When software can act on its own, who decides what it does?
How to read this siteBuilt and running
Our reading of the evidence
An open question
RNDBI is an independent research lab and think tank for artificial intelligence in business. We study how organizations can hand real work to AI while people keep the decisions that matter, and we build the software that holds that line.
Six programsEach one starts from a question we cannot yet answer well. The research page lists the questions.
What we study
Governed agency
AI that proposes and people who approve. Where does the line between a suggestion and an action belong, and can software hold that line instead of a policy document nobody reads?
Evidence and honesty
A confident answer is not a true one. We tie each claim a system makes to the evidence behind it, and we count the cases it could not check instead of quietly leaving them out.
Local-first intelligence
Capable models now run on hardware a business owns. What can stay on your own machines, what does that buy, and what does it cost?
Memory and continuity
An assistant that forgets everything overnight cannot carry work. How should AI remember: what it keeps, what it lets go, and who is allowed to see it?
AI and the work of firms
Billing, the month-end close, intake, staffing. The back office is where AI earns trust or loses it, because the numbers either agree or they do not.
The economics of machine labor
Every task an AI performs costs compute, time and someone's attention. We measure the cost of work that was verified, not the price of the tokens, and we publish the denominators.
Running todayThis scale governs every action in our own systems. It is enforced in code at the moment each action is attempted.
A scale of authority
Not every action deserves the same scrutiny. We sort what an AI might do by what it reaches, then name who has to say yes. Choose a level to see what it covers.
The system acts on its ownA person decides
Level 3: Consequential
Anything that changes a world other people depend on.
- For example
- Sending a message to someone outside, changing a live system, publishing to the web.
- Who decides
- A person, every time. A yes given once does not carry over to the next action.
Why reach, not labelsAn action is judged by what it touches in the world, not by the name a tool gives it. A harmless-sounding command that deletes is treated as a deletion.
We did not invent the idea that some decisions belong to people. We are trying to build software that keeps the promise when nobody is watching.
In useIt runs in our own operations before anyone else is asked to rely on it.
The work
A think tank that only writes is guessing. We build what we study, and we run it on ourselves first.
- IntentOps
- The governance framework underneath everything else: intent is stated, checked, and only then carried out, the same way every time, with a record of who allowed it.Open source for personal and noncommercial use
LicensingIntentOps is free for personal and noncommercial use under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0. RNDBI holds the sole licence for business use and is its only commercial distributor. The IntentOps Foundation maintains the licence terms.
In formationThe IntentOps Foundation is being formed. Until it is, the framework's copyright holder maintains the licence.
How the work reaches the world
Research stays separate from service. The framework belongs to a foundation, the lab builds on it, and a consulting firm puts the lab's tools to work for the organizations it serves.
- IntentOps Foundation maintains the framework and its licence.
- RNDBI researches and builds applications, and holds the sole commercial licence.
- Method ML, a consulting firm, uses the lab's licences and research.
- The firms Method ML serves receive the work and the tools that carry it.
Today the lab serves one organization: Method ML, a consulting firm for business intelligence, analytics and data systems. Every tool listed here reaches its clients through that relationship.
Contact
Questions about the research, or about licensing IntentOps for business use: hello@rndbi.com
Legal and licensing notices: legal@rndbi.com