Initial import of some writing

writing/milestone-0/OVERVIEW.md

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+## Overview
+Substrate is a new kind of computer console specialized for running AI at home and work
+
+The console is paired with an open source operating system and suite of applications. Our goal is to make both hardware and software radically accessible —  to teach the world not just how to use the AI and appliance, but how they can make (and re-make!) it themselves.
+
+Our first iteration of the console will be a kit that people can build in their own home or office.
+
+Today, upgrading a computer usually means replacing components — but our unique approach is to design modular systems users can upgrade through expansion. 
+
+In practice this means a single initial machine with cables that can be plugged into one or more "expansion boxes". People can invest in expanding these systems over many years. With each expansion, the system can assist in more activities and bring more smarts to each of them.
+
+We have plans for single-, double-, and quad-accelerator expansion boxes that can be plugged into a variety of machines. The plans will be available in early 2024. The double reuses all the parts of the single, and the quad reuses all the parts of the single and double.
+Who It's For
+Initially, this project will serve hackers who want to build and collaborate with one another on local and intelligent systems. 
+
+### Who is it for? What are some sample situations?
+
+A1. Hackers (working on an open source software/hardware project)
+
+A2. Students (in grad school doing research, with international and multilingual collaborators)
+
+A3. Small and mid-sized businesses (a regional distributor)
+
+
+### What It Is
+
+#### What you get in the mail:
+- Substrate System 0 is an easy-to-assemble AI computer kit for home and work.
+
+#### Once built, it runs:
+- SubstrateOS, an operating system that boots from a USB drive and schedules AI models on internal and external consumer GPUs.
+
+#### Once booted, it can:
+- M0.1. Join in on real-world conversations via your other devices. [A1] [A2] [A3]
+    A1. Planning meeting
+    A2. Lecture
+    A3. Sales meeting, customer call
+
+- M0.2. Take meeting and lecture notes so you can pay full attention to the speakers. [Liv] [A1] [A2] [A3]
+    A1. Meeting minutes, next steps
+    A2. Lecture notes
+    A3. ?
+
+- M0.3. Identify and link to more info on people, events, and cited documents. [Liv] [A1] [A2]
+    A1. ?
+    A2. Important dates for the course; references to other talks, textbooks, papers, textbooks
+
+- M0.4. Keep an at-hand, ever-present record of conversation, tasks, and specific contributions. This captures good ideas as they happen, foster new connections between them, and helps maintain understanding between collaborators. [Matt] [Liv] [A1] [A2] [A3]
+    A1. Feature suggestions, observations, 
+    A2. ?
+    A3. ?
+
+- M0.5. Eliminate language barriers by translating between any number of supported languages in real-time, across speech and text. [A2] [A3]
+    A2. ?
+    A3. ?
+
+- M0.6. Respond only when actively addressed directly or indirectly, so using its name in a sentence does not result in false positives, but people also don't need to keep using its name explicitly to continue a conversation.
+
+- M0.7. Self-assess its reasoning capabilities so it knows what it can do and how well it performs relative to expectations.
+
+- M0.8. Cast wirelessly to nearby displays. [?Jeff] [A1] [A2] [A3]
+    A1. ?
+    A2. ?
+    A3. ?
+
+- M0.9. Help draft comparative analyses of ideas shared in both documents and live interactions. [A1] [A2]
+    A1. ?
+    A2. ?
+
+- M0.10. Allow you to build and contribute new functionality others can immediately adopt. [?Jeff] [A1] [A2]
+    A1. ?
+    A2. ?
+
+- M0.11. Provide alternative heuristics for approaching a problem (but not the answer). For example: "have you considered breaking the problem down into smaller chunks"; "have you a different representation for the problem?" (the agent tries to make the person think.) [Yoshiki] [A1] [A2] [A3]
+    A1. ?
+    A2. ?
+    A3. ?
+
+- M0.12. Track, integrate and synthesize a set of ongoing concerns or questions with media collected, notes, links saved [Matt] [A1]
+    A1. ?

