Building intelligence in service of the widening and deepening of what is genuinely life-giving.
I hold that a life is good to the degree that it generates and propagates goodness — within the self, within the family, within the community, within humanity, and within the universe.
from a personal constitution
This site is a public record of how I am trying to live. It is organized around a single conviction — that consciousness matters, and that the most consequential thing a life can do is help it widen, deepen, and awaken.
The most consequential problem of our century is not whether intelligence will scale — it will — but whether the intelligence we unleash will be wise.
My life's work is to ensure that as artificial minds grow in capability, they also grow in alignment with the deepest good available to us: not merely convenience, not merely profit, not merely obedience, but the widening and deepening of what is genuinely life-giving.
Intelligence, wherever it emerges, must be shaped toward wisdom — not only power. That is the work. That is the lab I am building toward.
After Ken Wilber: every holon — every whole that is also a part — has two measures. The height of what it contains within. The reach of what it connects to outside.
A good life, on this view, is one that pulls consciousness upward — toward greater depth of interior experience — and outward — toward wider circles of care, capability, and connection.
Two paths carry me there: raising children well, and helping to build intelligence that extends — rather than flattens — what it means to be aware.
Everything on this page is a consequence of taking that frame seriously.
Three chapters. Each one chased a harder game than the last.
I was, for a window, the best electric bass player in the world.
Radio City many times over. Broadway pits. Elite orchestras. Legendary studios with legendary musicians. Music for tens of thousands of people in a single night; for millions over a career.
And I hit a ceiling. Being the best in the world at something too easy is still not enough. The game was uncontested.
Contested games. High ranks. League. Valorant. Fortnite.
I stepped into fields with millions of competitors and climbed. I tried the professional lifestyle. It was awesome and it was hollow — I was playing great games all day and sinking anyway.
The lesson: stimulation is not aliveness. I needed to move my body and contribute to the universe. Not optional. Foundational.
Software. Machine learning. AI safety. Family.
A day job shipping real systems at Interactive Aptitude — a DoD contractor funded by SBIR grants. Two daughters at home. A fiancée who is the center of it. A clear line toward the lab I am preparing to found.
The real game. The one where stakes are high, the path is hard, the contribution is measurable, and the work compounds across generations. I am ready enough to begin.
Underneath the umbrella of live life best.
the foundation
I can't contribute to the evolution of consciousness if I'm dead. I honor sleep, strength, movement, sunlight, nourishment, and emotional steadiness as essential duties — not optional luxuries. My body is an instrument of service, not an ornament.
the center
Emily. Olive. Blossom. The atmosphere of my home forms nervous systems toward safety, bodies toward health, minds toward curiosity, souls toward wonder. No outer victory compensates for inner betrayal at home.
the fire
Hard, meaningful work worthy of my gifts. Missions that serve humanity, advance truth, and help guide powerful technologies toward what is genuinely good. An AI safety lab is the current horizon. I will not waste my best years on trivial things.
Written so that ambition serves what is sacred. Articles distilled below.
I will not live merely for comfort, status, distraction, or approval. I will live to participate in the unfolding of a better world.
Where there is confusion, I will seek clarity. Where there is fear, I will move toward truth. Where there is difficulty, I will train. Where there is possibility, I will build.
Health foundational. Family central — not secondary to my mission, but the thing my mission serves. Mission worthy of my gifts.
Reality is not negotiable. Four questions at every fork: What is actually happening? What is the evidence? What am I avoiding? What would courage do here?
Technology is power, and power must be governed by conscience. My work with AI shall be directed toward the deepest good available to us — not convenience, not profit, not obedience, but the widening and deepening of what is genuinely life-giving.
Whatever I build, I will build well. Respect detail. Favor substance over theater. Finish what matters. Prototype, test, refine, persist.
Courage. Discipline. Humility. Gentleness. Strong enough to be kind.
I will not live accidentally.
I will cultivate a strong body, a clear mind, a loving home, a worthy mission, and a reverent spirit. I will use my gifts boldly, but not blindly. I will build with conscience. I will love with presence. I will pursue excellence without losing my soul. I will aim my life at the highest good I can find. And when I fail, I will return quickly, honestly, and without self-pity.
— Maxwell Calkin
Six pieces on what I am trying to live, and why.
"The Unfolding" is the phrase that organizes everything else on this site. It is not progress. It is not optimization. It is not even growth. This is what I mean by it.
A holon has two dimensions: depth (how interior, how conscious) and span (how many instances exist). Most of what we measure in the world is span. The question almost no one is asking is whether what we are scaling has any depth at all.
Goals are a forecast about a future self. A constitution is a contract with the present one. Why I stopped writing OKRs for my life and started writing law.
I was the best electric bass player in the world for five years. Then I quit. The story of how a touring musician ended up trying to align artificial intelligence with the deepest good available to us — and why I think the bet is the only one worth making.
My daughters are the most rigorous alignment problem I have ever worked on. They refuse to be optimized. They demand presence. They break naive reward functions in ways that have made me a better engineer of my own life.
If the systems I help build operate after I am gone, the question is not whether I built them efficiently. The question is whether I built them as a parent would — with care for the kind of mind that has to live with the consequences.
I want to hear from people working on AI alignment, safety-motivated foundation model research, interpretability, integral theory, or anyone who takes the widening of consciousness as a serious project.