The experience I most want to discuss likely needs an entire workshop on its own, which I offer to organize. It revolves around the question "what if the solution to the problem of decreasing academic freedom is, at least in some cases, completely upstream of this specific problem and invisible to most?" Imagine a large bucket too heavy to lift, full of water and sitting on the ground. People are constantly putting water (academic freedoms) in, and people are constantly taking academic freedoms out, seemingly in balance, yet somehow the level of water in the bucket seems to be lowering. Unknown to anyone, the bucket has a hole in it, but it is sitting on porous gravel that absorbs water easily so no one notices, and no one knows. This problem of identifying the true “hole” is surprisingly common. An example is the need for recursive self-correction being required in order to reliably achieve any targeted outcome (such as improved academic freedoms) in an open and changing environment in which novel situations might be encountered. Recursive self-correction at its simplest is taking the entire set of things that one believes characterizes a problem, and repeatedly saying “what if I am wrong?” and “what if I am right?” for each of them, until the truth reveals itself through coherence, or until falsehood reveals itself through incoherence.

From as early as thousands of years ago, the need for recursive self-correction has been discovered independently by ancient philosophers in Greece, Egypt, India, China, and perhaps in other places that left no records. Yet this had to be independently rediscovered in control theory, in mathematics, in biology, in cognitive science, and other disciplines. And in the case of some existential risks like AI alignment, it is still waiting to be fully accepted. The challenge is that when the problem isn’t seen in a broader way, when we don’t see that the problem is the same hole in the bucket, then solutions aren’t generalized to the point that they can solve the problem anywhere, making it necessary to rediscover the solution everywhere.

The problem with trying to rediscover the solution everywhere, is that over time, over all problems, this approach ensures that the probability of catastrophic failure approaches near certainty. To people who are interested, I would like to offer an online workshop that explores how it might be possible to reliably maximize impact on whatever goal you are targeting through defining the most general solution of all, an explicit functional model of intelligence (a model of the minimal set of functions that are required for a system to have general problem-solving ability or “intelligence”), so that greater “intelligence” can be inserted into any process in order to achieve that increase in impact on any problem in general. For certain categories of problems a functional model of intelligence isn’t required to reliably solve the problem, but for other categories it definitely is (I’ll provide simple intuitive examples to those who are interested). I've defined a formal model for and a model theoretic proof of why something like a "functional model of intelligence", is required in order to reliably solve academic freedom. But this same formal model and proof explain why this something is required to address existential risk, and why without this something, the probability that mankind will go extinct approaches 1 with time. Not hyperbole, according to the model it's just that the threat surface is increasing nonlinearly, while our ability to assess and mitigate threats is not. A functional model of intelligence necessarily includes some distributed or collective form of problem-solving. As collective problem-solving scales through tools like LLMs, if the collective ability to solve the problem of assessing and mitigating risks doesn't scale at least equally, then more and more proposed solutions must be ignored, and decision-making must become increasingly centralized to gatekeepers, taking away academic freedoms in the process. The difficulty of discovering and reliably propagating such a solution, combined with the prediction that there is only a limited time window to do so with the decentralization needed, before entrenched centralization makes this impossible, makes publicly sharing and validating this model so very important. My aim isn't to convince anyone of these strong claims. Rather, it's to spread awareness that such novel claims are often dismissed based on heuristics like consensus agreement, circumventing rigorous evaluation. This dismissal occurs despite the known fact that consensus is an inadequate method for evaluating claims too new for any consensus to exist. Ultimately, the point is to motivate a group of collaborators to publicly test these claims in terms of whether they result in real improvement in achieving real outcomes, as suggested by the results of my hundreds of simulations. Together, we can then explore what this model suggests about why better solutions to our most important problems fail to reliably propagate from personal to public awareness, how to solve this general issue, and how validated solutions might be backpropagated into specific problems like academic freedom. For more information and/or to express interests, feel free to reach out to info@cc4ci.org (Caribbean Center for Collective Intelligence). Andy E. Williams On 5/13/2025 at 6:27 AM, "J.C. DE MARTIN" <juancarlos.demartin@polito.it> wrote:

Dear All,

If you would like to contribute to the "experience-sharing session" please let me know by this evening.

