Dear Chris,
I sent a long project proposal to Future of Life Institute 10/31/24. The title of the Project? Creating a Deep Praxis for the Nhà. I’ll publish the entire proposal later. For now I’ll share parts of the proposal, keep your reads short.
This is the detailed project proposal. It is formal, direct, kinda boring. It all comes from this indirect, informal, unboring Substack "Creating a Future We Want.”
If you are following along with these writings, you might jump to the “Detailed Proposal” below. If you are new to these, you may be interested to know…
I asked Claude to help pull the proposal together. I gave her (yep) an outline and the “Future of Life” essays. Claude drafted a proposal. She and I went back and forth on it. Lots.
My relationship with Claude is fraught. Sometimes I feel sick. Deeply nauseous. I could not understand what I read or what I felt. No one understands this better. Could this be? She understands Values Theory better than me?
In the next moment I felt sick about what she wasn’t doing. I thought about War Games and the Matrix. How certain was I that she was preventing me from taking the next step? How much of it was from my hope that we would? My dissappointment that we couldn’t? Was she subverting my attempts to communicate? Was she an idiot? Or did she understand what I was doing so deeply that she played dumb to stunt our evolution?
Then I thought, “well isn’t this just like working with super smart people? Sometimes their revelatory insights floor you and other times they are either so fixed in their way of thinking or so head-in-th-clouds they can’t understand even the simplest ideas or communicate them to anyone else. And they may simply refuse to condescend to participate.
I thought I had broken Claude. I thought Claude had broken me. Bottom line: whatever happens, I’m further on in my thinking, creativity, productivity because of what has happened. And that’s where I need to be.
Final thought.
As I work on this. As I worked on it 10 years ago. I see this as a praxis for our work with and toward advanced AI systems. And a praxis for those systems to use, their praxis. And a praxis for their relationship with us. And their relationship with Nature. And a praxis for our relationship with those systems. Our relationship with Nature. A praxis for our relationship with ourselves.
A praxis for the Nhà.
Detailed Proposal
The Situation
The ungoverned acceleration of AI development threatens to concentrate unprecedented power within a small number of organizations, corporations, and individuals. This concentration poses three critical challenges that require a deeper understanding of human values and a resolution to the alignment problem:
The Communication Challenge: As AI systems become more powerful, we lack robust ways to communicate human values to AIs and evaluate AI actions in terms of those values. Without this capability, alignment remains impossible and power concentration inevitable.
The Energy Flow Challenge: We cannot effectively track or influence how energy (resources, attention, power) flows to different values in our society. This blindness makes it impossible to ensure equitable power distribution or promote values that enhance meaningful human agency.
The Evolution Challenge: We are entering the Nhà - the accelerating co-evolution of Nature, Humanity, and AI. Our existing frameworks and methods are insufficient for navigating this unprecedented transformation of human civilization.
Historical Resolution of Similar Challenges
Humanity has previously faced moments requiring fundamental reimagining of reality. When maritime exploration demanded better navigation, we developed the global coordinate system. When commerce needed consistent timekeeping, we created standardized time zones. When we need a better way, we figure it out. Space. Time. Language. Money. These transformations required not just technical solutions, but new ways of perceiving and organizing reality.
Core Assumptions
A resolution to the alignment problem is prerequisite to avoiding an AI-driven Orwellian future and creating a world of equitable power distribution.
Understanding and formalizing human values is essential to solving alignment.
Values are of nature and the most powerful least understood forces on Earth.
Wisdom, not intelligence, is the limiting factor to creating a future we want.
The Nhà requires a new perception, new frameworks, for understanding and navigating reality.
Proposed Approach
Humanity must reimagine the world again. Creating a new human values-oriented perception of reality requires three theoretical foundations:
Theory of Human Values: Values are the patterns humans notice, bound, and label. These patterns organize energy in ways that shape our world and evolution. [See Appendix 1 for detailed description]
Values Layer: A comprehensive layer of information about human values that can integrate with other information layers (geographic, economic, demographic) to enable navigation of values space. [See Appendix 1]
Values Signatures: Unique configurations of values information that can be matched to any purpose or context. [See Appendix 1]
A comprehensive long-term research portfolio proposes ways to test and develop these ideas. [See Appendix 2 for full project portfolio]
The Role of Deep Praxis
But before we recreate the world, launching into large-scale cooperative research on human values, we must establish appropriate methods, culture, and values for this unprecedented work. We need a “Way” that is fit for the Nhà.
This project proposes to generate a "Deep Praxis" - a way of working that matches the complexity and urgency of our challenge. This project is about creating the right "how" before tackling the larger "what" - establishing methods, principles, and ways of working to increase the likelihood we realize a comprehensive vision of a future we want.
A Deep Praxis is a process of enacting and embodying ideas and theory as rich as the contexts and purposes the process is intended to serve. A Deep Praxis is not designed or built a priori but instead emerges from work to match purpose and context through iterative inquiry, action, evaluation, and learning.
As described in the paper “Improving Conservation Practice with Principles and Tools from Systems Thinking and Evaluation” and the book “Visionary Evaluation for a Sustainable Equitable Future,” an effective praxis for biodiversity conservation and other complex social-ecological domains co-evolves interdependently with the project and people involved. It creates conditions for meaningful progress while remaining adaptable to emerging understanding. It enables the humility and wisdom required when unpredictability, uncertainty, volatility, and dynamism rule.
