This project aims to turn my book Adjoint Thinking: How to think with machines without losing your mind into an immersive, 7-part digital documentary and learning series (7 films, 10 minutes each) with the same title.

Project Summary

This project helps solving a major crisis in human-AI interaction, which is machine fluency. Because generative AI outputs look flawlessly polished, balanced, and ready, humans are systematically dropping their cognitive guard. We are falling prey to automation bias, losing the intellectual ancestry (provenance) of our ideas, and letting algorithms prematurely frame our decisions before we have even thought for ourselves.

This series cuts through shallow "prompt engineering" tutorials. It treats AI as an active cognitive environment that reshapes human memory, attention, and reasoning. Each episode functions as a standalone, high-signal short film that blends systems design thinking with practical, tool-agnostic mental guardrails. By demonstrating how to build rigorous human-in-the-loop validation checkpoints, the series shows leaders and creators how to maximize machine capability without surrendering their intellectual sovereignty.

What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?

1. Deconstruct the Fluency Illusion: Help viewers see past polished interfaces to extract and interrogate hidden machine assumptions, boundaries, and omissions.
2. Build Cognitive Sovereignty: Deliver a universal, tool-agnostic mental playbook that forces "first contact," tracks provenance, and keeps final accountability under human control.
3. Provide Open-Access Education: Build a high-production public resource (on YouTube) complete with downloadable companion worksheets and team guardrail blueprints, hosted entirely free of paywalls.

This is what I want to achieve through the series which will be mapped directly to my book's design:
1. Teach people how to force an independent human mark before a machine frames the problem.
2. Help viewers stop "source amnesia" and track information as they use generative AI.
3. Utilizing machine logic without delegating final accountability.
4. Turning machine hallucinations into controlled creative raw material.
5. Building consequence-sensitive testing loops for high-stakes claims.
6. Remaining the ultimate sovereign authority over automated scale.

To keep operations lean and fast, I am bypassing traditional, bloated film crew overhead. I will use an advanced, AI-native production pipeline (HeyGen, ElevenLabs, Descript Pro) to convert text frameworks into cinematic, highly engaging multimedia lessons.

How will this funding be used?

I am seeking a flat $10,000 microgrant to completely cover software infrastructure, design, and direct production hours:

• $3,500 | Video & Audio AI Production Engine: Subscriptions to specialized synthesis tiers (HeyGen, ElevenLabs, Descript Pro) to function as our virtual recording and editing studio.

• $2,500 | Open-Access Learning Portal & High-Bandwidth Hosting: Securing zero-ad hosting channels, domain setups, and web infrastructure to distribute the films globally without barriers.

• $2,000 | Graphic Design & Interactive Asset Layout: Turning text frameworks into highly polished, downloadable PDF toolkits, visual diagrams, and team-alignment worksheets.

• $2,000 | Production & Scripting Sprint Stipend: Funding dedicated developer hours to adapt the dense, theoretical book chapters into punchy, narrative-driven cinematic scripts.

Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects?

I am the sole researcher and author of Adjoint Thinking. My core professional background is in complex systems design, fluid mechanics modeling, and engineering simulation. This structural training allows me to approach the invisible cognitive interactions between humans and algorithms with mathematical precision rather than vague philosophical hype. Because I engineered the underlying framework (from "first contact" to "consequence-sensitive validation"), I am uniquely qualified to translate these concepts into a compelling visual curriculum without losing scientific integrity.

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?

• If the films feel like dry, abstract lectures, they fail. That is why every script should be heavily edited to focus on visceral narratives, real-world organizational stakes, and radical simplicity.

• If the series sits in an isolated echo chamber, it fails. My ambition is to build this educational documentary short-film series as a tool-agnostic resource for a mainstream business and creative audience. I understand that I must cross-pollinate text highlighst on professional networks like LinkedIn to funnel organic traffic to the open public site.