I learn by building.
I'm Tom Budd — a self-taught AI safety and governance builder in San Diego, and the founder of ResoVerse. If I haven't built something with a concept, I don't claim expertise in it.
I came to AI safety through building, not credentials — no CS degree, no formal AI training. For over two years I've designed and run UNA, an autonomous, governed AI system, as both a research platform and a daily working tool. I focus on the conceptual architecture and cross-domain patterns; the system handles the computation and formal logic. That human–AI workflow is the foundation of everything I do.
I founded ResoVerse to work on a problem I couldn't find anyone else focused on the way I wanted to: governing AI systems that act — keeping them bounded, reviewable, corrigible, and accountable at runtime, rather than trusting that good behavior was trained in or bolted on afterward.
The governance architecture I work on pulls from ethics, cryptography, cognitive science, and developmental psychology, because I followed the problem wherever it led. I have ADHD, and I've built my research workflow — and much of UNA — around how my brain actually operates: finding structure across disciplines that isn't obvious from inside any single one.
How I work
Ship, then learn
My systems run under real constraints, not as demos. I'd rather build the thing and watch what breaks than theorize about it from the outside.
Follow the pattern
The structures worth trusting recur across fields. I work in concept-maps and connections others don't think to look for.
Keep people in the loop
Useful AI shouldn't quietly absorb decision rights. I design for human agency, oversight, and the ability to say no.
Evidence over hype
Define the behavior, test it, publish the limitation, keep the language bounded. Restraint is credibility.
Before AI
Before this work, I spent more than a decade leading operations and workplace experience across venture- and private-equity-backed companies — including a startup that scaled past a 280% headcount increase and a global SaaS company where I led a $140M headquarters relocation and managed a multi-million-dollar budget. That background shaped how I think about accountability: systems need owners, records, escalation paths, and clear operating boundaries.