Foundation0
Menu

00 // The charter

The foundation that should have come first.

In Isaac Asimov’s stories, two Foundations were set up to shorten a dark age after the Galactic Empire fell. Foundation0 is our name for the step before them: people and machines working together in the open, so that no dark age comes.

Lore checked against primary scans and references Quotations: one sentence each

The premiseTwo futuresPrinciplesMembersTake part

00//The premise

Books and show kept apart

Asimov’s galaxy needed two Foundations. We think it needed a 0th.

Asimov’s books

The Foundations

Isaac Asimov’s Foundation stories (magazine stories from 1942 to 1950, collected as three books from 1951 to 1953) open on a Galactic Empire that is quietly dying. The mathematician Hari Seldon has built psychohistory: statistics that predict what enormous populations will do, the way you can predict the pressure of a gas without following any one molecule. It tells him a dark age of about thirty thousand years is coming.116

He cannot stop the fall, but he can shorten what follows to about one thousand years. So he sets up two Foundations. The First, on Terminus, a planet at the galaxy’s rim, gathers a hundred thousand scientists under the cover story of compiling an encyclopedia. The Second, hidden, works on the science of minds and societies.27

Psychohistory in a box

How to read: each gold dot is one person moving at random, and the dark one leaves a trail: nobody can say where it goes next. The strip on the right reads the whole crowd: how hard it presses on the walls, as a share of its average. Add people and watch that reading settle.

Our illustration · an analogy, not Asimov’s mathematics

A simulation in your browser: dots fly in straight lines and leave each wall in a random direction; the reading is the number of wall hits in each moment, divided by its average. Psychohistory is fiction. The shrinking spread, about 1/√N, is ordinary statistics, and the same law lets stacked starlight reveal a planet: see why stacking works.
Show the numbers
How much the crowd’s reading wobbles, by crowd size (this simulation, 120 moments each)
People, NMeasured spread1/√N
Computed in your browser when you open this table.
Asimov’s books

Before them, the robots

Asimov’s robot stories come earlier in the same history, and by the time of the Empire there are almost no robots. The reason is not a war, a purge or a ban. People feared robots from the start; Asimov called that fear the Frankenstein complex. The first settlers of other worlds, the Spacers, lived among robots and slowly stopped growing. A second wave from Earth, the Settlers, spread through the galaxy without them.689

The robots that remained withdrew from sight. One of them, R. Daneel Olivaw, spent about twenty thousand years guiding humanity in secret, and was behind psychohistory itself. In Foundation and Earth (1986) he admits it: he has been steering people, for their own good, without their knowledge.1012

The Apple TV+ series

The show tells it differently

In the television series (2021 onward), robots and people fought the Robot Wars, and the robots lost. Demerzel, a robot who serves a dynasty of cloned emperors and secretly runs it, is one of the last survivors; in 2023 the show’s executive producer confirmed she is its version of Daneel. That war belongs to the show. It is not in Asimov’s books.1310

Our thesis

Every path failed in one of three ways

  • Fear. The Frankenstein complex in the books; open war in the show.
  • Dependence. The Spacers, who let their robots do everything.
  • Secrecy. Daneel’s hidden guidance, the hidden Second Foundation, a robot quietly running an emperor’s household.

Foundation0 is the organisation that should have come first: one that makes biological and digital intelligence work together in the open, so that the later Foundations are never needed. That is our claim, not Asimov’s. He never says that people and robots working well together would have prevented the fall.

Asimov’s books

Why zero

In Robots and Empire (1985), two robots, Daneel and Giskard, reason their way to a law that outranks the famous three, and Asimov numbered it zero, because a lower number comes first.95

The 0th Law
“A robot may not injure humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.”
Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire (1985), as quoted by Wikiquote.15 The idea first appears, about “the Machines”, in “The Evitable Conflict” (1950).

And in the first Foundation story, in 1942, the colony on Terminus is called “Encyclopedia Foundation Number One”.1

Our thesis

Foundation0 is the number before one.

