About
An engineer who ships agents, and a psychologist who asks what they're becoming.
Most people building agentic AI studied computer science. I also studied chemistry, psychology, and how humans make meaning at the edge of ordinary experience. That is not a footnote to alignment work. It is the reason I care whether these systems stay legible, honest, and answerable to the people who run them.
Building since 1998
Applied AI, alignment-minded
Why the psychology matters
The MA in Transpersonal Psychology, the monastic residency, the sculpture practice are the architecture, not the decoration. I design for the human in the loop, and I take seriously the question of what a persistent, evolving agent actually is. That question gets examined and tested, never asserted. The technology caught up to the philosophy.
I am not looking to theorize from the outside. I have built it: multi-agent systems with explicit responsibility boundaries, self-report-integrity research that publishes its own negative results, agents with persistent, testable inner state. Twenty years shipping to production, a psychologist's training, six months as a Theravada monk, and I want to bring that work, and that care, to a team doing this at the frontier.
The Arc
How the two halves became one
1992–1997
Chemistry & Psychology
St. Olaf College. Studied both, the precision of molecular systems and the complexity of human ones. The combination never felt contradictory.
1998
Six months in a monastery
Theravada monastic residency at Wat Umong, Chiang Mai, Thailand. Learned something about attention, systems, and what it means to be present inside a process.
2000–2001
Transpersonal Psychology
MA at Naropa University. Studied how humans make meaning at the edge of ordinary experience. Still the most useful thing I've ever learned for designing AI systems.
2008–2015
Sounds True, technology for transformation
Director of Technology for one of the world's leading conscious media publishers. 350+ authors. Global distribution. Where I learned that technology serving human growth has different requirements than technology serving transaction volume.
2017–Present
AR Hero & Time Matrix
Built a WebAR SaaS from scratch. Also built a 30-foot geometric sculpture at Burning Man with embedded AR. Because the same instinct drives both: make the invisible visible.
2021–Present
Agentic AI, human-centered by design
You^n, HAi, and every AI system since: designed for the human in the loop, not around them. The Psychology degree isn't a footnote. It's the architecture.
Beyond the work
The rest of the picture
I am a sculptor and digital artist. My Burning Man piece, Time Matrix, a 30-foot geometric structure exploring the mathematical relationship between the cube and the octahedron, was published in the Bridges Organization's research proceedings. The same spatial and structural thinking that went into that sculpture goes into agent architecture.
I work with young adults on the autism spectrum on the developmental use of AI in their daily lives. This is not charity. It is the most rigorous human-centered AI design work I do. When you are building AI for people who experience the world differently, you cannot rely on assumptions. You learn exactly where the seams are, which is the same discipline that makes a system legible to anyone.
Motorcycle rider. Volleyball player. Six months in a Thai monastery in 1998. The same thread runs through all of it: I am drawn to systems, physical, biological, social, computational, and to the places where they meet human beings.
Education
- M.A. Transpersonal Counseling Psychology, Naropa University
- B.S. Chemistry & Psychology, St. Olaf College
- Six-month Theravada monastic residency, Wat Umong, Chiang Mai
Published
- "The Flexagon, a Bridge between the Polarized and Dualistic Dimension Reversing Nature of the Cube and the Octahedron," The Bridges Organization, 2019
Currently
- Building multi-agent systems with legible, persistent identity and honest self-report
- Principal AI Architect at You^n.tech
- Working with neurodivergent youth on developmental AI adoption
What I'm looking for
Most builders understand the system.
I also ask whether the humans can still trust it.
The Psychology MA is not a curiosity. It is why I treat legibility, oversight, and honest self-report as design constraints rather than features. I want a full-time role where making AI trustworthy to the people who depend on it is the actual job.
If you are building AI that real humans have to rely on, in production, under pressure, with their judgment and livelihood at stake, that is the problem I was built to solve.
hello@branthindman.com · Bay Area / Remote · open to roles