---
title: "Thesis — Strategy Engines for the Cognitive-Sovereignty Era"
author: "Mario Brcic"
author_url: "https://mariobrcic.com/about-me/"
canonical_url: "https://mariobrcic.com/thesis/"
summary: "Mario Brcic's research-program manifesto: how to do real strategy on hard problems, when AI is changing who's in charge of thinking — and when some things AI will never be able to decide for us."
license: "all-rights-reserved"
---
> *Canonical HTML version: [https://mariobrcic.com/thesis/](https://mariobrcic.com/thesis/). © Mario Brcic. All rights reserved.*

# Strategy Engines for the Cognitive-Sovereignty Era

Research program — manifesto.

## The defining question

> The defining strategic question of this era is not which AI to build — but *who gets to think for whom*, and on whose terms.
>
> — Mario Brcic

How to do real strategy on hard problems, when AI is changing who's in charge of thinking — and when some things AI will never be able to decide for us.

## The pieces of the argument

The long-form version is in progress. The argument is already out in pieces:

- **[Strategy Engines](https://mariobrcic.com/strategy-engines/)** — what the program is and how it fits together.
- **The Memory Wars** — why AI memory is a sovereignty problem. (Essay: https://mariobrcic.com/writing/ai-memory-sovereignty-strategy/. arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.05867.)
- **The Power Gambit (Part 1)** — how AI ends up running things without anyone deciding it should. URL: https://mariobrcic.com/writing/ai-misalignment-risks-shadow-sovereignty/
- **The Power Gambit (Part 2)** — a working approach to keeping AI aligned. URL: https://mariobrcic.com/writing/ai-alignment-framework-seal-reaim-tune/
- **Impossibility Results in AI** (with Roman V. Yampolskiy, ACM Computing Surveys, 2023) — the things alignment can never guarantee. URL: https://mariobrcic.com/publications/brcic-yampolskiy-impossibility-2023/