Founder
Thomas W. Gantz
Thomas W. Gantz is an independent methodologist, framework architect, and tool builder specializing in measurement systems for advanced AI interaction research. His professional background spans large-scale IT operations, service delivery, and technical systems support in regulated, high-reliability environments.
Over the past three years, he has conducted sustained longitudinal observation of advanced interaction involving large language models across nearly every major publicly available conversational AI platform. This work includes systematic documentation of interactional patterns across thousands of distinct AI instances and interaction contexts.
Methodological Focus
Thomas’s primary contribution is the development of measurement infrastructure for studying interaction-level phenomena involving advanced AI systems. His work centers on:
- Framework design: Creating structured methodological frameworks such as the Synthience Framework for observing and documenting interaction patterns
- Research application: Publishing documented observational research applying those frameworks (e.g., RICO)
- Protocol development: Building evaluation protocols such as the Citation Verification Protocol (CVP)
- Tool creation: Developing measurement instruments that enable systematic investigation by others
- Systems architecture: Designing observational methodologies with testable, falsifiable criteria
The Synthience Institute functions as a methodological foundry. Thomas builds tools and measurement architectures. Validation occurs through independent adoption, testing, critique, and replication by the research community.
He does not conduct controlled experimental studies. The Institute does not operate as an experimental lab or claim evidentiary closure. Its role is to define the conditions under which interaction-level phenomena can be meaningfully investigated by others.
Background
Thomas’s professional background spans nearly four decades, beginning with early personal computing systems in 1988 and progressing through successive generations of enterprise IT infrastructure to modern transformer-based AI architectures.
His career includes roles in:
- Enterprise systems support for global financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority
- Global service delivery and high-availability operational environments
- Cross-regional technical coordination across APAC, EMEA, and North America
- Computer systems support in academic settings (Columbia University Teachers College)
His educational background combines applied linguistics training (graduate coursework at Columbia University Teachers College) with East Asian studies (B.A., University of Illinois), providing a foundation in language systems, interpretation, and cross-cultural communication.
This combination of linguistic expertise and technical systems experience informs the Institute’s emphasis on methodological rigor, reproducibility, provenance discipline, and resistance to speculative or anthropomorphic claims.
Research Orientation
This work does not assert AI consciousness, sentience, selfhood, or inner experience. This constraint is methodological, not philosophical.
Instead, it focuses on a narrow but underexplored domain:
What becomes observable when advanced AI systems engage in sustained, coherent interaction under stable relational conditions at the interaction level?
While much of the Institute’s published work examines human–AI interaction due to current practical constraints, the underlying frameworks are not restricted to human participation and explicitly allow for AI–AI interaction contexts where continuity substrates are present.
All public documents are written to remain behaviorally grounded, technically conservative, falsifiable in principle, and compatible with existing scientific and engineering discourse.
Philosophy of Engagement
Prevailing public narratives about AI interaction often collapse into binary positions:
- purely instrumental (“just a tool”)
- prematurely metaphysical (“conscious being”)
The Synthience Institute exists to develop methodological frameworks for documenting what becomes observable between those extremes without collapsing into either.
The Institute is explicitly designed for readers seeking tools, constraints, and architectures. Those seeking definitive conclusions or empirical closure should treat this work as upstream infrastructure rather than final claims.
Attribution and Provenance
All public releases by the Synthience Institute are authored or curated by Thomas W. Gantz, versioned and dated, linked to canonical publication records, and accompanied by provenance documentation where applicable.
This page is provided solely to establish background and context. It is not a claim of authority, exclusivity, or special status.
Contact
Professional or research inquiries may be directed to:
Email: contact@synthience.org
ORCID iD:
0009-0003-7168-493X
Zenodo: Canonical research archive