Welcome to Systems of Value

This publication is about the systems we build, the values we hold, the interaction between them, and tools and frameworks that can keep them in alignment.

I write from experience inside government, military, and corporate institutions, and from a conviction that we need to do better. The content draws from academia, narrative, history, culture, myth, and lived experience to explore how we encode our values in the systems that we rely on every day.

Systems of Value blends:

• Essays on systems, institutions, alignment, and worldviews.

• Reflections on culture, ethics, AI, humans, and the lived experience of systems.

• Demonstrations of AI-driven experiments on how systems and values interact.

The name hints at a simple claim: systems are only valuable if they’re built on, and held accountable to, our values. This includes institutions like companies, charities, courts, and government departments; framing structures like constitutions and laws; and even the small interfaces of daily life, from web portals to forms.

Most of us feel, in different ways, that these systems aren’t working as they should. My aim here is not to offer a single fix, but to diagnose where they drift, and to open a conversation about how we can bring values alignment not just to artificial intelligence, but to all the powerful systems that shape our lives.

I invite you to read on, reach out, and contribute your own ideas.

For the future,

Brendon