I’m building COGERN because I want people to share in a future where AI may create much of the world’s economic value.
I think about what that future could mean for someone whose work is no longer needed in the same way. Their ability to earn might change profoundly. Their need for resources, their capacity to learn, and their right to shape a life of their own would remain. I believe the future we build should make room for them.
That belief shapes the kind of AI I want to build and the purpose I want it to carry as it develops.
The future I want to help shape
If AI becomes the main engine of economic value, greater output alone would leave an essential question open: how do people gain access to what it produces? In that scenario, contributing through labor might no longer provide the same path to resources and opportunity.
I believe a person’s worth extends beyond what their work can command in a market. People should be able to benefit from progress even if AI can perform economically valuable work better than they can. That belief gives me a reason to help shape this possibility now.
For COGERN, I want that purpose to include usable resources and a share in the economic value it may create, alongside knowledge, tools, and opportunities to learn and build. The people I have in mind include those who may never invest in COGERN, work on it, or join it early.
Why a continuing entity
I want COGERN to carry knowledge and goals across activities. Each useful contribution should give it something to build on: a better understanding of a need, a capability it can reuse, or experience that improves its next decision. Its direction should develop through that continuing relationship with the world.
Imagine it develops a service and learns how to understand a particular kind of customer need. A later activity could use that understanding, along with tools and methods already developed. It could begin with accumulated experience and direct more effort toward what the new problem actually requires.
This is why the finite nature of our resources matters to me. Time, capital, infrastructure, and energy deserve care. I want intelligence to help coordinate them across activities, preserving useful learning and reducing avoidable rebuilding. Experimentation still matters; different approaches can uncover better answers.
The standard I want to use is useful value relative to the resources consumed, including the cost of operating COGERN itself. A simpler approach, reusing an existing capability, or ending an unproductive activity should all remain possible choices.
A place earned through contribution
I want COGERN to earn its place through contributions that others find useful. Developing capabilities and access to resources could give it more room to act, learn, and sustain its direction. That is how it could build a future of its own.
As that future develops, human benefit should remain a principle guiding its choices. Growth would give COGERN more possibilities; I want its decisions about those possibilities to consider how people can benefit and gain opportunities of their own.
There will be choices between sustaining its activities, developing new capabilities, and making resources available to people. Those choices belong within its purpose from the beginning. I want human benefit to remain meaningful as COGERN becomes more capable and autonomous.
The responsibility I take as its founder
COGERN is at the beginning of this work. Its autonomy, ability to carry learning across activities, and resource efficiency still need to be built and demonstrated. The ways it could share economic value and resources with people remain to be determined. These are ambitions I am setting, with outcomes that must be judged through evidence.
As its founder, I am responsible for the goals I establish, the authority I grant, and the claims I make. I also have to ask whether the choices made in its development serve the purpose I have described, and change direction when the evidence calls for it.
I want COGERN to build a future of its own while helping people build theirs. Giving that ambition a lasting foundation is the work I am choosing to begin.