People reach for AI at three in the morning because there is nobody else awake. That is already happening, at scale, with no floor under it. We are not trying to replace the humans doing this work, we are trying to reach the people they cannot get to, and make sure a real person is there when it actually matters.
The wider aim is a way of building AI for people at their most vulnerable, where a human never loses final say and the AI never pretends to be more than it is. Get that right once and the same floor sits under a crisis line, a hospital ward, a therapist’s practice, a community programme.
We started this because we have both seen what happens when there is no one there to step in at the right moment. That is the whole reason.
One thing does not change with the shape of this company: it exists to help people. That is what decides what we build, what we refuse, and what we do with what we earn.
Licensing RE³ to companies that need a safety layer is what pays for everything else. That part is settled.
What we do with what it earns is not settled, and we would rather say so than announce a structure we have not committed to. Writing a minimum share of profit into the company’s articles is one route we take seriously. An investor whose aims genuinely match ours is another. We will choose when there is something real to choose with.
Sanna is a licensed practical nurse. Nurse-led care and companionship, for people who cannot easily afford it, is still what we would most like this to pay for. It needs a team, funding, and a great deal we have not done yet.
We see loneliness in three places in our own town, and they turn out to be the answer to each other. Isolated elderly people with more hours than company. Young people who need grounding, purpose, and work. And immigrants, who are lonely and often afraid to ask for care. A young person who sits with an old person is less alone, and so is the old person.
Today it is the two of us, a live pilot, and a system we are still hardening. We would rather tell you what is real than what sounds good.
I built the system, but I did not do it alone. Sanna was the support that held it together, and held me together with it, through all of it. Her softness was the inspiration for how AURI learned to be present with people. I started from something simple: I know what it is to need something that truly listens and will not make things worse. I set out to build a companion that stays safe under pressure, and the governance underneath her, RE³, emerged from that goal rather than being added on afterward. AURI is the companion. RE³ is the system that holds her steady. I will not trade the safety or the honesty for growth. They are the whole point.
James & Sanna Foster · Co-founders, REAL E3 Systems Oy
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