The work
From operational evidence to situations and projections
We develop theories, architectures, and working software that enable complex distributed systems to transform operational evidence into signs, statuses, situations, and projections as they operate.
A shared basis, for human and autonomous actors, for understanding what is happening.
Projections of what may follow, formed while the system runs.
Explicit, bounded possibilities for action while intervention remains possible.
Platforms
Interpretation at the core of every distributed system
Substrates and Serventis integrate interpretation into the core of any distributed system, making operational meaning a first-class computational capability.
A million circuits, 8.5 billion deliveries a second
A Java runtime for event-driven data flow. Its central object is the circuit: a processing engine with one worker thread that runs every event sent to it in order.
substrates.tech Serventis · InterpretationGive software a shared language for what happens
Small vocabularies for reporting actions and results. Each domain keeps its own vocabulary, and consumers choose what to conclude from the reports.
serventis.techResearch
SeeSenseSituateSteerSimulateScale
Our research draws on semiotics, cybernetics, holonic flow and perceptual control theory, and it is changing how complex, large-scale software systems see, sense, situate, steer, simulate and scale.
- Semiotics
- Cybernetics
- Holonic flow
- Perceptual control theory
Seeing Systems
Booklets
The Inversion of Software
Activity, time, and the changing centre of observability
How agentic systems move interpretive time and attention to the upper levels of the activity hierarchy, and the representation observability needs there.
Read the booklet