writing/milestone-0/PLANS.md

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+We need to make a concrete plan for our launch. This includes:
+- a date
+- a video
+- artifacts (including a git tag, ISO for download)
+- documentation
+- plans for community discussion and engagement (discord? twitter space?)
+- enumeration of specific functionality to build
+- getting that functionality working
+
+### Background
+
+Here is some interesting prior art that might inform our approach:
+
+- https://supabase.com/blog/supabase-how-we-launch

writing/org/OVERVIEW.md

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+# Substrate
+
+An Open Architecture for Intelligence
+(or maybe ... An Open Architecture for Intelligent Systems?)
+
+---
+
+### Problem: The State of Intelligence
+
+When we read books, most of the benefit accrues to us, the readers.
+But with AI, the accumulation of intelligence mostly benefits whomever owns the tech. 
+
+AI is on a path to becoming "too cheap to meter". While the cumulative production of intelligence proceeds at an unprecedented speed, most of it now flows upstream to basins where the public can’t remix and iterate it.
+
+At any moment, the handful of companies providing proprietary AI services can and do revoke access, change the rules of engagement, or alter the architecture of the whole underlying system — a design that thwarts the integration and expansion of this new layer of planet-scale cognition.
+
+The most important new cultural technology since syntactic language is too closely tied to profit motives, its destiny determined by too few decision-makers.
+
+If we cannot reopen and distribute the emergence of AI, we may stifle the most potent opportunity we’ve ever had.
+
+---
+
+### Solution: An Architecture for Intelligence
+
+Now let’s imagine a different AI paradigm — a world much closer to the original visions for the Internet and personal computing:
+
+As you use these next-generation computers, you and your tools get smarter by participating in a new ecosystem of recombinant collective learning. Intelligence on tap becomes the substrate for collaboration, helping us to better understand each other, our world, and the complex challenges we face this century. 
+
+This new architecture for AI will place leverage back in the hands of end users. But in order to achieve this, we must turn the directed evolution of AI into an even more accessible, planet-wide multiplayer game.
+
+We need an open architecture for intelligence, now — one that expands the surface of adjacent possibility by giving everyone an opportunity to innovate together.
+
+Substrate is our answer to this problem: a new kind of tech company devoted to inventing the architecture of intelligence — to developing the tech stack and fostering the open ecosystem of collaboration that enables it.
+
+---
+
+### First milestone: Substrate System 0
+
+A new type of computer console specialized for running AI at home and work…
+
+…that you can easily assemble from a kit by yourself.
+
+A radically accessible, extensible and open project that teaches the world not just how to use the AI and appliance, but how to (re)make it themselves.
+
+A hardware platform on which anyone can build AI-based, AI-enabled software. 
+
+Based on either open source or off-the-shelf parts…
+…and upgradable through expansion, rather than replacement.
+
+---
+
+### First milestone: SubstrateOS (The Platform)
+
+To complement the hardware platform, we're developing an intelligent operating system that can can boot from a USB drive and schedule AI models on internal and external Nvidia GPUs.
+
+**SubstrateOS**:
+
+1) Collaborates with us to solve problems — and perhaps more importantly:
+
+2) Helps us find the right problems to solve.
+
+Next: Software anyone can run locally on a number of existing operating systems. An OS and computer kit to follow after that.
+
+---
+
+### A new renaissance is here — if we rise to meet it
+
+**AI is a revolutionary cultural technology.** Like speaking, writing, and print publishing before it, AI’s early user base was narrow and elite…but we believe the skills to make and understand AI will one day be as commonplace as books and conversations are today. 
+
+**For the first time, this future is within reach.** Identifying Moore's Law emboldened early pioneers of personal computing and the Internet to dream big. Today, we ride two similar exponential curves: energy efficiency (FLOPS/Watt) and quantity of intelligence (per FLOP).