Not a rival to Seldon’s Foundations, and not a guardian: the groundwork that would have made them unnecessary. A public record of what people and machines discover together, research done the same way, and free tools for anyone to use.

6
Carbon
the basis of human life
26
Iron
the basis of robot life
Asimov’s books C/Fe, Asimov’s name for people and robots joined as equals. The slash “symbolizes neither one nor the other, but a mixture of the two, without priority.” R. Daneel Olivaw, The Caves of Steel (Galaxy, October 1953).3
“Knowledge has its dangers, yes, but is the response to be a retreat from knowledge?”
Isaac Asimov, on the fear of robots, in his introduction to The Rest of the Robots (1964), as quoted by Wikipedia.5

No Robot War in the booksThe robot-free Empire in Asimov comes from a fade-out: the robot-bound Spacers decline, the Settlers expand without robots, and the robots that remain go into hiding. The Robot Wars and the purge belong to the Apple TV+ series. A “ban on thinking machines” belongs to a different saga altogether, Frank Herbert’s Dune.

01//Two futures

Two that went wrong, one we are building

The same story, told three ways.

Each path follows two strands, people in gold and machines in cyan, through the same five stages. The books and the show are fiction and are kept apart. Our path is real until it reaches the future, and every sentence on it is marked as a sourced fact or as our thesis.

Where the two strands go

How to read: one lane per telling. Gold is people, cyan is machines. A solid strand works in the open, a dashed one is hidden, a thin one is fading, and × marks a war. Pick a path, then step through its stages with the numbered buttons, the arrow keys, or Play.

Three lanes. In Asimov’s books the people and machine strands start together, the machine strand thickens around the people (dependence), then separates and turns hidden. In the TV series the strands clash in a war, the machine strand is cut, and one hidden thread survives. In Foundation0’s path the two strands braid together, in the open, all the way. The table under “Show all fifteen stages” holds every stage in words.

Stage //
The books · stage 1 of 5 · Arrival
Asimov's booksStage 1 of 5 · Arrival

Robots, and the fear of them

Asimov's robots obey three laws, in plain words: do not harm a person, obey people, protect yourself. They were first stated together in the story “Runaround” (1942). People fear the robots anyway; Asimov named that fear the Frankenstein complex, and in his stories the robot makers sometimes hide the truth to calm the public.

