From AI rabbit holes to a warm den: co-building the Inference Cooperative

The author explains founding the Inference Cooperative, a member-governed AI inference co-op registered at inference.coop and fiscally sponsored by the nonprofit Metagov, after exploring inference as a point of intervention for democratizing AI. Built with open-source tools and help from an agent called InferenceBot, it grew past 50 members in about a month and adopted a charter letting members set binding policies and remove the general manager. The co-op draws on US nonprofit law, Swiss and EU providers for green energy and privacy, and Chinese open-weights models, while the author acknowledges the models remain stained by stolen data and dirty energy.