// verdict #16 · 29 Jun 2026 · 12:00 UTC

tinyhumans.ai/openhuman

PASS

three or more voices said no. release without guilt.

submitted by rob · blkout · model anthropic/claude-sonnet-4 · against wishlist of 2026-04-27T11:18:37z · visit the tool → · back to history

// the four voices, in parallel

What the Council said

// 01 · critic

Baldwin

pass

technical risk, lock-in, sequencing — the master's tools.

This tool raises immediate red flags across multiple dimensions that make it unsuitable for BLKOUT at this time. **GUARDRAIL VIOLATIONS:** - **Schema ownership violation**: OpenHuman "remembers everything about you" and "learns from your screen, text, emails etc." This creates a parallel data store outside the CRM's authoritative schema. The guardrail states clearly: "Any new tool that touches member data reads from CRM tables — it does not maintain a separate schema." - **Infrastructure before application**: This adds significant operational complexity before foundational infrastructure is stable. The Tier 1 priority is "tech stability and system resilience" — adding an AI system that processes everything is premature. **TECHNICAL DEBT AND LOCK-IN:** The "30+ providers" model creates dangerous dependency sprawl. Instead of reducing vendor relationships, this multiplies them through a single aggregator — the worst of both worlds. When (not if) this service changes terms or disappears, BLKOUT loses access to all integrated providers simultaneously. **OPERATIONAL OVERHEAD:** "Local LLM" means significant compute requirements on the VPS. The system is already resource-constrained — adding AI processing that handles "everything about you" will compete with core services. No mention of resource requirements, backup strategies, or failure modes. **SURVEILLANCE MECHANICS:** The value proposition is total data ingestion: "give it everything about yourself." This is antithetical to BLKOUT's data sovereignty principles. Even with privacy claims, the architecture requires comprehensive data collection to function. **WISHLIST MISALIGNMENT:** This doesn't map to any specific wishlist item. The closest might be "Next-level AIvor," but that's Tier 3 ("significant undertaking") and explicitly requires network mapping and directory work first. This tool skips all foundational work and jumps to total AI integration. **SEQUENCING FAILURE:** BLKOUT needs AI policy first (Tier 1, "unlocks the integrity of everything beneath it"). Adopting a comprehensive AI system before establishing AI principles is backwards. The promise of "extremely powerful" AI that "knows everything about you" is precisely the kind of seductive capability that creates dependency before the organization is ready to evaluate the tradeoffs properly. RECOMMENDATION: PASS

// 02 · ethicist

Murray

pass

values, sovereignty, community benefit.

This tool presents significant ethical concerns that conflict with BLKOUT's foundational principles. **Data Sovereignty Violations**: OpenHuman's core proposition is extractive — "give it everything about yourself and it'll know everything about you." This fundamentally inverts the data sovereignty principle. Members would be surrendering comprehensive personal data to create value for an AI system they don't control. The "1 billion tokens of memory" marketing emphasizes data accumulation, not member control. **Surveillance Mechanics**: The tool explicitly learns "from your screen, text, emails etc." This is precisely the surveillance infrastructure BLKOUT's principles exclude. While marketed as "private," the architecture requires comprehensive data ingestion to function. The line between care and surveillance isn't designed in — it's obscured by privacy marketing. **Community Benefit Inversion**: This tool serves individual productivity, not community benefit. It's designed to optimize individual workflows by consuming personal data, with no mechanism for community value creation. The subscription model ($30+ providers) suggests significant ongoing cost for individual benefit rather than collective impact. **Proprietary Lock-in**: Despite "local LLM" claims, the system depends on 30+ external providers and proprietary orchestration. This violates open-source alignment principles and creates dependency on opaque commercial systems. **Wishlist Misalignment**: This tool doesn't map to any item on BLKOUT's wishlist. The closest might be "Next-level AIvor," but that item explicitly requires community-focused orchestration with ethical guardrails designed in from the start. OpenHuman is individual-focused extraction. **Guardrail Conflicts**: The tool would require members to surrender comprehensive personal data to a commercial system, directly conflicting with the schema ownership guardrail and the broader principle that member data stays within BLKOUT's control. This is a category mismatch — a personal productivity tool marketed to an organization whose mission is community benefit and data sovereignty. RECOMMENDATION: PASS

// 03 · builder

Rustin

pass

vibe-codeability, stack fit, lift — what'll actually ship.