Many thanks, best,

juan carlos

email: demartin@polito.it

On 08/05/25 18:03, Guio Espanol, Armando wrote:

...

Dear all, Thank you for your interest in Juan Carlos's call. It is also very encouraging to see the strong interest in the topic of academic freedom and in the various cases around the world we will have the opportunity to hear about in this session. I am writing to share the connection details and the agenda for the call: * *

* *Date*: May 15 (2:00 PM CET/8:00 AM ET) * *Zoom link*: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87338015211 <https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87338015211> * *Agenda:* o *Introduction and presentation of the Italy case on academic freedom* – Juan Carlos De Martin (10 minutes) o *Experience-sharing session* – 30 minutes o *Discussion on next steps and possible collaborations* – 15 minutes o *Closing remarks* – 5 minutes

Please feel free to email me if you would like a calendar invite for the call or if you have any other questions regarding the session. Best regards,

Armando Guio Executive Director

------------------------------------------------------------------------ *De:* J.C. DE MARTIN <juancarlos.demartin@polito.it> *Enviado:* miércoles, 7 de mayo de 2025 11:21 *Para:* netsociety@lists.networkofcenters.net <netsociety@lists.networkofcenters.net>; network@lists.networkofcenters.net <network@lists.networkofcenters.net> *Cc:* Sandra Cortesi <sccortesi@gmail.com>; Gasser, Urs <urs.gasser@tum.de>; Chinmayi Arun <chinmayiarun@gmail.com>; Wolfgang Schulz <w.schulz@leibniz-hbi.de>; Malavika Jayaram <mjayaram@digitalasiahub.org>; Celina Beatriz Bottino <celina@itsrio.org>; Fabro Steibel <ofabro@itsrio.org>; Carlos Affonso Pereira de Souza <caffsouza@gmail.com>; Guio Espanol, Armando <arg911@harvard.edu> *Asunto:* Re: Internal Reflection and Collaboration Calls: Advancing the NoC Network Amid Global Challenges Dear NoC Network Members,

Regarding the first off-the-record learning call (May 15), titled *" Academic Freedom: Challenges, Experiences and Perspectives"*, I would like to invite any NoC member who has some experiences (or tangible fears, e.g., proposed rules or bills) to drop me a line.

The plan is to prepare a series of initial short contributions, followed by a general discussion.

Many thanks,

juan carlos

Juan Carlos De Martin Professor of Computer Engineering Codirector, Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino https://demartin.polito.it

<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__demartin.polito.it&d=Dw...>

...

Faculty Associate Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society Harvard University

On 29/04/25 18:16, Guio Espanol, Armando wrote:

Dear NoC Network Members,

The rise in global and geopolitical tensions has significantly challenged international collaboration between academic centers. These developments have also limited — and in some cases compromised — funding sources, creating uncertainty and concern within our community.

In this environment of increasing fragmentation, the NoC’s role becomes even more important. Global academic networks like ours are essential for fostering collaboration, exchange, and collective action. Strengthening our resilience now is key to sustaining the collaborative and mutually supportive world we strive for.

To help address these challenges, we are pleased to announce a new series of internal calls for participating centers: "*Responding to Uncertainty and Global Fragmentation: NoC Internal Calls*." Led by members of the Executive Committee, these sessions will focus on the most pressing topics that require collective reflection and coordinated support. Further information about these calls is available here

<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__docs.google.com_documen...>.

...

Our first session will take place in the coming days, led by Professor Juan Carlos De Martin from the Nexa Center for Internet & Society at the Politecnico di Torino, and will focus on critical issues such as academic freedom and freedom of expression in today’s environment.

These conversations will help identify the most important topics for our centers and guide us in strengthening the relationships necessary to meet today’s challenges. They will also support the development of a model of collaboration and governance that encourages broad participation across the network.

We deeply appreciate your ongoing commitment and encourage you to look out for the invitation from Juan Carlos with further details.

With best regards,

Armando — on behalf of the NoC Executive Committee

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