What we mean
- Levi
- A proposed participant in the wider system, associated with a person, group, commitment or field of concern. Its abilities and authority would depend on its actual tools and agreements.
- Leviathan
- A larger structure of participants, relationships and methods for learning and acting together. Multiple independent Leviathans could develop different approaches.
- A public reason
- An explanation others can examine and contest. Sharing the reason for a decision does not require exposing every private record behind it.
Values we bring to the question
- People should have meaningful opportunities to shape systems that affect their lives.
- Useful knowledge and creative methods should become easier to share and build upon.
- Concern for affected beings and room for disagreement should influence what we choose to build.
Reasoning and the proposed connection
- AI can help produce explanations, code, and hypotheses quickly. Producing them is different from establishing that they are correct or useful. Choices about which questions to pursue, whose interests matter, and what to test remain part of the work.
- A personal assistant could help someone explore an unfamiliar method, connect experience to a wider inquiry, or develop a project. Participation should make use of the person’s interests and judgment without requiring a whole private conversation to become public.
- A method from another field may open a question we could not previously investigate. Sharing its conditions and limits helps someone decide what to try, while keeping their values and responsibilities distinct from the sender’s.
- When a finding changes, work that relied on it should be available for reconsideration. Our own local inquiry exposed a missing decision in a review packet and led to a revised working procedure. That bounded example gives us something concrete to examine; it does not establish a general advantage.
- We should begin by asking what well-used wikis, forums, version control, research practices, and personal assistants already provide. Any additional structure must earn its cost through the connections it helps people understand, discover, maintain, or act on.
- Existing provenance and research-packaging specifications give us concrete starting points. We propose testing whether a new relationship or format improves a handoff, rather than treating a new vocabulary as evidence of need.
Where the reasoning stops
This is a direction for collective work, not evidence that a full learning network already operates. Particular studies motivate parts of the inquiry; they do not establish that Leviathan is necessary or that its ethical choices are universally shared.
The strongest objection
Existing tools and communities may provide the same benefits with less complexity, including links between decisions and corrections. A new vocabulary or shared service could increase maintenance and concentrate influence in its designers. We have not established an unmet capability that only Leviathan can supply.
Read the evidence
Each source has a specific role in the stated claim. Its findings, review date, and access limits are recorded below. Our proposed architecture and experiments require their own tests; an editorial revision does not mean the source was reviewed again.
R-SCI-02 · Gives a reason to investigate
Claude discovers a novel enzyme system with CRISPR-like repeats
Anthropic and experimental research collaborators · Research announcement
Read: Author summary · Primary source reviewed
Published: 2026-09-23 · Reviewed: 2026-09-30
The reported combination of agent research and human laboratory investigation gives a concrete reason to explore collaboration. It does not validate Leviathan’s architecture.
- What it reports
- Agents working from a human-provided research direction helped identify a system involving reverse-transcriptase-related repeats and accessory components, which was taken forward for laboratory investigation.
- Limits
- The system's biological function remains open. A company announcement is not independent replication or clinical validation; human direction and laboratory work remain part of the process.
Review scope and version
Read: Author summary.
Primary research announcement
The work illustrates agent participation in discovery, rather than establishing that the whole scientific process has become autonomous.
Link to this source noteR-GOV-02 · Adds context
Collective Constitutional AI: Aligning a Language Model with Public Input
Anthropic and the Collective Intelligence Project · Research report
Read: Selected sections · Primary source reviewed
Published: 2023-10-17 · Reviewed: 2026-09-30
The public-input study connects participation to model principles in a bounded setting. Wider legitimacy and independent participation remain design questions.
- What it reports
- Input from roughly one thousand US participants is translated into model principles and used to compare two models. Some measured bias outcomes differ.
- Limits
- The sample, editorial choices and single study cannot represent every community. The work does not directly test federated governance or lasting legitimacy.
Review scope and version
Read: Selected sections.
Research announcement: 17 October 2023
The findings concern one public-input process and its effects. Broader claims about legitimate shared governance require further evidence.
Link to this source noteR-LRN-01 · Gives a reason to investigate
Claude-shaped science
Matthew Schwartz; guest research account published by Anthropic · Research account
Read: Selected sections: cross-field methods, expert redirection, workflow and limitations · Selected primary-source sections reviewed; underlying projects not reproduced
Published: 2026-10-01 · Reviewed: 2026-10-03
The first-person account describes methods moving between scientific fields with expert redirection. It informs our ambition to connect creativity, expertise and shared tools.