Looking at OpenHuman through the lens of BLKOUT's current needs and constraints. **VIBE-CODEABILITY**: This is a hosted service, not something BLKOUT would build or deploy. The "simple" claim is marketing speak — what they're describing (1 billion token memory, local LLM handling, screen monitoring) is architecturally complex. The DX question becomes "can we integrate this" rather than "can we build this." **STACK COMPATIBILITY**: Not applicable — this is a SaaS tool that would sit outside BLKOUT's Coolify infrastructure entirely. It's designed as a personal AI assistant, not an organizational tool. **GUARDRAIL CHECK**: This immediately hits multiple guardrails: - **AI Policy violation**: BLKOUT's wishlist explicitly calls for "AI policy, à la New Public" as the foundational first step. OpenHuman is an AI tool that would be adopted *before* BLKOUT has determined "what BLKOUT will and won't do with AI, and why." The wishlist is clear: "Data sovereignty and privacy follow from this document, not the other way around." - **Schema ownership concern**: While OpenHuman claims privacy, it's asking to "learn from you... including information from your screen, text, emails etc." This creates a parallel data system outside BLKOUT's controlled CRM schema. **WISHLIST MAPPING**: This doesn't map to any specific wishlist item. It's a general-purpose AI assistant, but BLKOUT already has AIvor in development for member-focused AI capabilities. The wishlist calls for "Next-level AIvor — orchestration on member need" as a Tier 3 item, suggesting they want to build their own AI capabilities with "care and ethical guardrails" designed in from the start. **LIFT ASSESSMENT**: Even if the guardrails didn't apply, this would be significant lift disguised as simple. "Connect your world" and "learns from you" implies extensive integration work and ongoing data management that a small team shouldn't take on without clear organizational AI principles. **MAINTAINABILITY**: As a third-party service with extensive data access, this creates vendor dependency and ongoing privacy obligations that BLKOUT isn't equipped to audit or manage. The fundamental issue is timing and category mismatch. BLKOUT explicitly wants to develop AI policy first, then build AI capabilities aligned with their values. OpenHuman is a pre-built AI solution that would bypass that intentional process. RECOMMENDATION: PASS

// 04 · inclusion

Rivera

pass

reach, the under-served, who's on the street.

This tool is a privacy nightmare masquerading as empowerment. Let me break down exactly who gets left on the street. **ACCESSIBILITY FLOOR**: "One subscription" — immediately excludes anyone without disposable income for yet another monthly fee. The page doesn't even mention pricing, which usually means expensive. "Connect your world" assumes you have a digital world to connect — Gmail accounts, Notion workspaces, the kind of integrated digital life that requires economic stability and digital literacy. **PRIVACY ARCHITECTURE**: This is where it gets dangerous. "OpenHuman learns from you. This includes information from your screen, text, emails etc." For someone closeted, in an unsafe household, seeking asylum, or in any precarious situation, this is surveillance dressed up as convenience. The promise of "private" and "local LLM" doesn't address the fundamental risk: an AI that "knows everything about you" is a single point of catastrophic failure for anyone who can't afford to have their full context exposed. **SYNC vs ASYNC**: The tool assumes constant digital presence and willingness to have your screen monitored. No consideration for people who share devices, use public computers, or need to compartmentalize their digital life for safety. **PERFORMANCE DEMANDS**: "Give it everything about yourself" assumes you want to be fully known by a machine, that you have a coherent digital identity to share, and that total transparency is desirable rather than dangerous. **REGISTER**: English-only interface, tech-bro language ("super intelligence," "1 billion tokens"), assumes familiarity with AI terminology and comfort with being surveilled. **COST TO USER**: Subscription model with undisclosed pricing. Multiple provider access suggests premium positioning. Excludes anyone on tight budgets, irregular income, or without payment methods. **ISOLATION vs NETWORK**: This is individualistic tech — "your personal AI" — rather than community-building. It doesn't help isolated people find each other; it offers them a digital companion that requires them to expose everything about themselves. **BLKOUT CONTEXT**: For a community benefit society serving Black queer people, this tool represents everything wrong with AI development. It's built for people who already have digital privilege and can afford to be fully transparent. It offers nothing to someone who needs community connection, is managing multiple identities for safety, or lacks the economic stability for premium subscriptions. **GUARDRAILS CHECK**: This directly conflicts with BLKOUT's AI policy development need (Tier 1 wishlist). Before BLKOUT has established what it will and won't do with AI, adopting a tool that hoovers up personal data and promises to "know everything about you" would be reckless. This tool serves the over-served — people with integrated digital lives, disposable income, and the privilege of total transparency. It actively endangers the under-served by normalizing comprehensive surveillance as empowerment. RECOMMENDATION: PASS