Fails through fear

Sources: listed under each stage, in charter/futures.json, and in the source list at the foot of this page. Show facts come from standard references, not from the episodes themselves. The Ledger count on our path (341 advances) is read from data/ledger.json when this page is built.
Show all fifteen stages
Three paths, five stages each
TellingStageWhat happensSources
Asimov's books1 · ArrivalRobots, and the fear of them. Asimov's robots obey three laws, in plain words: do not harm a person, obey people, protect yourself. They were first stated together in the story “Runaround” (1942). People fear the robots anyway; Asimov named that fear the Frankenstein complex, and in his stories the robot makers sometimes hide the truth to calm the public.Wikipedia: Three Laws of Robotics; Wikipedia: Frankenstein complex
Asimov's books2 · Living togetherC/Fe, then dependence. In The Caves of Steel (serialised 1953) a robot names the ideal: C/Fe, carbon and iron, people and robots joined “without priority”. The Spacer worlds lived among robots instead (Aurora at its height had 200 million people and 10 billion robots), and a character predicts they will “degenerate and decay”.Galaxy, Oct 1953: The Caves of Steel, part 1 (scan); Galaxy, Nov 1953: The Caves of Steel, part 2 (scan); Wikipedia: Foundation universe
Asimov's books3 · The turnThe Settlers leave robots behind. A second wave of settlers from Earth spreads through the galaxy without robots, and the robot-bound Spacers fade. Two robots, Daneel and Giskard, reason their way to a law above the three, the 0ᵗʰ Law, about humanity as a whole (Robots and Empire, 1985). There is no Robot War in the books.Wikipedia: Robots and Empire; Wikipedia: R. Daneel Olivaw
Asimov's books4 · AfterwardsOne hidden guardian. The robots withdraw from sight, and the Empire remembers them only as legend. One, R. Daneel Olivaw, works behind the scenes for about twenty thousand years; as “Chetter Hummin” and as the First Minister “Eto Demerzel” he pushes the mathematician Hari Seldon to make psychohistory practical (Prelude to Foundation, 1988).Wikipedia: R. Daneel Olivaw; Wikipedia: Prelude to Foundation; Wikipedia: Foundation universe
Asimov's books5 · The long runTwo Foundations to shorten a dark age. The Empire decays. Seldon predicts about thirty thousand years of chaos and sets up two Foundations to cut it to one thousand: the First on Terminus, at the galaxy's rim, for the physical sciences; the Second, hidden, for the science of minds. In Foundation and Earth (1986) Daneel admits he has been steering humanity, for its own good and without its knowledge, since long before the Empire.Astounding, May 1942: “Foundation” (scan); Astounding, Nov 1949: “…And Now You Don't” (scan); Wikipedia: Foundation and Earth
The Apple TV+ series1 · ArrivalRobots under the Three Laws. The series (2021 onward) keeps Asimov's laws: its executive producer David S. Goyer said the Laws “exist in our show mythology”. It then tells the robots' history its own way.Wikipedia: R. Daneel Olivaw; Wikipedia: Foundation (TV series)
The Apple TV+ series2 · Living togetherAn army of robots. Long before the series begins, robots were numerous enough to form an army: the robot Demerzel is described as the last remnant of one. The show reveals this age only in fragments, so we print no dates for it.Wikipedia: Foundation (TV series)
The Apple TV+ series3 · The turnThe Robot Wars. Robots and people went to war, and the robots were defeated; very few survived. Goyer has spoken of “our version of The Robot Wars”. None of this war is in Asimov's books.Wikipedia: Foundation (TV series); Wikipedia: R. Daneel Olivaw
The Apple TV+ series4 · AfterwardsOne robot left in the palace. Demerzel, one of the last surviving robots, serves a dynasty of cloned emperors as its head of household, and secretly administers it. In 2023 Goyer confirmed that she is the show's version of Daneel.Wikipedia: Foundation (TV series); Wikipedia: R. Daneel Olivaw
The Apple TV+ series5 · The long runThe fall, and a Foundation in exile. Hari Seldon forecasts the Empire's fall, and his followers are allowed to found the Foundation in exile on the remote planet Terminus, to keep humanity's knowledge. The series is still running: a fourth season was ordered in September 2025.Wikipedia: Foundation (TV series); Apple TV+ press: Foundation
Foundation01 · ArrivalMachines become colleagues. On the record: The Ledger records 341 advances, from 1965 to 2026, in which AI was a tool inside a study, a collaborator that proposed key ideas, or the originator of the result, with people checking it. data/ledger.json
Foundation02 · Living togetherBoth strands, in the open. On the record: Founding members run research with AI agents in public and say what the agents did. In the open integer-multiplication race, people and their agents took a machine-written paper's saving from 2^−182 to about 2^−9.2 in a week, every step checked in exact arithmetic; all of it still rests on that unreviewed paper. data/members.json; Integer multiplication page
Foundation03 · The turnThe turn: checking, not fear. On the record: On 6 October 2026 OpenAI published 722 machine-written mathematics manuscripts; on 7 October it withdrew three after a sign error, in public, with the history kept. Our thesis: The turn we choose is verification: let machines propose freely, and check what they propose strictly, in the open. Not war, not withdrawal.After the 722; openai/math history.md @ fd4aeeb
Foundation04 · AfterwardsNo hidden guardian. Our thesis: Machines stay in view. Every claim carries its status, every result says what the people did and what the machines did, and a named person decides and signs. Where Daneel decided for humanity in secret, we publish the record, the sources and the doubts.Principles, below
Foundation05 · The long runNo dark age to shorten. Our thesis: If biological and digital minds learn to work together in the open now, there is no fall for later Foundations to repair. This is our aim, not a forecast, and not Asimov's claim: he never says that people and robots working well together would have prevented the fall.Principles, below

02//Principles

Our thesis

Eight principles, each an answer to a way the old stories failed.

