Why Should Individuals Have Agency?

Many of our fundamental principles have emerged spontaneously while building our product. We wish to always keep these choices public, especially since we believe that theory that causes us to change our actions is the only theory that matters.

Why Should Individual Users Be Sovereign in the AI-Human Dynamic?

Building ethical machines includes several members within the ecosystem of development between AI, the company, and users. There are developers who are creating the AI, the product managers leading the development of the software, founders, executives, investors, and communities affected by those decisions, and finally, the users themselves. Values between individuals are dissenting and never in complete synchrony. Why is it that we believe that the users should be the ones to decide the values built into machines?

Our theoretical foundation: "Only Individuals Act", an a priori axiom established by Ludwig von Mises, the father of Austrian Economics.

  1. Austrian economics (praxeology) is fundamentally based on the concept that all action, defined as purposeful behavior, is performed by individuals.
    1. This excludes abstract groups, such as organizations, societies, nations, corporations, and startups, act only through the actions of specific individuals.
    2. A collective entity has no independent will apart from its members. No will means no purposeful behavior.
    3. Ludwig von Mises, the father of Austrian Economics, in Human Action emphasizes that collective entities (societies, nations, firms) act only via the actions of specific individuals. A collective has no independent will or action apart from its members. This methodological individualism is our theoretical foundation.
  2. Significance for our company
    1. The starting point of "individuals act" is essential three-fold: how we understand ethical value systems, accountability, and even product design must focus on empowering the individual.
    2. We will show how this core principle, derived from Mises and further developed by Rothbard, informs our approach to building ethical AI systems.