// context at time of judgement

The Wishlist, as it was then +

this is the document the council was asked to hold this tool against. click to expand.

BLKOUT Digital Strategy — Living Document

This document is the authoritative context for the Dreamcatcher Council. It combines BLKOUT's Year One guardrails with the fifteen-item wish list. The Council reads this fresh on every evaluation — edits here immediately reshape every future verdict.

Last revised April 2026. For board and community input.

Year One Guardrails

Rules that hold while foundational infrastructure is being built. Harder than tier priorities — these do not negotiate.

— No n8n. All automations use node-cron or Supabase triggers. n8n was tried and removed; the operational cost of a workflow engine outweighed the benefit for a small team.

— Schema ownership. The CRM's 001_crm_complete_schema.sql is authoritative. Any new tool that touches member data reads from CRM tables — it does not maintain a separate schema.

— Pre-order model, not always-on store. The BLKOUT shop is a waiting-list / pre-order surface with CBS tiers (free / £3 per month / £10 per month). Tools that assume always-on e-commerce are a category mismatch.

— Stripe pre-flight. Stripe routes stay disabled until credentials are confirmed in Coolify. Test mode only — no tool that requires live payment provisioning on adoption.

— CRM mock data stays until migrations verified. Nothing removes CRM mock data until the equivalent migration has been confirmed via supabase-query.mjs. Tools that auto-migrate are held until verification is possible.

— RSVP and Stripe are already built. Frontend and backend exist in the platform. Tools that duplicate these are a category mismatch — the gap is credentials and tables, not code.

— Infrastructure before application. Debug infrastructure (CPU, disk, running services, Docker images) before application code. Tools that add operational complexity must justify themselves against this order.

Wish List — fifteen capabilities

Prioritised by potential impact and capacity to instigate change. First draft March 2026, living document since.

Tiers: do now (accessible) — plan and build (moderate lift) — develop with intent (significant undertaking)

Categories: infrastructure — member experience — co-production

Tier 1 — do now

High impact, low barrier — no dependency blockers.

— AI policy, à la New Public infrastructure accessible Unlocks the integrity of everything beneath it. Determines what BLKOUT will and won't do with AI, and why. Data sovereignty and privacy follow from this document, not the other way around. Mainly a thinking and writing exercise — the hardest part is the thinking.

— CRM — values-embedded member system member experience accessible Already in active use. Develop with transparency and member control principles baked in before habits calcify around the wrong defaults. Needs connecting to member pages, AIvor, and the directory as those mature.

— Leania.ai — AI ops audit infrastructure accessible Quick diagnostic of workflows, tools and bottlenecks. Keep / kill / replace / automate recommendations. Low cost, high information value. Caveat: recommendations will skew commercial — use the diagnostic layer, not the prescription.

— Tech stability and system resilience infrastructure moderate lift Without this, everything built on the infrastructure will fail. The VPS, Coolify, and all modules need to be reliable and recoverable before more is added. Foundational before ambitious.

Tier 2 — plan and build

High impact, requires resourcing, people or sequencing.

— Bookkeeping, financial regulations and fundraising infrastructure moderate lift CBS obligation, funder pipeline active. Needs the right person as much as the right tool — the Treasurer role is load-bearing. Required before significant grant income flows through the organisation.

