Policies tell you what should happen. Protocols constrain what can happen. We wrote a book chapter on engineering institutions through Lyapunov stability—operationalizable guarantees, not just good intentions.
zenodo.org/records/1512...
Modeling cybernetic systems requires state spaces beyond vector fields. This paper formalizes block diagrams using category theory to represent Generalized Dynamical Systems.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Algorithms aren't neutral truth-tellers—they're perspectives shaped by design choices, just like cameras. What is the apparatus leaving out? Whose choices shaped it?
blog.block.science/an-algorithm...
Proud to support @numfocus.bsky.social and its work strengthening the open-source scientific computing ecosystem.
These tools power real-world systems, from fraud detection to cloud services. Institutional stewardship helps keep this infrastructure reliable & accessible.
bit.ly/4pC7KXQ
Revisiting The Santa Protocol 🧑🎄 after the holidays changes how it reads.
Santa is not the claim. He is the worked example.
Once you recognize the institutional architecture, you start seeing it everywhere.
Low-stakes entry. Serious implications.
📃 bit.ly/49iBsw9
A huge thank-you to @blockscience.bsky.social for their support of NumFOCUS and PyData.Their commitment to rigorous research and community-driven innovation strengthens every part of the ecosystem. Join in their support of open source scientific computing: Donate to NumFOCUS at hubs.la/Q03VFBdL0
Flashy tools like LLMs grab attention, but the real foundation is Knowledge Organization Infrastructure (KOI).
In Why Is There Data? David Sisson & Ilan Ben-Meir explore how raw facts become valuable knowledge only through processing, context & governance.
📃Paper on SSRN dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn...
In this article, Zargham explores Architecting Knowledge Organization Infrastructure (KOI) from a systems engineering perspective, moving across layers of abstraction and showing how communities can design, implement and govern their knowledge systems.
Read: bit.ly/4nQEYlV
Memes that make us lol → but also surface deeper truths.
In governance, resilience depends on acting before crises peak. Climate, housing & health all show the cost of delay. The hard choice is early action, but it’s the only path to durable systems.
Shared by Zargham 🌱
📃New publication from BSci collaborators:
“Attention in Governance” — with Kelsie Nabben, Nathan Schneider, Ronen Tamari & Michael Zargham.
We explore attention as a scarce resource in digital governance and propose heuristics to analyze how it shapes participation.
Read 👉 osf.io/preprints/me...
What our team reads off the clock → survival games with LLM agents. Thanks Octopus 🐙 for surfacing.
Scarcity makes agents selfish & unsafe. Add a simple guilt/satisfaction signal & cooperation jumps 10× while harmful actions drop by half. That’s a governance lesson too.
🔗 arxiv.org/abs/2509.12190
BlockScience Fellow @jeffemmett.bsky.social was featured on the @entangledfutures.bsky.social podcast to discuss how fungal networks can inspire the redesign of governance & economic systems, including:
🌱 Fractal resilience
🌱 Conviction voting
🌱 Mutual credit
🔉 entangledfutures.fm/episodes/fun...
We often use institutional analysis to understand the “functional architecture” of client projects.
In this piece, BSci Fellow Jeff Emmett turns the lens inward, applying organizational cybernetics, systems thinking heuristics, and viable systems models to BlockScience itself.
📖 bit.ly/4nQEYlV
🎂It’s our birthday!
BSci was founded on a simple principle: the world’s toughest challenges deserve thoughtful, interdisciplinary design.
We’re celebrating the researchers, engineers & communities who make that possible & inspire us every day.
Here’s to another year of curiosity & collaboration.💡
🍂 Our Q3 Newsletter is out!
From Zurich, Paris, Berlin, Albany, and São Paulo, this edition reflects on feedback loops across people, tools, and institutions. Exploring AI Theory of the Firm, governance surfaces, adaptive infrastructures through Telescope + KOI & more.
📰 bit.ly/4qhgSTs
“The cell wall marked the start of life. Bonding curves could mark the start of economic life forms.”
@jeffemmett.bsky.social — Exploring MyCofi | Commons Stack | @blockscience.bsky.social
Watch the short clip + full episode: entangledfutures.fm
Engineering large-scale infrastructure for social & economic systems isn’t about achieving perfection; it’s about creating systems that can adapt.
In this video series, Zargham explores how feedback, coordination & governance intertwine in complex adaptive systems.
🎥 Watch here: bit.ly/4mVclmL
Understanding Large Language Models: a plain-language map of LLM basics and where they fit in real systems
- Tokens
- Vontext windows
- Rmbeddings + vector stores
- RAG
- Reasoning methods.
For builders and leaders alike.
Read: bit.ly/3RGFHbi
#LLMs #SystemsEngineering #RAG
Systems engineering isn’t just tools; it’s how people, processes, & tech work together reliably. Here’s how we frame AI agents as accountable, engineered systems acting on behalf of principals (not free agents).
A Systems Engineering Perspective on AI Agents: bit.ly/4m3VQEq
#SystemsEngineering
BlockScience® is a systems engineering firm that operationalizes emerging technologies for high-reliability organizations. We cut through hype with rigorous R&D, delivering fit-for-purpose solutions that keep people, processes and tools working together. #BSCI