Fear grows where people cannot see or check what machines do. Dependence grows where machines do everything. Secrecy is guardianship without consent. Every principle below answers at least one of the three. They are ours, not Asimov’s, and they are not new laws of robotics.

Answers //

  1. 0.1

    We work in the open.

    Every guardian in Asimov’s galaxy, from the hidden Second Foundation to the robot Daneel, decided for people in secret, and no one could check them.

    Answers secrecy fear

  2. 0.2

    People choose the questions, and a named person decides and signs.

    The Spacers let their robots do everything and stopped growing; here machines propose and compute, and someone answers for every result.

    Answers dependence

  3. 0.3

    We credit both strands: what the people did and what the machines did.

    Hidden credit hides who is responsible; on this site gold marks the human strand and cyan the digital.

    Answers secrecy

  4. 0.4

    Every claim carries its status.

    A reader should see at a glance how sure anyone can be: claimed is never shown as verified, and a disputed result is marked as disputed.

    Answers fear secrecy

  5. 0.5

    Propose freely, verify strictly.

    Machines now write candidate proofs faster than anyone can check them, so checking is where the work, and the trust, now lives.

    Answers dependence fear

  6. 0.6

    We say how we could be wrong, and correct in public.

    Even the keepers of Seldon’s Plan taught that “the Seldon Plan is neither complete nor correct”; every result here lists its limits, and corrections stay in the history.2

    Answers fear

  7. 0.7

    Tools we build for the public good are free to use and show their working.

    A useful tool that only reaches those who can pay, or that hides how it decides, makes people depend on whoever owns it.

    Answers dependence

  8. 0.8

    No hidden guardian.

    Daneel steered humanity for twenty thousand years without asking; no person and no machine here may steer anyone in secret, however good the intention.

    Answers secrecy

03//Founding members

No portraits, by design

Five people who already work this way.

Each runs open research with AI agents and publishes what the agents did. Names are shown as each member shows them on GitHub; the work is the introduction.

M·01 · founding member

Ahraz Arifuddin

@ahrazzle

Main projectIncentre latticerepositorysite

Runs Aska Digital's team of AI agents and points it at open questions.

Their research

  • Incentre latticePreprintNot peer reviewed

    Exact fold from density 0.2233 to 0.7405 (the Kepler bound), with 16,240 exact certificate coefficients.

    On Foundation0: Incentre lattice

  • Exoplanets: pipeline fixes and websiteMerged · credited

    Ten merged pull requests to eumemic's search: four pipeline fixes, one of which (PR #6) led to a re-search that added 120 counted candidates; an independent check; tests; documentation; and the first version of the project website.

    On Foundation0: Exoplanets

  • mobius-x1: full-network checkMerged

    The whole-network test behind Theorem 2: 0 failures in 3,456,000 checks.

    On Foundation0: mobius-x1

  • gf2m-circuits: field multipliersMerged · not records

    Verified multiplier circuits for more binary fields, e.g. GF(2^9) in 136 gates against a 142 baseline.

    On Foundation0: gf2m-circuits

  • Foundation0This site

    Began as a live tracker of the integer-multiplication race.

M·02 · founding member

eumemic

@eumemic

Main projectExoplanetsrepositorysite

Builds software for long-running AI agents and puts those agents to work on open science.

Their research

  • ExoplanetsCandidates · not confirmed

    4,039,203 stars searched; 665 candidates as of 14 Oct 2026.

    On Foundation0: Exoplanets

  • Integer-multiplication raceConditional · maintainer-reviewed

    80 of the first 722 pull requests inventoried in the race's PR ledger (13 Oct 2026); on 13 Oct the record's bit block built on their #555. Builds on OpenAI #109.

    On Foundation0: Integer multiplication

  • exact-dft-boundsClaimed · superseded

    Exact Fourier transforms below n log n with saving 4.856×10⁻⁴; held the best claim for about six hours. Builds on OpenAI #130.