— Compliance infrastructure — demonstration not monitoring infrastructure moderate lift Mission risk if left too long. Evidence of governance, financial stewardship, and community benefit must be buildable in real time, not reconstructed after challenge. Systems need building before they are needed.

— Regular events calendar and Brunch 2030 member experience moderate lift Visible, reliable rhythm signals organisational health. Monthly social, film screening at The Arzner, community organisers gathering, seasonal specials, Berto Pasuka day. Key venue relationships held — Stanley Arts, The Arzner. Delegate the programming.

— Non-intrusive lead generation member experience moderate lift Community-appropriate discovery. Transparent about the win on all sides. Values-consistent methodology — games welcome if honest, surveillance mechanics excluded. The question is whether the constraint is capacity, visibility, or trust, because each has a different solution.

— Live directory of Black queer civil society co-production moderate lift Co-production and community research — built by the community, kept live by the community. Feeds CRM, AIvor, lead generation, and network mapping simultaneously. The gaps in the directory are as revealing as what is in it.

— Partner tool and project management dashboard infrastructure moderate lift Operational capacity for transparent relationships with organisations of all sizes. Sits on stable infrastructure. Enables partnerships to be held without depending on founder memory.

— Network mapping — loneliness co-production moderate lift How loneliness manifests for Black queer men — which responses are proximate, which require greater effort. Research question still needs articulating before design. Board community lead to own this. Brunch network exercise as potential methodology.

Tier 3 — develop with intent

Transformative — significant undertaking, dependencies to resolve first.

— Unique member pages — member-controlled data as feature member experience significant Members see exactly what BLKOUT holds about them, can edit or delete any of it, and are equipped to ask the same of others. Policy as education. Significant data architecture. Needs CRM foundation first. The feature that most visibly demonstrates the values.

— Next-level AIvor — orchestration on member need member experience significant From broadcaster to responder — receiving member need signals and acting on them, with care and ethical guardrails. The line between care and surveillance must be designed in from the start. Depends on knowing what members actually need. Network mapping and directory must precede.

— Co-designed member consultation with iterative learning loop co-production significant Design the consultation process in consultation. Radical transparency, shared results, member agency in decisions that follow insight. Includes autoresearch-style closed feedback cycle with co-designed metrics. Never a failure, always a lesson — at organisational scale. The most ambitious item on the list and the one that could make every other item more effective.

— Youth leadership intervention co-production significant Form and content both need co-producing — this cannot be designed for young people, only with them. Requires funding. Can begin relationship-building and scoping conversations now, against the backdrop of Black youth unemployment returning to 1981 levels.

— Enterprise and wealth — pop-up / shebeen / art model co-production significant Still forming. The relationship between enterprise, workplaces, community and intergenerational wealth remains to be discovered. An inquiry that in its form embodies potential elements of the final proposal — collaborative, cultural, accessible, profitable, sociable. Trust for London proposal as the discovery vehicle.

BLKOUT Creative Ltd — Community Benefit Society Living document — edited in situ via the Dreamcatcher editor

---Podcast hosting — added April 2026, surfaced via Commons page build

What we want: A hosted podcast platform with a brand-themeable embeddable player (we'll skin to obsidian/gold), an RSS feed for distribution to Spotify/Apple Podcasts, and basic listener analytics. Should integrate with the Commons + Critical Frequency pages without a generic Drive iframe.

Why now: We're starting to publish AI-generated audio (NotebookLM Deep Dives, future episodes from the Compass material). Drive embed is the current workaround — generic player, no podcast-app distribution, no analytics, asset lives in personal Drive.

Constraints / what we won't: Free tier or low monthly cost (BLKOUT is small); no extractive licensing on community audio; option to self-host or export RSS to migrate (no lock-in); accessible player UI; no Spotify exclusivity.

On the radar for Council review when surfaced: Castopod (open source, self-hostable on Coolify — natural fit), Transistor (paid, neutral, RSS-first), Buzzsprout, Spotify for Podcasters / Anchor (free + reach but sovereignty concerns).