Dear PCI and Meta-Layer Community,
We wanted to share an exciting update on the Meta-Layer Initiative.
On September 16, we kicked off the project with a gathering that featured Vint Cerf, who offered insightful guidance on how to shape the work ahead. Among his recommendations: draft a foundational essay on the desirable properties of a meta-layer for decentralized systems.
Since then, we’ve made significant progress. We launched the first Call for Input, hosted over a dozen stakeholder conversations, and received thoughtful commentary from contributors across the ecosystem. Building on that, we:
Expanded our list of Desirable Properties from 10 to 20, organized into 6 key categories
Conducted research on AI agents and AI-assisted coding tools
Secured fiscal sponsorship and submitted our first grant application
Developed a growing web presence at themetalayer.org
We’re now entering Phase Two of the Call for Input, which runs through June 30, 2025. This next phase is all about going wider: we’re aiming for 100 new contributions from a broader range of voices, including researchers, builders, policymakers, and designers.
All contributors will be acknowledged in the final essay and will also receive a digital badge recognizing their participation.
We’d especially love to invite deeper involvement from the PCI community. Your perspectives are invaluable to shaping this shared coordination infrastructure.
Let us know if you have questions, want to host a conversation, or would like help submitting your thoughts. Every idea helps strengthen the foundation we're building together.
With appreciation,
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Hi Paul,
Thank you for the encouragement—and for your wise, deeply systems-informed reflections. Your vision and urgency are exactly the kind of clarity we need as we navigate this next layer of complexity. In particular, the framing of this work as part of a "cybersocial contract" rooted in design—is deeply aligned with the heart of the Meta-Layer Initiative.
I’m currently diving into your "Saving the World" post and related work to trace how your ideas align with the Desirable Properties of a meta-layer. I’ll circle back with a synthesis soon.
That said, I resonate especially with your call for networks of truth. That actually touches the origin of my journey into the Metaweb: I began by working on the concept of bridges—digital, verifiable connections between pieces of content or ideas. A bridge might, for example, link a claim in an article to a contradictory statement in a video. When bridges self-assemble, they form a kind of universal content graph. And if each bridge’s relationship is correct, the graph’s overall integrity holds. That became the foundation of my defensive patent—so no one could stop me from building bridges.
Out of that, I began to see the potential for a Universal Context Map—a structure for collective sensemaking by and for humans and agents. At the moment, my leading approach would encode bridges as digital artifacts: permanent, immutable, tradeable, and accessible to all. Their measurable impact could then earn them rewards within a reputation or incentive system. And while I understand the critiques of Bitcoin, its Ordinal protocol IMHO has emerged as a leading venue for these kinds of artifacts.
I recently explored these ideas in a short piece on Mapping the Noosphere, where I extend Stuart Brand’s Pace Layers to the digital realm—proposing digital artifacts as the new Terra Firma we need to ground ourselves as we move into the AGI era.
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And speaking of AGI—your point about the utility function U being the “deciding outcome” is a crucial design insight. It gives shape to the next layer of questions we must face—especially when combined with the emphasis on multi-sensorial situational awareness, from cyber-physical infrastructure to planetary sensing.
In fact, I'd propose we introduce a new Desirable Property (DP21): Multi-Modal—calling for a system capable of overlaying conceptual, spatial, and virtual information across the physical world, digital spaces, and emerging AGI systems. (This was explored in Chapter 14 of the Metaweb book but has yet to be incorporated into the Desirable Properties.) This could become a design frontier for both shared context and synthetic perception.
If you’re open to it, I’d propose we:
Shape these reflections into a Meta-Layer contribution together (we could publish it as a conversation, essay, or annotated submission)
Map these core ideas to the Desirable Properties (several already align: DP11, DP12, DP14, DP15)
Let me know what direction feels natural—I’m appreciative of your voice and support.
The goal here is HUGELY important. Immediately I feel a huge duty (or "dharma" or whatever) to try to help.But it is late in the day right now, after wine, because of the incredible complexities which these issues connect to.I may have already said... I have almost equal devotion to Jesus Christ and George Washington, as great deepliving "archetypes" active in our noosphere. But SOCIAL CONTRACTS (like Washington/Jefferson vision of constitution) becomeMUCH more difficult when the network of production functions (aka food chain, means of production and destruction) go through radical changes. ). Any truly competent analysis should citeFOR US --we should never underestimate the risk that we humans, like many previous "top dog" species, are in danger of extinction now due to the very radical changes already underway. The only real hope, in my view, is DESIGN (what YOU are working on!),of a new "cybersocial contract", fulfilling fundamental principles enough to allow us all (humans AND other species SND AGI) to surviveand harmonize enough not to just kill each other.IN 2019, when the Millennium Project (MP) to me to give a talk on Korean network TV on the new risks, I developed agood, well-informed STARTING POINT of what is most necessary: https://werbos.com/How_to%20Build_Past_Emerging_Internet_Chaos.htmBut this is a VERY tricky area, and a few of us know a lot more now than we did then.So much is needed, and so much needs to be understood, prioritized and integrated!!!THIS week... USGOV and MP have gotten more attention from me, for what THEY could do to save us all...but your clear focus is another great asset for humanity, and I hope we can all make the most of it.One example: the need for true "networks of truth" has grown ever more visible. Government censorshipand top-down rulings on what is acceptable speech when and how .. is a serious threat in almost all of the earth.Conflict of interest effects can destabilize mathematical neural networks (as a few of us know VERY well) .We know ways to overcome such risks in mathematical neural networks, which could be used in platformsand cybersecurity systems... but will designs be developed which overcome such pitfalls?There are also "minefield" challenges both in classical and quantum decision and control system, important to everything from currency management to electric power to conversation... which strongly require new types of platform and hardware deisgn,On Thu, Apr 17, 2025 at 7:00 AM Daveed <dav...@bridgit.io> wrote:
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If you’re open to it, I’d propose we:
Shape these reflections into a Meta-Layer contribution together (we could publish it as a conversation, essay, or annotated submission)
Map these core ideas to the Desirable Properties (several already align: DP11, DP12, DP14, DP15)
Directly Addressed Desirable Properties
Clarifications & Extensions
Directly Addressed Desirable Properties
Clarifications & Extensions