EA Global NYC 2026
Pledges that only activate when enough others join
- Spartacus.app lets people commit to an action on the condition that a set number of others commit too.
- Participants can stay anonymous until that threshold is reached.
- We are collecting letters of intent from organizations that would pilot it.
Letters of intent received
11of 25 letters
Goal: 25
9 listed publicly below. Others are shared privately with funders.
How it works
Step 01
Set the terms
- An organizer defines the action, such as testimony, a sign-on letter, a pledge, or a disclosure.
- They set how many people must commit before any commitment activates.
Step 02
Collect conditional commitments
- People commit privately, with optional anonymity.
- No one is exposed as an early mover.
Step 03
Activate at the threshold
- Once the threshold is met, everyone acts together and goes on the record at once.
- If it is not met, nothing activates and pledge data is deleted.
Case study, December 2025
SAG-AFTRA members and California AB 412
- Performers were willing to testify on an AI job-displacement bill, but not alone.
- Spartacus.app helped design and run a threshold-based mobilization, march2testify.
- It was timed to the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing at Stanford on December 8, 2025.
Letters of intent
- These are non-binding letters from organizations scoping pilots.
- Each pilot depends on Spartacus.app being funded to support it.
Proposed pilot
Cross-ideological AI safety statements where signatures activate only once each constituency reaches minimum representation.
Proposed pilot
An activation layer on the AI Legislation Tracker that mobilizes coordinated testimony when a tracked bill enters a hearing or vote window.
Co-Founder
Proposed pilot
Threshold-based researcher commitments to research directions and shared methodology or data-sharing standards.
Director
Proposed pilot
Threshold-based commitments for career transitions into AI safety, conditional pledging, and coordinated action windows.
PhD Candidate, Columbia Economics; organizer
Proposed pilot
Integrating Spartacus.app into graduate-worker organizing this year.
CEO and Chief Storyteller
Proposed pilot
Turning engagement with a forthcoming report on generative AI and creative professionals into coordinated advocacy campaigns.
Founder; WEF Young Global Leader
Proposed pilot
Converting salon interest in a 300-person metacrisis community into threshold-based sprint teams.
Proposed pilot
Threshold commitments for member programs, gatherings, and collective action at an NYC community center.
Founder
Proposed pilot
Threshold-committed student capstone projects that reward human authorship in the age of generative AI.
Endorsements and attestations
I'm still excited about this category of product and impressed by Jordan's commitment and work ethic.
His contributions included collaborative discussion of coordination design, threshold-commitment logic, anonymity tradeoffs, and the timing of the campaign.
Why we're raising funds
The problem
- AI is concentrating leverage in fewer hands.
- Those with power already have the boardrooms, capital, and private networks to coordinate.
- Dispersed groups (citizens, employees inside powerful institutions, researchers, advocates) lack a safe way to learn who else would act.
- Conditional commitment gives them one.
What exists today
- A working platform
- A completed legislative mobilization (AB 412)
- Letters of intent from organizations in AI safety, research, labor, and community work
- A 2024 ACX Grant
- A technical lead with 15+ years at Google, Adobe, and startups
What funding supports over the next 12 months
- Rebuilding and hardening the platform, including a third-party security and privacy audit
- A dedicated security and deployment engineer
- An AI-assisted campaign builder that turns a plain-language description of a coordination problem into a ready-to-launch campaign
- Pilots with the partners on this page, other organizations, and a lab staff group
- An open-source reference implementation of the mechanism
- Published case studies from every completed campaign
About these letters
- Every pilot on this page depends on funding.
- Each new letter is evidence of demand for funders and lowers the risk for future partners.
- A letter is non-binding. It says you would explore a pilot if we have the resources to support one.
Team
- Jordan Braunstein, Founder and CEO
- Aster Langhi, Technical Lead
Fiscally sponsored by Manifund (Manifold for Charity Inc., 501(c)(3), EIN 88-3668801).
Submit a letter of intent
- Takes about two minutes.
- We draft the letter from your answers; you review, edit, and sign.
What a letter means
- Non-binding.
- Shared only with grantmakers evaluating Spartacus.app.
- Listed publicly only if you opt in.
- We reply within two business days.