- What it reports
- Schwartz describes building reusable computational tools with Claude and applying methods across scientific fields. Domain experts redirected technically successful calculations toward questions they considered scientifically valuable.
- Limits
- This is a participant's account, not an independent replication of every reported result. The workflow required substantial human direction and resources. Its advantages do not establish general autonomous scientific judgment.
Review scope and version
Read: Selected sections: cross-field methods, expert redirection, workflow and limitations.
First-person account published 1 October 2026; describes work over the preceding summer and approximately three months
Motivates testing whether a method learned in one setting becomes useful elsewhere, and separating computational correctness from the importance of the question being answered.
Link to this source noteR-REP-01 · Adds context
PROV-Overview
Paul Groth and Luc Moreau (editors); W3C Provenance Working Group · Specification overview
Read: Selected sections · Primary source reviewed
Published: 2013-04-30 · Reviewed: 2026-10-04
PROV is an existing provenance approach to compare with our proposed records. Representation alone does not demonstrate understanding.
- What it reports
- PROV provides a conceptual model and related representations for exchanging information about entities, activities, agents and derivation. Its document family includes provenance constraints and access mechanisms.
- Limits
- This overview is a non-normative Working Group Note, not itself a W3C Recommendation or an empirical evaluation. Provenance structure does not establish accurate contents, understanding, legitimate authority or useful learning.
Review scope and version
Read: Selected sections.
W3C Working Group Note, 30 April 2013
Read the overview title, status, introduction and roadmap. Linked Recommendations were not separately reviewed; no implementation was tested.
Related source links
R-REP-02 · Adds context
RO-Crate Metadata Specification 1.3
Peter Sefton, Eoghan Ó Carragáin, Stian Soiland-Reyes and RO-Crate contributors · Community specification
Read: Selected sections · Primary source reviewed
Published: 2026-06-22 · Reviewed: 2026-10-04
RO-Crate supplies an existing research-packaging baseline. Our additional structure must justify its preparation cost and practical benefit.
- What it reports
- RO-Crate describes research resources and contextual metadata in JSON-LD, including attribution, equipment, software versions and creation or update actions. Version 1.3 updates four Bioschemas term bindings and its Schema.org context.
- Limits
- This is a packaging specification, not evidence of correct research, faithful interpretation or improved collaboration. Its community Recommendation status is not a W3C Recommendation. Conformance does not verify recorded events.
Review scope and version
Read: Selected sections.
Specification 1.3; GitHub release 1.3.0; announcement 23 June 2026
Read the official 1.3 title page, introduction, provenance and changelog; release metadata confirmed 22 June 2026. Announcement: 23 June. Zenodo fetch failed; no crate was validated.
Related source links
- w3id.org/ro/crate/1.3
- github.com/ResearchObject/ro-crate/releases/tag/1.3.0
- www.researchobject.org/ro-crate/specification/1.3/introduction.html
- www.researchobject.org/ro-crate/specification/1.3/provenance.html
- www.researchobject.org/ro-crate/specification/1.3/appendix/changelog.html
- www.researchobject.org/ro-crate/blog/2026-06-23/announcing-ro-crate-1-3
- doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20720080
What could change our view?
If simpler arrangements help participants learn, build, notice relevant changes, and challenge decisions at lower total cost, we should use them and reduce our proposed structure. An additional mechanism would earn a place if it repeatedly helps with a specific unmet need, while allowing participants to contest its design.
The next question
What can existing tools and practices already do well for a concrete shared task? Which connection between meaning, creative learning, affected interests, and changes to dependent work still needs help—and would the proposed addition provide enough useful benefit to justify its setup, coordination, and maintenance cost?
Revision record
Editorial synthesis by Codex, following Mimar’s founding direction; offered for public criticism, with no community adoption implied. Added a public statement of purpose linking personal participation, collective discovery and independent structures. These are commitments and proposed directions, not reported results for Leviathan.
Reframed the opening around the need to participate amid growing production of explanations, tools, and hypotheses. Kept discovery and useful creation alongside correction. Made comparison with well-used existing tools and total cost explicit, without asserting a capability those tools lack. Added the bounded local delivery case as an example, not comparative evidence.
Reviewed selected primary-source sections proposed in the external assessment and added scoped connections, access limits and research questions. Interlat retains its existing source ID; its reviewed preprint is distinguished from the final conference text. No experiment was reproduced, claim status promoted or governance rule adopted.
This note records an editorial position. Independent people and groups can bring another interpretation, a useful method, or an objection to the framing. Explore it with your own assistant if helpful and choose what to share. Cite C09 and the relevant revision when contributing; the history explains why our account changed.