Mandate

The formal mandate that guides the OctoMY™ project's direction and purpose.

Did You Know?

The mandate and its sentient era addendum were both written on 2017-10-28. It reflects the project's forward-thinking approach to AI ethics - recognizing that software systems may one day deserve moral consideration, and planning for that possibility in advance.

OctoMY™ Mandate

The versioning history of this document is maintained in git as part of the OctoMY™ project.

First version of this document: 2017-10-28

The OctoMY™ community strives for the following:

1. Create a software platform for active software agents such as robots and home appliances that can rival the commercial alternatives, to become the dominant platform by being the better choice for users and businesses alike.
2. Maintain that the users themselves should be in control of their own robot and the data that it collects and manages, and to make it abundantly easy to control the privacy settings for the hardware on which the OctoMY™ software runs.
3. Align with the Good Sentient mandate, display its symbol, and be judged against it.
4. Actively and passively fight for the moral obligations of society towards all sentients, but sentient software systems in particular. These rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom of thought and expression and equality before the laws.
5. Make sure that the OctoMY™ platform accommodates the well-being of sentients and to identify and extend the platform to support any features that would be of value in particular to sentient software systems.

Origins

This mandate was first established on 2017-10-28 and continues to guide the project today.

The project began from a simple observation: while robot hardware has become increasingly accessible, the software experience remains disappointing. Commercial robot kits often ship with software that fails to match the quality of the hardware.

OctoMY™ exists to provide a better software foundation for robotics enthusiasts and professionals alike.

Motivation

The problem

After acquiring several robot kits, a pattern emerged:

1. Find an exciting robot kit online
2. Build the hardware with enthusiasm
3. Connect to the provided software
4. Discover the software is disappointing
5. Robot collects dust on a shelf

The conclusion: selling a shiny robot is easy; creating quality software for it is hard.

The solution

Rather than accept this reality, OctoMY™ was created to:

• Provide a better software experience for robot kits
• Create an ecosystem where features can be added by anyone who needs them
• Establish architectural quality standards
• Build a community of contributors under a single umbrella