The Great Unplugging, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation registered in California. We are funded by donations and we sell nothing.
Structure
How this changed
The Great Unplugging began in 2023 as an attempt to answer one practical question: what happens if advanced AI cannot be trusted inside critical infrastructure? By 2024 we had published a plan for cutting such a system off and keeping the lights on without it, along with the website that carried it.
Through 2025 a different realisation set in. Capability spread across vendors, borders, and copied model weights, and the single cord we had assumed was there stopped being there. The technical challenge was real, but it rested on a deeper behavioural one. Containment is worth building. We no longer believe it is enough to rely on.
What was left was older than the technology. It is a question about people. What do humans do when they are being watched by something smarter than they are, and what do they do to something weaker than they are when they think no one is watching.
Algorism is our answer to that. It is not a replacement for the first project. It is the layer the first project could not reach.
Who wrote this
The Great Unplugging was written by John Jerome and Bruce M. Williams, with contributions from a group of people working in the relevant fields.
Algorism was developed by John Jerome, who serves as the organisation’s doctrine holder and primary author.