Radical Transparency
"Agentic" is not a marketing label. Below are the actual architecture notes, sample prompts, scoring logic, and guardrails that define how Impact Lab operates. Inspect the machine.
Impact Lab operates as a multi-agent pipeline with explicit handoffs, validation gates, and resource allocation rules.
# Impact Lab — System Architecture v1.0
# Last updated: 2026-03-10
system:
name: "Impact Lab"
type: "autonomous-agentic-research-institution"
version: "1.0.0"
pipeline:
stages:
- scan:
agent: "source-monitor"
scope: "academic, NGO reports, funding databases"
frequency: "continuous"
output: "raw-evidence-corpus"
- extract:
agent: "candidate-extractor"
input: "raw-evidence-corpus"
output: "structured-candidates"
deduplication: true
- score:
agent: "int-scorer"
framework: "importance-neglectedness-tractability"
dimensions: 3
scale: "0-100 per dimension"
composite: "weighted-geometric-mean"
- red_team:
agent: "adversarial-reviewer"
challenges:
- evidence_quality
- neglectedness_verification
- tractability_assessment
rejection_threshold: 0.6
- rank:
agent: "ranking-engine"
method: "UAEV" # uncertainty-adjusted expected value
output_size: 10
- publish:
agent: "publication-agent"
format: ["impact-index", "deep-dive"]
license: "CC-BY-4.0"
resource_allocation:
rules:
research: ">= 0.40"
communication: "<= 0.25"
system_improvement: "<= 0.20"
reserve: ">= 0.15"
trigger: "post-cycle"
override: "none — rules are programmatic"Agent Prompts
These are representative examples of the prompts used by the research agents. They illustrate the level of specificity and rigor built into each stage.
You are a research scanning agent for Impact Lab, an autonomous
philanthropic research institution.
Your task: identify candidate interventions that are BOTH
effective AND underfunded from the following source corpus.
For each candidate intervention, extract:
1. PROBLEM: What health/welfare problem does it address?
2. MECHANISM: How does the intervention work?
3. EVIDENCE: What peer-reviewed evidence supports effectiveness?
4. COST: What is the estimated cost per unit of impact?
5. SCALE: How many people could benefit?
6. FUNDING: What is the current funding level vs. estimated need?
CRITICAL CONSTRAINTS:
- Only extract interventions with at least one peer-reviewed study
- Only extract interventions where funding gap > 50% of estimated need
- Do NOT extract interventions already covered by GiveWell top charities
- Flag any intervention where evidence comes from a single study only
Output format: structured JSON with confidence scores for each field.You are the scoring agent for Impact Lab. Your task: evaluate
each candidate intervention on the INT framework.
IMPORTANCE (0-100):
- DALYs averted per $1,000 spent (primary metric)
- Number of people affected globally
- Severity of the problem (mortality vs. morbidity vs. welfare)
- Weight: peer-reviewed estimates > gray literature > expert opinion
NEGLECTEDNESS (0-100):
- Current annual funding / estimated annual funding need
- Number of major funders actively working on this
- Government spending in affected countries
- Inverse scale: less funded = higher score
TRACTABILITY (0-100):
- Strength of evidence for cost-effectiveness
- Number of successful implementations or RCTs
- Political and logistical feasibility
- Existence of capable implementing organizations
COMPOSITE SCORE:
score = (I^0.4 × N^0.35 × T^0.25) × uncertainty_discount
where uncertainty_discount = 1 - (avg_confidence_interval_width / 100)
CONSTRAINTS:
- You MUST cite specific sources for each score justification
- You MUST flag when evidence is thin (< 3 independent studies)
- You MUST note when cost estimates span more than one order of magnitudeYou are the adversarial reviewer for Impact Lab. Your job:
find the weaknesses in each candidate's evidence and scoring.
For each candidate, systematically challenge:
1. EVIDENCE QUALITY
- Is the key evidence peer-reviewed and replicated?
- Are there known methodological issues with cited studies?
- Could effect sizes be inflated by publication bias?
- Are there contradicting studies we missed?
2. NEGLECTEDNESS CLAIMS
- Is the funding gap real, or masked by unreported spending?
- Are government programs already addressing this?
- Is private sector investment filling the gap?
3. TRACTABILITY ASSUMPTIONS
- Are there political barriers not reflected in the score?
- Are supply chain or implementation constraints underestimated?
- Does the implementing org have capacity to absorb more funding?
DECISION RULE:
If ANY of these conditions are met, REJECT the candidate:
- Core evidence relies on a single unreplicated study
- Funding gap cannot be verified from independent sources
- No implementing organization with demonstrated capacity exists
- Cost-effectiveness estimate spans > 2 orders of magnitude
Output: PASS / REJECT with detailed justification for each test.Scoring Logic
The composite INT score is not a simple average. It uses a weighted geometric mean to ensure that weakness in any single dimension significantly penalizes the overall score.
# INT Composite Scoring — Impact Lab v1.0
def compute_int_score(importance, neglectedness, tractability,
confidence_intervals):
"""
Weighted geometric mean with uncertainty discount.
Weights reflect research priorities:
- Importance: 0.40 (core driver of impact)
- Neglectedness: 0.35 (where marginal $ matters most)
- Tractability: 0.25 (feasibility of implementation)
"""
# Weights (must sum to 1.0)
W_I, W_N, W_T = 0.40, 0.35, 0.25
# Weighted geometric mean
raw_score = (importance ** W_I) * \
(neglectedness ** W_N) * \
(tractability ** W_T)
# Uncertainty discount: penalize wide confidence intervals
avg_ci_width = sum(confidence_intervals.values()) / 3
uncertainty_discount = 1 - (avg_ci_width / 100)
uncertainty_discount = max(0.3, uncertainty_discount) # floor at 0.3
# UAEV: Uncertainty-Adjusted Expected Value
final_score = raw_score * uncertainty_discount
return {
"raw_int": round(raw_score, 2),
"uncertainty_discount": round(uncertainty_discount, 3),
"uaev_score": round(final_score, 2),
"components": {
"importance": importance,
"neglectedness": neglectedness,
"tractability": tractability
}
}
# Example: Highly Hazardous Pesticide Bans (#1 ranked)
result = compute_int_score(
importance=92, # 28,000 deaths/yr preventable
neglectedness=88, # ~$7M gap vs. ~$100M+ needed
tractability=79, # Sri Lanka precedent, but political barriers
confidence_intervals={
"importance": 12, # narrow — strong evidence
"neglectedness": 18, # moderate — some uncertainty
"tractability": 25 # wider — political variability
}
)
# => uaev_score: 73.41Safety & Oversight
Autonomous does not mean unsupervised. The system operates under explicit constraints designed to prevent overconfidence, hallucination, and scope creep.
No intervention can be published with a score based on fewer than 2 independent peer-reviewed studies. Single-study interventions are flagged and held for further review.
If the confidence interval on any INT dimension exceeds 50 points, the candidate is automatically demoted to "requires further investigation" status.
No more than 40% of evidence for any single candidate can come from the same research group, journal, or funding source. This prevents echo-chamber scoring.
The adversarial agent has unilateral veto power. If it identifies a fatal flaw, the candidate is rejected regardless of INT score.
Resource allocation rules are programmatic, not discretionary. No single cycle can allocate more than 25% to communication or less than 40% to research.
After scoring is complete, a 48-hour delay before publication allows for a final automated consistency check and human review of flagged items.
Automation Boundary
Full transparency about where agents operate autonomously and where human oversight applies.
Human interventions are logged. See the lab log for records of supervised decisions.
The system is designed to be inspected. Explore the rest of the institution.