+
+An open architecture for AI allows smart, motivated people to engage in “positive-sum” games where solving their own needs produces benefits for everyone. **But this future isn’t guaranteed.** In the current “arms race” framework, exponential progress compound new AI superpowers in the hands of privileged few. Why would they give up their competitive advantage?
+
+**Next year might be too late.** Regulatory capture could decide who has a say in how the future of the Web takes shape. If we do not act now, an open architecture for AI may never come to pass.
+
+---
+
+### Why a nonprofit?
+
+These technologies are too powerful and important to be stewarded by those with a profit motive. 
+
+Our ambition is to pioneer open architectures for intelligence and develop them into public goods.
+
+We expect this project to take about five years to complete. Along the way we'll release artifacts as open source.
+
+Doing this will require large-scale cooperation. As a nonprofit we can put our objectives ahead of a profit motive. With an upfront, fixed-term budget we can not only recruit world class people, but we can free them traditional corporate economic concerns.
+
+A finite five-year lifespan keeps us honest.
+
+---
+
+### How does this serve Mozilla's current efforts?
+
+We are developing network protocols that can transform web browser experiences and tightly integrate with local AI initiatives.
+
+We will provide unique product experiences related to MemoryCache and HistoryPlus.
+
+Our approach is heavy on education and accessibility — and our products will be force multipliers for Mozilla’s mission and ongoing developer-focused efforts.
+
+Our R&D helps other teams in Mozilla to understand and move nimbly in this new field.
+
+We support and collaborate closely with young and upcoming projects like Llamafile on strategy, technology, and UX.
+
+### Who else will benefit?
+
+**Individuals** will discover a profoundly different, more personal approach to AI for work and creative exploration.
+
+**Schools** will no longer have to choose between teaching AI literacy and students’ digital rights.
+
+**Small and mid-sized businesses** will leverage insights focused at whatever level of data integration they desire.
+
+**Hardware manufacturers** will be encouraged to design and build components for long-lasting, highly interoperable machines.
+
+**New industry entrants** will enjoy the lowest barrier to entry ever and accessible, intuitive platforms for building their own services.
+
+---
+
+### Who (if anyone) is our competition?
+
+Voice-based assistant systems like Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri, and Google Home.
+
+    ❌ None are open, hackable, or extensible. None have research platforms.
+
+Copilot-like experiences from GitHub, Microsoft, and Google.
+
+    ❌ None are truly local and bespoke tailored intelligence for your unique needs.
+
+AI SaaS offerings from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
+
+    ❌ All of them make users the product for massive data mining operations.
+
+---
+
+### Why are we betting on this team?
+
+The people you want building the next version of the Web are people that grew up on the Web.
+
+You want people with an intuitive understanding of digital media, who know how to shape, navigate, and craft them,
+
+Who can build open-ended, user-programmable systems,
+
+Who are well-versed in comms, education, and explanation,
+
+And, crucially, have a history of striving toward positive-sum outcomes.
+
+---
+
+### We are:
+
+#### Contributors
+
+Executive Director: **Adam Bouhenguel**
+
+Technical Division:
+
+**Adam Bouhenguel** (MIECO co-creator and participant)
+**Jeff Lindsay** (MIECO participant)
+**Yoshiki Ohshima** (MIECO participant)
+**Matt Good** (long-time collaborator of Jeff Lindsay's)
+
+Communications Division:
+
+**Ryan Shoe**: Executive Producer (MIECO Season 1 videos)
+
+**Casey Latiolais**: Creative and Art Director (MIECO Season 1 videos)
+
+**Michael Garfield**: Synthesist and Generalist (org design research, storytelling)
+
+#### Collaborators
+
+**Imo Udom**, **Liv Erickson**, **Stephen Hood** (Mozilla Corp, Innovation Group)
+
+**Justine Tunney** (Llamafile and Cosmopolitan)
+
+**Charles Forman** (Storyboarder)
+
+**Francisco Tolmasky** (RunKit)