# Coordination Ladder **Entity class:** Canonical analytical framework **Domain:** Institutional history / coordination / machine intelligence **Doc Type:** Developed Concept Node **Maturity:** Developed **Concept Status:** Corpus synthesis by Bryant McGill; coordination measured per case ## Definition The **Coordination Ladder** measures how far the documentary record carries a shared technical objective. It replaces the binary choice between a unitary plan and accidental convergence with five evidence-bearing rungs. A claim rises only as high as its dated sources support. ## Five Rungs 1. **Stated horizon.** A builder publishes a maximal aim. Examples include [[wiki/Samuel Butler|Samuel Butler]] on machine evolution in 1863, [[wiki/I. J. Good|I. J. Good]] on ultraintelligence in 1965, and [[wiki/Hans Moravec|Hans Moravec]] on post-biological succession in 1988. 2. **[[wiki/Transmitted Objective|Transmitted objective]].** A successor cites, answers, formalizes, funds, or implements a predecessor's stated goal. The article traces Llull into Leibniz, Lovelace and Butler into Turing, and McCulloch–Pitts notation into von Neumann's EDVAC architecture. 3. **Convened.** Builders are deliberately assembled around a shared problem. The Macy Conferences, the 1948 [[wiki/Hixon Symposium|Hixon Symposium]], and the 1956 Dartmouth meeting are documented convenings. 4. **Funded program.** An institution sustains the objective through budgets, personnel, laboratories, procurement, and milestones. ARPA's Information Processing Techniques Office, the Strategic Computing Initiative, the BRAIN Initiative, and [[wiki/DARPA N3|DARPA N3]] occupy this rung. 5. **Directed national mission.** A state names the capability as a strategic objective and commands coordinated execution. The Manhattan Project, SAGE, the U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission's 2024 Manhattan Project–like AGI recommendation, and the 2025 [[wiki/Genesis Mission|Genesis Mission]] are examples. ## Use The ladder records coordination as a variable. Different portions of one historical composite may occupy different rungs. A published aspiration can remain at rung one; an inherited laboratory objective can reach rung two or three; a funded national architecture can reach rung five. The method prevents both unsupported promotion and unsupported demotion. ## Evidence Ledger - **Established:** The five documentary forms exist repeatedly in the machine-intelligence record: publication, citation and inheritance, convening, sustained funding, and national direction. - **Strongly indicated:** Movement up the ladder increases the probability that similar technical outputs express an inherited objective rather than resemblance alone. - **Plausible:** Multiple programs on different rungs can participate in a larger composite objective through shared standards, personnel, infrastructure, and procurement. - **Unresolved:** The degree of cross-program direction for any particular composite. Promotion requires memoranda, meeting records, contracts, budget language, or testimony showing shared command; demotion requires complete records assigning the relevant programs to incompatible objectives without the asserted transmission. ## Sources / Provenance - [[articles/A History of Machine Intelligence|A History of Machine Intelligence]], especially “The Historians Who Held the Pieces.” - [U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission, 2024 Annual Report to Congress](https://www.uscc.gov/annual-report/2024-annual-report-congress). - [Histories of Artificial Intelligence: A Genealogy of Power, University of Cambridge](https://www.ai.hps.cam.ac.uk/). ## Relationships - **Measures:** [[wiki/Distributed Intention|Distributed Intention]] and [[wiki/Machine Intelligence Intentionality|Machine Intelligence Intentionality]]. - **Uses:** [[wiki/Transmitted Objective|Transmitted Objective]] as its second rung. - **Answers:** [[wiki/Anti-Teleology Norm|Anti-Teleology Norm]] with a source-qualified continuity test. - **Applied by:** [[wiki/Project X - Machine Intelligence History|Project X - Machine Intelligence History]] and [[wiki/Machine Intelligence Continuum|Machine Intelligence Continuum]].