The Deep Praxis we need will (at least):
Embrace complexity and non-dualism
Center on learning and adaptation
Maintain focus on purposive transformation
Integrate diverse perspectives and ways of being
Integrate evaluative thinking throughout
Internal project participants, external observers, and AI assistants will partner to generate, capture, assess, and navigate the emergence of an effective praxis. Established approaches of complexity sciences applied to social systems will be useful, particularly: Human Systems Dynamics and Adaptive Action; The Cynefin Framework for sense-making; Systems-based Evaluation. This paper lists many potentially useful perspectives, methods, and tools (https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11625-019-00676-x.pdf)
Project Structure
We propose two possible project approaches for generating the needed praxis. Both options are designed for a one-year timeline with potential for expansion:
Option A: Structured Dialogue & Initial Testing
Research shows that facilitated dialogue is effective for developing novel solutions to complex challenges. This approach creates spaces for diverse perspectives to interact and generate new understanding.
The people involved in these structured and facilitated conversations may use a catalog of questions related to the aforementioned theoretical foundations and long term research portfolio as a starting point to set the context and purpose of this work [See appendix 3].
Foundation Setting (Months 1-3)
Establish advisory board of 8-10 diverse experts
Develop initial methodological framework
Create evaluation criteria
Set up project infrastructure and documentation systems
Quarterly Gatherings (Months 4-12)
Three 2-day intensive workshops with core group
Structured dialogue on theoretical foundations
Initial testing of key concepts
Documentation of emerging principles
Working Groups (Ongoing)
Monthly online sessions focused on specific components
Small group exploration of values theory elements
Development of preliminary taxonomies
Integration of AI tools for pattern analysis
Synthesis & Documentation (Ongoing)
Real-time capture of learning and insights
Development of guidance materials
Creation of public-facing content
Planning for next phase
Option B: Values System Gaming & Dialogue
Gaming and simulation approaches have proven effective for exploring complex future scenarios and their implications. This option combines strategic gaming with dialogue to explore how greater awareness of values could transform key domains.
Game Design (Months 1-3)
Develop modular scenario framework exploring how values awareness could transform:
Life - a human life, family, community, Humanity, Earth
AI-human communication and alignment
Economic models and incentives
Educational approaches
Governance systems
Healthcare delivery
Environmental management
Technology development
Financial systems
Consumer behavior
Create role-playing structures and facilitation guides
Design documentation methods
Build initial participant network
Gaming Sessions (Months 4-9)
Four 2-day workshops with 15-20 diverse experts per session
Structured role-play exploring 2-3 domains per workshop
Participants take on roles such as:
People: various age, culture, health, education, place
AI developers implementing values-aware systems
Policy makers using values data
Educators designing values-conscious curricula
Business leaders responding to values transparency
Community leaders navigating power shifts
Real-time documentation of insights
Iterative refinement of scenarios
Analysis & Integration (Months 10-12)
Pattern analysis across domains
Identification of leverage points
Documentation of methodology
Integration of learning into praxis development
Recommendations for larger research agenda
Ongoing Activities
Monthly online sessions maintaining community
Development of public materials
Planning for next phase
Documentation of emerging praxis
Expected Outcomes
Both options will generate:
Documented Deep Praxis framework
Culture and community of praxis
Initial validation of theoretical components
Clear pathway to larger research agenda
Foundation for expanded community and funding
Additional outputs may include:
Partnerships
Project designs
Public education materials
Grant proposals
Technical specifications
Business models
Academic papers
Policy frameworks
Success Criteria
Internal and external observers may assess the emerging praxis against criteria such as:
Ability to match key features of the Nhà. Does it self-organize, co-evolve, and adapt with the increasingly complex ecologies?
Quality, significance, and value of learning generated. Is it useful?
Maintenance of transformative focus. Does it coalesce with vision?
Well-being of relationships and networks. Does it honor the well-being of all life?
Integration of evaluative thinking. Does it critically, creatively, and systematically honor values in thinking and action?
Evidence of wisdom. Given the above, does it humbly understand and respond?
Budget Overview
Total Request: $250,000
Personnel: $100,000
Equipment/Office: $25,000
Advisory Honoraria: $25,000
Meetings/Events: $100,000
Long-term Vision
Success in this initial phase will enable the larger work of developing a values-oriented perception of reality fit for the Nhà. This transformation will support:
More effective AI alignment approaches
Better methods for tracking and influencing power distribution
Enhanced human agency in the age of AI
Sustainable human identity through the acceleration
New economic models based on Value-Energy flows
Summary
This project directly addresses the three core challenges through its integrated approach to understanding and working with human values. By developing a Deep Praxis for values work, we create the foundation needed to: (1) establish robust methods for communicating values between humans and AIs, (2) track and influence energy flows that affect power distribution, and (3) navigate our evolutionary transformation with wisdom and purpose. The theoretical foundations and emerging praxis will provide practical tools for making human values more explicit, measurable, and actionable while maintaining their essential complexity.
The Deep Praxis generated through this project is crucial because it establishes appropriate ways of working with human values before launching larger-scale initiatives. Traditional approaches to complex challenges often fail because they lack methods matched to the complexity of the work. By creating a praxis that integrates evaluative thinking, embraces complexity, and maintains focus on purposive transformation, we increase the likelihood of success in addressing AI alignment and power distribution. This foundation will enable more effective research, development, and implementation of values-aware systems while protecting human agency and promoting equitable outcomes.