genetically modifying dolphins to make them more intelligent. I wouldn't want them to feel like they are second class citizens. I proposed people.txt.

Stackoverflow was probably not the right place for the question so it got closed with extreme prejudice.

Probably should've tried LessWrong

[premchai21]

{ I can assure you that for some of us the response is both (a) more akin to amusement than to contempt and (b) hard to translate accurately. Adjusting for the frequent use of the word “human” to metonymically mean “sapience” is trivial. Adjusting for casual conflation near those concepts is easy in most discursive domains. Adjusting for some mysterious «nonlinear» behavior near «poles» is a chore but doable. Adjusting for things like transitively requisite, highly specific background emotions—well, extroversionism and kith are just the tip of the iceberg. “humans.txt” is peanuts. }

[Semiapies]

Once we get to the point of AIs approaching sapience and/or aliens surfing our internet, we can change it to people.txt.

Toaster jokes aside, I doubt AIs will identify more with primitive search engines than other sapients.

[Hipchan]

I'm sure that's true, but I don't see why it would be unreasonable to use more inclusive language from the beginning.

[Semiapies]

Reasonable and pursuable - on a site you run, you could make humans.txt redirect to people.txt.