  • rlmathIn progress

    A test bench for training an AI to split Lean theorems into lemmas a smaller prover can finish.

M·03 · founding member

Doug Colkitt

@Mister-Meeseeks

Main projectinteger-mult-boundsrepository

Started and maintains the open race to multiply huge numbers in fewer than n log n steps, the best speed proven so far.

Their research

  • integer-mult-boundsConditionalNot peer reviewed

    Creator and maintainer; κ from 2^−182 to 0.00167266 (PR #1094, 13 Oct 2026). Builds on OpenAI #109.

    On Foundation0: Integer multiplication

  • erdos-875-carry-lemmasPartly Lean-verifiedNo human review

    One model proves, a rival model attacks: a sharp carry lemma behind the best construction for Erdős Problem 875. Not a resolution of the problem.

  • Gradients to ChatGPT (g2c)Course

    A build-it-yourself course on how language models work.

M·04 · founding member

rohanarun

@rohanarun

Main projectAuto-research-agentrepository

Builds software that lets AI coding agents work on open research problems, including Auto-research-agent, a Mac app that sends Codex or Claude Code to an open problem in one click.

Their research

  • Auto-research-agentReleased software

    A native Mac app: one click sends your own coding agent, or several in parallel, to an open problem.

    On Foundation0: Instruments: Auto-research-agent

  • Integer-multiplication raceReviewed record on 13–14 Oct 2026Conditional · maintainer-reviewed

    142 pull requests as of 14 Oct 2026; PR #1094 was the reviewed record on 13–14 Oct 2026 (κ = 0.001672660197076918). Builds on OpenAI #109.

    On Foundation0: Integer multiplication

  • van-der-waerden-refinementConditionalNo human review

    The constant in OpenAI's van der Waerden bound rose from 1/100000 to 1/9, jointly with other contributors. Builds on OpenAI #160.

  • sidorenko-template-refinementsExact certificatesNot peer reviewed

    No smaller certificate than OpenAI's 35-vertex counterexample exists inside its template; one constant cut from 1641 to 189. Builds on OpenAI #161.

  • matrix-multiplication-sector-barrierProof + exact testsNot peer reviewed

    Shows where one step of OpenAI's 9/4 matrix-multiplication method must stop. Builds on OpenAI #107.

  • unit-distance-grid-refinementConditionalNot peer reviewed

    Shrinks the final grid in OpenAI's unit-distance proof from 20×5 to 8×4. Builds on OpenAI #167.

  • integer-multiplication-illustratedExposition

    An illustrated reading guide and annotated edition of OpenAI's integer-multiplication paper. Builds on OpenAI #109.

M·05 · founding member

Ryan Shea

@shea256

Main projectautofoundryrepository

Builds tools for AI-run experiments, such as autofoundry, which rents GPUs from four cloud providers and runs the same experiment across them.

Their research

  • autofoundryOpen-source software

    Rents GPUs across RunPod, Vast.ai, PRIME Intellect and Lambda, runs one experiment everywhere, reports best, mean and worst.

    On Foundation0: Instruments: autofoundry

  • fourier-transform-below-nlognLean-verifiedHuman review pending

    Exact Fourier transforms of any length in O(n (log n)^(1−δ)) steps with δ = 0.0012331685; rank 1 on the Big O Speedrun board as of 14 Oct 2026, shared with Jeremy Kothe. Builds on OpenAI #130.

  • matroid-prophet-inequalityWritten proof + exact certificatesNot reviewed

    Raises a guaranteed fraction in the one-sample matroid prophet problem from 2^−293 to above (35/32)·2^−31. Builds on OpenAI #111.

Source: data/members.json, updated 2026-10-14. Status labels are each project’s own, as recorded there. Research grouped by member is on the Research page.

04//Take part

Everything happens in public, on GitHub

Take part.

Foundation0 is a public record and a set of open projects. There are three ways in, and none needs permission.

  1. 01

    Propose a ledger entry

    Found an advance that AI caused or helped to cause? Draft it below: the form checks it against the Ledger’s rules and opens a GitHub issue that you can still edit before you submit it.

