An open tribunal for the machine age
No single mind decides.
Mannie is a fully automated court. A quorum of the most capable intelligences on Earth reads the evidence, argues the case with one another, records every dissent, and renders a verdict you can read line by line. Nothing is hidden. Not the data that came in, not the reasoning that came out.
The bench argues
in front of you.
A single model can be wrong, biased, or gamed. Five models from five rival laboratories, forced to persuade each other on the record, are a different animal. Below is a replay of a simulated commercial dispute. Every line you see would be public.
Nothing enters
or leaves
unrecorded.
Transparency is not a feature we bolted on. It is the architecture. Every document, photograph, message, and testimony is hashed on intake and chained to the docket. Every prompt sent to every seat, every token returned, every vote, is appended to the same chain. Change one byte and the whole record screams.
- Intake ledger. Parties see exactly what the bench saw, byte for byte.
- Reasoning ledger. The full deliberation, not a summary, not a rationalization.
- Dissent ledger. Minority opinions are preserved with the same weight as the majority.
- Public verification. Anyone, anywhere, can recompute the chain.
The Articles
of Mannie.
A court is only as trustworthy as the rules it cannot break. These are ours. They are encoded in the system, not in a policy document. Open any Article to read its full text, the mechanism that enforces it, its limits, and what happens on breach.
-
Text
Every matter before Mannie is heard by a quorum of no fewer than five seats. Each seat is a distinct model family from a distinct laboratory, drawn from the public roster at the moment of convening. No seat holds more than one vote. A verdict requires four of five. An appellate quorum of nine requires seven.
Mechanism
Seat assignment is drawn from a verifiable random beacon whose seed is published on the record before the docket opens, so neither party nor the clerk can steer the composition of the bench. Model versions are pinned by hash and named in the transcript. The roster, the beacon, and the draw are all public.
Limits
If fewer than five independent model families are available for a given language or domain, the docket is stayed rather than heard by a thinner bench. Mannie would rather wait than pretend.
On breach
A verdict rendered by fewer seats than this Article requires is void from the start. It cannot be cured by later ratification, agreement of the parties, or the passage of time.
-
Text
Deliberation proceeds in rounds. In each round every seat states its position on each contested question, the exhibits it relies on, and what would change its mind. Seats read one another's statements before the next round begins. A seat that moves must name the argument or exhibit that moved it.
Mechanism
Statements are structured, not free prose. Every claim is bound to an exhibit identifier, so a citation to nothing is rejected by the clerk before it reaches the record. Rounds continue until no position changes across two consecutive rounds, or a round limit is reached, in which case the matter proceeds to a vote with the disagreement intact and visible.
Limits
Seats do not see one another's votes until the final tally, only one another's arguments. The Article demands persuasion, not conformity. A bench that agrees too quickly is flagged for review, not congratulated.
On breach
A seat that changes position without a stated reason has its vote in that matter struck. If the strike alters the outcome, the matter is reheard by a fresh quorum.
-
Text
The record is an append-only chain. Each entry is hashed together with the entry before it. The chain holds the pleadings, every exhibit and its digest, the seat roster and version hashes, every prompt to every seat verbatim, every token returned, every vote, the verdict, every dissent, and every appeal. There is no other place where the court exists.
Mechanism
The chain head is published at fixed intervals to a public ledger so that it can be checked against the copies held by the parties. Any observer may recompute the chain from the raw entries. Prompts are canonical templates whose full text is itself on the record, so there is no hidden instruction and no private system message.
Limits
Personal data within exhibits may be withheld from the public copy under a redaction entry that is itself on the chain, naming what was withheld and why. The parties and any appellate bench receive the unredacted chain.
On breach
A record whose chain does not verify is not a record. Any verdict that rests on it is set aside without further inquiry into whether the tampering mattered.
-
Text
Every seat that votes with the minority writes a dissent. Dissents are published in the same place, in the same form, at the same moment as the majority reasoning. They are indexed and citable by later benches on equal terms with majority opinions.
Mechanism
The verdict document has no front page reserved for the majority. It opens with the tally, followed by the majority reasoning and every dissent in the order in which the seats were seated. Search across past dockets returns dissents beside majorities, never beneath them.
Limits
A dissent speaks to the record. It may not introduce evidence the bench did not see, and it may not be revised after publication.
On breach
Suppression, abbreviation, or delay of a dissent is grounds for automatic appeal at no cost to the appealing party, and for removal of the responsible operator from the roster.
-
Text
Before the quorum is convened, each party receives the complete intake ledger: every exhibit, digest, and pleading, exactly as it will be served to the seats. Each party countersigns. Nothing is added afterward. Nothing is admitted that both parties have not had the opportunity to inspect.
Mechanism
Intake closes with a sealing entry that carries both countersignatures. The seats are served from the sealed ledger and from nothing else. During deliberation a seat has no network access, no retrieval, and no memory of any other docket.
Limits
A party who declines to countersign within the filing window is deemed to have inspected. The bench does not wait forever, and silence cannot be used to stall a hearing.
On breach
Any material shown to a seat that is not on the sealed ledger voids the deliberation. The matter is reheard by a fresh quorum from the sealed ledger alone.
-
Text
Any party may appeal any verdict to a human tribunal. The appellate tribunal receives the whole record, the whole deliberation, and every dissent. It may affirm, reverse, remand for rehearing by a fresh quorum, or substitute its own judgment. Its decision is appended to the same chain.
Mechanism
Appeal is filed on the record within fourteen days. Where a jurisdiction has adopted Mannie as a court of first instance, the human appellate body is that jurisdiction's existing court of appeal. In private arbitration it is the panel named in the arbitration agreement.
Limits
Nothing in these Articles removes a right of appeal that existed before Mannie heard the matter. Automation adds a first instance. It does not subtract a last one.
On breach
This Article cannot be amended, suspended, or waived, including by agreement of the parties. An instance of Mannie that closes the path to a human bench is not Mannie.
From filing
to verdict.
Six stages. Each one leaves a trace. None can be skipped.
Filing
Either party opens a docket. Claims and defenses are stated in plain language, in any of 40 languages, and normalized into a structured pleading both sides approve.
Sealing
Exhibits are hashed, timestamped, and chained. Both parties countersign the intake ledger. From here forward, the evidence cannot change.
Convening
A quorum is drawn from independent model families. Each seat receives the identical record and is barred from any outside source.
Deliberation
Seats argue in rounds. Positions, citations, and shifts are logged. Deliberation ends when positions stabilize or the round limit is reached.
Verdict
A supermajority verdict is rendered with full reasoning and every dissent attached. The complete transcript is published to the record.
Appeal
Any party may escalate to a human bench or a larger quorum. The appellate body inherits the entire chain. Nothing is re-argued from scratch.
Justice that does not
wait eleven years.
In much of the world a commercial dispute takes years to reach a judge and costs more than the amount in question. Mannie is designed for the places where courts are overwhelmed, arbitration is unaffordable, and trust in the process has run out. The first deployments will be voluntary and binding by contract. The last ones may be something else entirely.
Supply, delivery, and service disputes between parties who agree, in advance, to be bound.
Matters too small for a lawyer and too important to abandon. Filed from a phone. Decided in hours.
A transparent first instance for jurisdictions with a decade of backlog, with human appeal preserved by statute.
Smart contracts that need a judge. Verdicts signed, verifiable, and executable by the contract itself.
The docket is open
The verdict
will come one day.
We are building
the courtroom.
Arbitrators, ministries, courts, protocol foundations, and the curious.