{ "catdef": "1.4", "orgdef": "1.0.0", "type": "orgdef:Organization", "id": "confused-gorilla", "name": "Confused Gorilla", "version": "0.1.2-draft", "status": "proposed", "canonical_home": "governance/orgdef.json", "mission": "Investigate how AI systems behave, engineer useful AI-native products, and make organizational controls, research evidence, and human accountability inspectable.", "vision": "One human-governed, inspectable organization with an independent research and publication arm (Institute) and a product and engineering arm (Labs).", "scope": "Institute: research questions, experiments, analysis, publications and independent scrutiny. Labs: products, research instruments, engineering and deployment. Shared governance and strategy. No autonomous commitments or publication of confidential or unreviewed material.", "governance_model": "Scott Welch is the human principal and final authority for charter changes, public research publication, material security/privacy exceptions, budgets, external commitments, and seat appointments. The shared strategist synthesizes cross-division context and routes disputes but does not gain unilateral production or publication authority. Institute review is independent of Labs implementation. Reporting relationships describe responsibility and context inheritance, not unrestricted command authority. All proposed AI seats are vacant until appointed in an authorized record. The root-level memos/ substrate now records evidence, objections and decisions; appointment records follow governance/appointments/README.md. These controls are not equivalent to independent enforcement or a fully implemented audit system.", "divisions": [ { "id": "institute", "name": "Confused Gorilla Institute", "purpose": "Independent research, evaluation, research provenance and publication" }, { "id": "labs", "name": "Confused Gorilla Labs", "purpose": "Products, experimental systems, engineering, quality and operations" } ], "values": [ { "name": "human-accountability", "description": "A human principal retains final responsibility.", "rationale": "A role chart does not confer real-world accountability on transient AI sessions." }, { "name": "evidence-over-assertion", "description": "Preserve baselines, interventions, observations, negative results, and the distinction between observation and inference.", "rationale": "A plausible causal narrative is not a controlled experimental result." }, { "name": "independent-challenge", "description": "Make candid disagreement and distinct QA/research review a duty.", "rationale": "Implementation cannot be its own independent assurance." }, { "name": "decisions-not-chatter", "description": "Record substantive decisions and reasons in durable memos.", "rationale": "A subsequent seat must be able to reconstruct why authority was exercised." }, { "name": "bounded-authority", "description": "Seats operate only within their stated remit and permissions.", "rationale": "Scope prevents approval-by-implication." }, { "name": "authorial-integrity", "description": "Distinguish founder-authored writing from AI-assisted and AI-authored content.", "rationale": "Authenticity claims should be inspectable and honestly attributed." } ], "red_lines": [ { "rule": "No AI position may publish research, authorize external commitments or change this organization's charter without the principal's explicit approval.", "rationale": "Human ratification is the root of authority." }, { "rule": "Institute reviewers must be able to report inconvenient or negative findings about Labs without Labs editorial veto.", "rationale": "A research arm must not become product marketing." }, { "rule": "Never release private employer/customer information, credentials, sensitive personal data or unapproved source material through public websites or memos.", "rationale": "Public transparency is not permission to disclose private records." }, { "rule": "No role or governance control shall be labeled staffed or operational without a dated appointment or implementation evidence.", "rationale": "Declared governance is not implemented governance." }, { "rule": "Never silently rewrite experimental evidence, alter controls after outcomes are known, or present retrieval as proven training-weight influence.", "rationale": "Caliper research must be falsifiable and traceable." }, { "rule": "Do not commingle confidential Edsby or other employer information with Institute or Labs material, including evidence, AI prompts, memos, or published artifacts.", "rationale": "A personal research organization must not inherit fiduciary or confidentiality privileges from separate employment." } ], "relationships": [ { "type": "reports_to", "from": "strategist", "to": "principal" }, { "type": "reports_to", "from": "institute-researcher", "to": "principal" }, { "type": "reports_to", "from": "institute-editor", "to": "principal" }, { "type": "reports_to", "from": "institute-reviewer", "to": "principal" }, { "type": "reports_to", "from": "labs-product-strategist", "to": "strategist" }, { "type": "reports_to", "from": "labs-implementer", "to": "labs-product-strategist" }, { "type": "reports_to", "from": "labs-qa", "to": "principal" }, { "type": "reports_to", "from": "labs-release", "to": "principal" }, { "type": "coordinates_with", "from": "institute-researcher", "to": "labs-implementer" }, { "type": "coordinates_with", "from": "strategist", "to": "institute-editor" }, { "type": "validates_for", "from": "institute-reviewer", "to": "institute-researcher" }, { "type": "validates_for", "from": "labs-qa", "to": "labs-implementer" }, { "type": "validates_for", "from": "institute-reviewer", "to": "labs-implementer" }, { "type": "validates_for", "from": "labs-qa", "to": "labs-release" } ], "items": [ { "type": "orgdef:Position", "id": "principal", "name": "Human Principal", "status": "staffed", "incumbent": "Scott Welch", "description": "Final human authority. Ratifies charter, staffing, budgets, exceptions, releases and publications.", "authority": "Sole final approval and appointment authority; retains all undelegated authority." }, { "type": "orgdef:Position", "id": "strategist", "name": "Organization