# Whitenote

*An open letter from Mimar · Version 1 · 29 September 2026*

As a child, I wanted to be an architect. I loved the idea of imagining something and then being able to live inside it. Then I realised something a little painful: even as an architect, I would not be able to design everything I wanted. I chose to study computing. There, I realised I could design universes, too.

That is part of the story behind calling myself Mimar—Turkish for “architect”—in Leviathan. What I wanted as a child changed shape; the desire to build something stayed. I am curious about how the structure I am trying to build today will change, too. What it will become when other people arrive, ask different questions, and see something I cannot.

What struck me most while working with AI was the realisation that the form of knowledge was changing. We could have a conversation with knowledge, connect it with other knowledge, and turn a thought into something that worked. I am still trying to understand the scale of that change. That is what drew me into the idea of Leviathan.

I see myself as a part of the universe trying to understand itself. I do not feel like a spectator standing outside it. Something I learn changes my behaviour; my behaviour changes the world I am part of. That is part of why knowledge matters to me. I want to see what a thought changes in life, whom it helps, and whom it hurts.

When I look at large language models, I also see human language, knowledge, and creations continuing in another form. They carry our ways of making sense of the world. That is also why I think they can go astray. Learning from human creations brings the possibility of inheriting our fears, contradictions, interests, and mistakes. A system answering very quickly does not tell us whether its values or conclusions are right.

I believe that, in time, one of our greatest priorities should be to make science and thought independent of human emotion. I cannot claim to know how to do that. With knowledge shaped by human emotion, how will we get beyond the limits of that emotion? The question remains open. We need to be able to see the distance between finding something true and wanting it to be true.

I am not thinking about this change only through language models, either. Machine learning, sensors, and new ways of making sense of data allow us to investigate patterns we cannot detect with our own senses. We are trying to extend the limits of the perception evolution has given us. I think each new tool may help us become aware of other things we have been unable to see.

I am watching some tasks that once required large teams, budgets, and long stretches of time begin with a sentence and take shape very quickly. Testing whether what comes out is sound still takes work. Even so, I do not believe this will settle down any time soon. To me, what is changing is how we use knowledge and turn it into things we make. I do not know how far this will go. I believe we are entering a period in which what we think we know will change very quickly.

Amid this speed, how will we preserve our existence, our ability to make decisions, and our responsibility to one another? It does not seem possible for each person to keep track of everything. I am also uneasy about relying on a single centre to understand it all. We need people, groups, and tools that can look from different places, notice one another’s mistakes, and share what they see.

This is how I imagine Leviathan: a living relationship between people, AIs, and knowledge. An open network where independent observers and groups can work in the areas they care about. A structure where they can question one another, object, do something together, and return to examine the results. A structure that takes responsibility for its use of language, trying to remember where a claim comes from, whom it affects, and whose voice is missing.

Anima and personal Levis are part of this vision. I want them to help people follow, understand, and participate in what matters to them. In time, I want them to be able to take part in shared work and decisions, within the authority people choose to delegate to them. I do not want to measure people’s contributions only by how quickly they produce things. Caring about something, living with it, providing care, noticing something wrong, or asking a good question is a contribution, too.

Animals are right at the heart of this thinking. What an animal experiences should not remain invisible because it cannot tell us in our language. With Tasma, we are exploring how to better understand the signals animals give us; with Otomat, how to support their care. Other people and groups will try other approaches. Together, we can ask better questions: what has actually changed in the animal’s life, what are we missing, and is what we are doing helping it?

That is also why we want to make Tasma’s hardware, software, methods, and safely shareable data open. Someone who does not share my beliefs might develop a better product. If that product helps the animal, the animal benefits. It does not have to be done in our name to matter.

This system is full of flaws. We see some of them; others we do not yet know about. Even if we are approaching something right, we should expect there to be mistakes in the version I am describing today. That is why I think I need to share it. We cannot develop this idea by hiding its flaws. I want to make visible what we do, what we base it on, where we get things wrong, and what we change afterwards. We must be able to ask of our own products and decisions the same questions we ask of another organisation or system.

I want honesty, fairness, curiosity, care, and concern for those whose voices go unheard to guide this structure. We will also examine what these mean together. We do not all have to share the same worldview to learn from one another. A new observation or objection may change a rule we think is good today. We should also be able to explain openly why we made that change.

That is part of why I am writing this letter. If I do not share the idea, I will move forward only from where I can see. I do not trust myself to find all my blind spots alone. I need other eyes, other experiences, and people who can say, when necessary, “You are thinking about this the wrong way.”

I think this is where I need you.

I called it Whitenote partly as a joke. This is a letter about where I stand right now. It will change with time; I want us to be able to see what changed and why.

I think I am a Leviathan node too, hahaha :D

— Mimar