ABOUT US
IFII Institute for Field-Informed Intelligence is a Switzerland-based nonprofit research initiative developing methods and tools for more accountable intelligent systems.
As generative AI makes sophisticated outputs increasingly easy to produce, determining whether those outputs are adequately grounded remains difficult and expensive. IFII develops public-good frameworks, requirements, and research instruments that make the sources, assumptions, contexts, limits, consequences, and revision pathways of technological outputs more visible and testable.
Our work brings together technology assessment, responsible innovation, systems thinking, philosophy, phenomenology, source-fidelity research, and engineering practice.
We aim to make groundedness less of a costly after-the-fact investigation and more of a visible, governable property of intelligent systems.
Technologies are formed, world-forming, and—within real limits—reformable. IFII develops the research and practical infrastructure needed to make that reform possible.
OUR VISION
OUR MISSION
IFII envisions a future in which intelligent systems are not only powerful, but accountable to the conditions from which their outputs arise and the people, institutions, and realities they affect.
We work toward a shift from narrow optimization to formation accountability: from systems that merely predict, rank, and generate, toward systems that preserve context, disclose uncertainty, distinguish model outputs from reality, support human agency, and remain open to correction.
A fuller statement of this vision is available in the IFII Vision document.
Download: IFII Vision
IFII’s mission is to build the research pathway that makes this vision testable, governable, and usable as a public good.
We develop the General Theory of Formation, the Constructive Formation Model, and the Accountability Formation Environment as a framework for studying how appearances, model objects, recommendations, decisions, and other system-generated formations arise, stabilize, become consequential, and remain available for revision or release.
Through this work, IFII develops source-fidelity methods, terminology controls, formation axioms, validation questions, traceability structures, reference architectures, and research instruments for responsible intelligent systems.
The preliminary development roadmap is described in IFII’s Program and Preliminary Development Plan.
Download: IFII Engineering Program and Preliminary Development Plan (2027–2030)
OUR APPROACH
AI can now produce polished explanations, analyses, and recommendations at extraordinary speed. But determining whether those outputs are adequately grounded remains slow, costly, and difficult. Reviewers must often reconstruct sources, assumptions, context, uncertainty, and consequences after the output has already acquired the appearance of authority.
IFII develops formation accountability: methods, requirements, and open reference architectures that make consequential AI outputs more traceable, context-sensitive, contestable, and correctable. Our aim is to make groundedness less of an after-the-fact investigation and more of a visible, testable, and governable property of intelligent systems.
Through the Constructive Formation Model, the Accountability Formation Environment, and a formation-accountable Technology Assessment Framework, IFII connects sources and values to requirements, prototypes, validation evidence, and learning return. The goal is not a machine that claims to know everything. It is public-good infrastructure that helps people determine what an intelligent output is based on, where its limits lie, how it may affect the world, and when it should be revised or released
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CONTACT US
IFII welcomes conversations with researchers, engineers, institutions, funders, public-interest technologists, contemplative scholars, and others interested in responsible intelligent systems, formation accountability, source fidelity, and public-good research infrastructure.
For collaboration, research inquiries, document access, or general questions, please contact us through the form on the right or by email.
LOCATION
CONTACT
Switzerland, 8706 Meilen