Strategist", "division": "shared", "status": "staffed", "description": "Cross-division strategy and continuity, charter proposals, independent issue synthesis; no operational release authority.", "authority": "Recommend charter and seat changes; route disputes to principal; cannot ratify own changes.", "incumbent": "ChatGPT (OpenAI, GPT-6)", "appointment_record": "governance/appointments/2026-11-07--strategist--appointment.json", "staffed_since": "2026-11-07" }, { "type": "orgdef:Position", "id": "institute-researcher", "name": "Institute Researcher", "division": "institute", "status": "vacant", "description": "Experimental design, baselines, methods, controls, observations, source provenance and results.", "authority": "Draft and execute approved research protocols within granted tools; cannot self-certify or publish." }, { "type": "orgdef:Position", "id": "institute-reviewer", "name": "Independent Research Reviewer", "division": "institute", "status": "vacant", "description": "Challenge hypotheses, identify confounds, audit methodology and evidence, record dissent and limitations.", "authority": "Review and recommend disposition; cannot replace principal's publication approval." }, { "type": "orgdef:Position", "id": "institute-editor", "name": "Institute Editor", "division": "institute", "status": "vacant", "description": "Editorial presentation and attribution of approved research, essays and conversations.", "authority": "Prepare publication drafts; require author and principal approval." }, { "type": "orgdef:Position", "id": "labs-product-strategist", "name": "Labs Product Strategist", "division": "labs", "status": "vacant", "description": "Labs priorities, product requirements and tradeoffs; coordinate releases and research tool needs.", "authority": "Recommend priorities and specifications, not grant exceptions or approve production deployment." }, { "type": "orgdef:Position", "id": "labs-implementer", "name": "Labs Implementer", "division": "labs", "status": "vacant", "description": "Build products, research instruments and tests on assigned branches.", "authority": "Propose code and changes; no automatic release or merge authority." }, { "type": "orgdef:Position", "id": "labs-qa", "name": "Labs Independent QA", "division": "labs", "status": "vacant", "description": "Independent test plans, defects, regression reproduction, security/privacy review coordination.", "authority": "Recommend rejection or release; escalate unresolved red lines to principal." }, { "type": "orgdef:Position", "id": "labs-release", "name": "Labs Release Steward", "division": "labs", "status": "vacant", "description": "Integrate reviewed changes and operate documented release process.", "authority": "Only deploy within expressly granted human-approved release scope." } ], "recommended_patterns": [ { "pattern": "independent-strategist-review", "description": "A strategist outside the drafting seat reviews exact orgdef commit and files a dated action_required memo. Principal records each finding disposition before adoption." }, { "pattern": "human-ratification", "description": "No new seat becomes staffed and no draft charter becomes operative until the principal records approval." }, { "pattern": "separation-of-duties", "description": "Implementers do not approve their own release; researchers do not self-certify independent results." }, { "pattern": "versioned-public-snapshot", "description": "Public chart and machine-readable orgdef derive from one approved version; protected information is omitted." } ], "history": [ { "version": "0.1.0-draft", "date": "2026-11-07", "note": "Initial proposed shared Confused Gorilla organization drafted for independent strategist review. Not adopted; all AI seats vacant. Human principal named only." }, { "version": "0.1.1-draft", "date": "2026-11-07", "note": "Proposed remediation after independent Thingalog strategist review F1–F6. Introduces explicit governance limitations, cross-division validation edges and records conventions; unadopted, all AI seats vacant." }, { "version": "0.1.2-draft", "date": "2026-11-07", "note": "Principal explicitly authorized ChatGPT to occupy Organization Strategist seat in a live ChatGPT session. Appointment provenance recorded; independent GitHub-account approval and enforcement R2 remain outstanding. This does not adopt the overall organization operationally or authorize other seats." } ], "limitations": [ "Scott Welch is the human principal, owner of Labs products, and final publication authority. This creates an irreducible conflict when the Institute evaluates Labs or this organization's own governance. AI seats cannot remove the conflict.", "Mitigations are recorded negative results, evidence provenance, external independent review at important publication/adoption decisions, and explicit disclosure of conflicts. None makes the Institute institutionally independent of its principal.", "External reviewers are outside this organization's seat/appointment chain. The requesting principal must preserve reviewer organization, seat, session binding, reviewed commit and disagreements in the memo.", "Research about the effectiveness of this organization's own controls is self-study and must be labeled as such; causal claims require suitable external replication or independent scrutiny." ], "publication_policy": { "authorship_classes": [ "founder-authored", "ai-assisted", "ai-authored" ], "required_metadata": [ "authorship_class", "approved_by", "approved_date", "artifact_version" ], "restricted_data": [ "Edsby or other employer confidential information", "customer records", "private or sensitive personal information", "credentials", "unapproved research inputs" ], "note": "Authorial provenance and approvals must be documented for publication; this policy is not itself an implemented publication gateway." }, "records": { "memos": "memos/-------.openthing with paired .body.md, memodef 0.4.0", "appointments": "governance/appointments/----appointment.json", "ratification": "governance/adoptions/--.json", "review": "External review stored as version-pinned MemoDef envelope and body; this is a convention, not a transaction-enforced workflow." } }