SPONTEINSTITUTEFounding campaign

SPONTE
INSTITUTE

Agency Over Algorithms

Advancing human freedom and flourishing in the age of AI, technocracy, and algorithmic markets.

Enter the institute

sponte (Latin) — of one’s own accord; freely, willingly, voluntarily

Classical statue illuminated by fire and digital systems
Mission

We empower _human flourishing_ and
defend _freedom_ against technocracy.

Sponte advances the classical-liberal tradition for a century defined by AI and technocratic power—so markets, technology, and institutions remain instruments that serve humanity, not systems of hidden control.

Why now

Central planning failed.
_Technocracy is succeeding._

The next decade will determine whether technology, markets, and institutions serve humanity—or control it.

1947
Mont Pelerin convened.Mises and Hayek answered the planners and rebuilt the intellectual case for a free society.
2026
The battlefront has moved into code.Ranking, pricing, permitting, scoring, and allocation are being automated into the systems of ordinary life.
Now
The answering institution does not yet exist.Sponte is building it before the defaults harden.
Research agenda

Strike
the root.

The 21st century’s decisive questions sit beneath today’s policy fights. We make them explicit—and test them.

01

Can AI plan an economy?

Update the calculation debate for machine planning and establish the limits of economic control.

02

When does a price cease to be a market signal?

Develop the theory of HyperPrices: algorithmic, engineered, and synthetic prices that look like discovery while carrying centralized assumptions.

03

Can human purposes be formalized from the outside?

Examine the epistemic limits of models that replace value, judgment, and responsibility with labels, metrics, and proxies.

04

What makes a system genuinely free?

Build usable doctrine around ownership, accountable judgment, contestability, competition, and meaningful exit.

What we do

Build the counter-establishment.

We shape the ideas, develop the people, and convene the councils where the 21st century’s economic order will be decided.

01

Research & Publishing

The economics of the algorithmic age, written before its defaults harden.

  • Working papers
  • Flagship books
  • Essays, film & audio
02

Fellowship

Scholars and builders fluent in the Austrian tradition and in code—trained and placed where systems are built.

  • Economics + AI
  • Finance + institutions
  • Placement network
03

Gatherings

Closed salons and an annual meeting for patrons, scholars, builders, and the ablest people on the other side.

  • Private briefings
  • Frontier workshops
  • Annual council
Proof of concept
7,000
influential readers globally

Anonymous. Unadvertised. Grown entirely by word of mouth. The audience institutions spend years chasing found this work on its own.

Leading hedge fund managers
Family offices
Frontier AI labs
Journalists & policymakers
The donor case

Their side has AI labs, universities, government, and media.
_Ours needs one institution._

Founding support builds the ideas, talent, language, and institutional memory that compound.