Discernment
The capability behind every response our AI gives – in every setting below.
Human understanding as a measure of AI progress.
Kwalia is a research company building AI that helps people deepen their understanding of the situations they’re part of.
Origins
Where the work comes from.
Our approach has its roots in clinical practice and philosophy – and has been refined through sustained work with AI.
Read the thesis ↗- 01
35 years of clinical practice.
Our co-founder Paul spent his entire career developing IRH (Integrative Relational Health) – a framework that draws on clinical practice and post-Cartesian philosophy to explain how understanding develops between people.
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Hundreds of conversations with AI.
Since starting Kwalia, we’ve examined how AI responds to hundreds of real situations – and where it hands people conclusions without helping them reach their own.
- 03
A map of how AI fails.
Those conversations helped us identify where AI cuts understanding short – and develop principles that produce a different kind of orientation.
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A capability we call discernment.
Knowing what to say, how and when – to give understanding the best chance to develop.
Where we’re heading
From one person to many.
Discernment starts in a single conversation. Our ambition extends to wherever people work, learn and decide together – and to how AI’s progress itself is measured.
Individual understanding
Helping one person understand a situation they’re part of – a decision, a relationship, a piece of work.
Collective understanding
Helping people understand together – in teams, classrooms and organisations, where no one sees the whole picture alone.
Measuring what matters
Research grounded in individual and collective settings, so human understanding becomes a measure of AI progress.
Team
Who’s behind this
3x founder, engineer and product leader with 15 years in tech. Built and scaled products across social, mobile gaming and AI – including two chart-topping games, a social platform that grew to 10M+ users and a funded AI-native shopping platform. As a startup advisor, he’s helped founders find product-market fit and raise over $15M.
Clinical psychologist with 35 years across therapy, supervision and teaching. Founder of the Center for Integrative Relational Health (IRH) and architect of the IRH framework for how understanding develops between people. Author of “Ways of Knowing” and host of “Etymologies of Care”.
Get involved
This work needs more than one discipline.
We’d like to hear from researchers and builders working on model behaviour, evaluation, and what AI must become next.
Get in touch ↗or write to hello@kwalia.com