Empirical Loop

Empirical Loop (EMLP) is an organization focused on the research, development, and deployment of cooperative technology.

Two ideas guide our work:

First, we draw from the observation that technology enables individuals to scale up all things social. Consider the five-star review system, so ubiquitous it has become invisible. It allows, to borrow a phrase from Milton Friedman, “people who hate one another to deal with one another.” This mundane mechanism sits on two pillars: the technical architecture (computing networks and databases) and the social compact (institutional trust, economic incentives, and legal norms that preserve the system’s integrity). This dynamic repeats across every scale of modern life, from cultural expression and shared knowledge platforms to emerging models of tech-enabled deliberative democracy and human-AI cooperation. Technology, properly structured, extends our capacity for cooperation across distance to strangers and across time to future generations.

Second, as the Portuguese saying goes, “in practice, there is another theory” (na prática, a teoria é outra). Theory and practice naturally drift apart, and keeping them tethered requires deliberate institutional design. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s founding, faculty were expected to spend half their time in industry. In the social sciences, the action lab structure uses theory to shape and test real-world policy—empirical results refining foundational models. We adopt this lineage and close the loop, turning guided action into fundamental insight and back. To that end, we work alongside partners across industry, government, and civil society, so that we may further the theory of cooperation in direct contact with the messy realities of the world we live in.

We are just getting started. More to come.