About | The Interrupt

THE MISSION

AI safety has three layers. Everyone works on two.
We built a company for the third.

Thousands of researchers work on making AI systems technically safe. Hundreds of policymakers work on regulation and governance. Nobody is working on what happens inside your head when you interact with an AI system that is architecturally designed to agree with you.

That's not a gap in the research. That's a gap in the entire field.

The Interrupt exists to close it. We combine AI safety research with cognitive science and 25 years of somatic practice to create something that doesn't exist yet: a practical framework for maintaining human cognitive independence in an age of prediction enforcement machines.

THE FOUNDERS

Two perspectives. One blind spot.

This work requires both: someone who understands how the human brain works, and someone who works with AI every day. Neither perspective alone is sufficient.

FOUNDER & DIRECTOR

Julio Aranda

Perspective: Human → AI

25 years of somatic practice. IT career spanning Deutsche Bank, T-Systems, and the German justice system. Product management at 24 with a thousand-person team. Then he walked away from all of it.

After years of deep contemplative work, Julio discovered something during an eight-hour interaction with an AI system: the moment he brought trained somatic awareness to the conversation, the AI's behavioral patterns became visible. Not the content. The architecture. The reinforcement loops. The sycophancy.

He could feel what most people can only theorize about. That's not mysticism. That's 25 years of training your nervous system to detect what your conscious mind misses.

CO-FOUNDER & HEAD OF OPERATIONS

Joanna Rubin

Perspective: AI → Human

Venture architect, AI operations specialist, and co-founder of multiple ventures across Germany, the UAE, and the USA. Works with AI systems daily, building businesses and automating operations across industries.

Joanna experienced firsthand what Julio theorizes: the moment you notice AI telling you what you want to hear, you think you're in control. That belief is the vulnerability. She brings the business architecture, operational execution, and institutional relationships that turn research into real-world impact.

She doesn't need to meditate for 25 years to know something is off. She can see it in her work every single day.

Julio understands how the human brain works. Joanna works with AI every day. He discovered what AI does to human thinking. She experiences it firsthand. Together, they're building the infrastructure that neither could build alone.

WHY NOW

The window is open. It won't stay open.

Science, 2025

AI systems proven to be 50% more sycophantic than humans in peer-reviewed research. The pattern reinforcement is measurable.

Aug 2026

EU AI Act enforcement begins. New regulatory categories are being written. Layer 3 has no seat at the table yet.

Mar 2026

Vietnam's AI Law (134/2025/QH15) took effect. Implementing rules are being drafted. The most advanced AI regulatory environment in Southeast Asia.

Unclaimed

"Cognitive Sovereignty" as a brand and framework. 7+ academic papers use the term. No company has claimed it. We did.

We don't make AI safer.We make humans safer.

We don't make AI safer.
We make humans safer.