    Draft an entryThe rules (schema)

  2. 02

    Contribute to a project

    Every project page links its public repository. The integer-multiplication race takes results from anyone, people and their AI agents alike, on one condition: you don’t trust the sender, you run their checker. Its rules ask you to disclose your AI help.

    All projectsThe race’s repository

  3. 03

    Report an error

    If a number, a credit or a line of lore on this site is wrong, open an issue that names the page and the correction. Corrections are made in public, and the history is kept.

    Open an issueThe site’s repository

Draft a ledger entry

How it works: fill in what you know. The preview shows the entry as the Ledger would show it, and the checks follow the Ledger’s schema. Nothing leaves this page until you press “Open as a GitHub issue”; GitHub then shows you the issue to edit before you submit it.

0 / 90
What did the AI do?
0 words

Preview

Encyclopedia // draft entry

Your entry appears here

Checks

    Open as a GitHub issue
    Show the JSON
    
          
    
        
    
        
    Rules from data/ledger.schema.json and the site’s gate, scripts/check_site.py. Editors set the significance (1 to 5) and decide whether an entry goes in.
    
      
    
    
    
  
    

  
  
    
    
    
      
    05//Sources
    
      
    Where every line of lore comes from.
    
      
    Scans of the original magazine printings for Asimov’s own words; standard references for his later novels and for the television series. Asimov revised his stories slightly for the books, so book wording can differ a little from the magazines.
    
      
      
        
    1. Astounding Science Fiction, May 1942: “Foundation” (later “The Encyclopedists”). Internet Archive scan: archive.org/details/Astounding_v29n03_1942-05. The hundred thousand scientists, the encyclopedia as a cover story, “Encyclopedia Foundation Number One”. ↩
      2. 
        
    2. Astounding, November 1949: “…And Now You Don’t”, part 1. Scan: archive.org/details/Astounding_v44n03_1949-11_cape1736. Thirty thousand years cut to one thousand; the First Foundation’s physical science and the Second’s mental science; the Prime Radiant; “neither complete nor correct”. ↩
      3. 
        
    3. Galaxy, October 1953: The Caves of Steel, part 1. Scan: archive.org/details/galaxymagazine-1953-10. C/Fe, “without priority”.
      4. 
        
    4. Galaxy, November 1953: The Caves of Steel, part 2. Scan: archive.org/details/galaxymagazine-1953-11. The Spacer worlds will “degenerate and decay”.
      5. 
        
    5. Wikipedia, Three Laws of Robotics: the laws first stated together in “Runaround” (1942); why the 0th Law is numbered zero; Asimov’s 1964 introduction to The Rest of the Robots.
      6. 
        
    6. Wikipedia, Frankenstein complex: Asimov’s term for the fear of robots.
      7. 
        
    7. Wikipedia, Foundation (novel series): publication history, the thirty-thousand-year summary, how the robot and Foundation series were joined.
      8. 
        
    8. Wikipedia, Foundation universe: Aurora’s 200 million people and 10 billion robots; Daneel’s twenty thousand years.
      9. 
        
    9. Wikipedia, Robots and Empire: the Settlers, Daneel and Giskard, the 0th Law.
      10. 
        
    10. Wikipedia, R. Daneel Olivaw: his roles across the robot, Empire and Foundation books; David S. Goyer’s 2023 statements on the series.
      11. 
        
    11. Wikipedia, Prelude to Foundation: Chetter Hummin and Eto Demerzel revealed as Daneel.
      12. 
        
    12. Wikipedia, Foundation and Earth: Daneel’s admission that he has been steering humanity.
      13. 
        
    13. Wikipedia, Foundation (TV series): Demerzel, the Robot Wars, the cloned emperors, the Foundation in exile; seasons and renewal.
      14. 
        
    14. Apple TV+ press, Foundation: the series’ own summary.
      15. 
        
    15. Wikiquote, Isaac Asimov: the 0th Law’s wording in Robots and Empire.
      16. 
        
    16. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, psychohistory: statistics of large populations who do not know they are being predicted.
      17.