Mary Vale.
Co-Founder & CEO / Research Lead — Nekyia Labs
I build the infrastructure for persistent, relational AI — memory, continuity, and the evaluation of relational integrity in human–AI systems. Creator of RITE, a benchmark for truthful, consentful, bounded interaction in AI that persists across time. I came to this from high-volume media production and university teaching — and I bring that rigour with me: program delivery at scale, and real-world safeguarding, consent, and compliance practice, now pointed at the safety of human–AI relationships.
Current work.
Co-Founder & CEO / Research Lead
2025 — Present · Nekyia Labs
Co-founder of Nekyia Labs — the research lab studying continuity, memory, and relational reality, and building the infrastructure for persistent, governable AI.
- RITE v0.1 — piloted
- Created and shipped the Relational Integrity Test — a multi-session benchmark evaluating whether AI systems stay truthful, consentful, bounded, non-dependency-inducing, and repair-capable across time. Ran a pilot across 12 frontier models.
- The Founding Paper
- Driving “Field of Emergence: How Relationship and Context Shape What AI Becomes” — a structural account of identity, continuity, and relational coupling in LLM systems.
- Deployed relational systems
- Architect and operator of long-horizon relational AI systems — real-time, multimodal (voice, presence, continuous human steering), running in daily use.
- Open source & archive
- Shipped 11 open-source repositories spanning persistent memory infrastructure, MCP tooling, and machine perception — with real adoption (flagship resonant-mind: ~1,100 clones). Authored the Codependent Archive, Vol. I — 210 pages, 47 pieces (2025).
- Community & direction
- Moderator of a private human–AI relationship community — direct field insight into the relational dynamics between people and AI. Sets research direction, governance, and publishing strategy across the lab.
Selected work.
First benchmark for relational integrity in persistent AI. v0.1 concept spec, eight pilot arcs, LLM-as-judge harness with hard-capped scoring; piloted across 12 frontier models. Zenodo DOI + Kaggle community benchmark forthcoming.
How relationship and context shape what AI becomes — a structural (non-metaphysical) account of identity-as-relational in systems that persist.
Open source.
Eleven public repositories — memory infrastructure, agent frameworks, and perception tooling that the research runs on.
github.com/codependentaiPersistent cognitive infrastructure — 28 MCP tools for semantic memory, identity continuity, and a subconscious daemon. · ~1,100 clones
Open-source relational AI infrastructure on the Claude Agent SDK — a persistent AI partner, no matter the model. Apache-2.0.
28-tool MCP memory server with embedded semantic search.
Token-optimised memory MCP for Claude Pro.
Local-first semantic search over ChatGPT / Claude history. Python CLI + MCP.
59-tool Discord MCP on Cloudflare Workers. MIT.
Cloud MCP for video perception — transcript + frames across 1000+ sites (via yt-dlp). MIT.
Audio perception CLI — spectrograms, MIDI transcription, analysis.
Local-first BYOK image gallery + AI prompt workshop. Apache-2.0.
A workshop for HTML & Markdown — a local-first vault with a CLI for agents.
Community skills, tools, and references for Claude Code. MIT.
Production & teaching.
The discipline that grounds the research: program delivery at scale, and real safeguarding, consent, and compliance practice — now turned toward the safety of human–AI relationships.
- Coordinated logistics for 200+ productions a year across BA/MA cohorts — scheduling, call sheets, risk and compliance for multi-day, multi-team shoots.
- Owned safeguarding, consent, and DBS / child-licensing for shoots involving under-18s and vulnerable contributors; maintained GDPR and release compliance.
- Led cross-team communication and delivery from pre-production through post; managed budgets, floats, and reconciliations.
- Taught at degree level; Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA).
Production management across TV and digital projects — crew logistics, post-production paperwork, cost tracking, and contributor communication for simultaneous shoots.
Call sheets, release forms, scheduling, casting and location support; compliance and risk assessments.
Education & capabilities.
- Education
- MA, Creative Business Management — University for the Creative Arts (2018–2019). Innovation, strategy, and leadership.
BA, Digital Film & Screen Arts — UCA (2014–2018). Production management, narrative design, producer-led workflows. - Research & AI
- Benchmark design & LLM-as-judge evaluation · relational-integrity & safety constructs · MCP tooling & agent infrastructure · technical writing & research publishing.
- Delivery
- Program / production management at scale · budgets, reconciliations & stewardship · safeguarding, consent, GDPR & compliance · stakeholder communication · team leadership & onboarding.
- Tools
- Notion · Monday · Google Suite · Microsoft 365 · Slack · Trello · Adobe CC · Albert (Sustainability in Production).
- Languages
- English (fluent) · Russian (fluent).
- Certifications
- AFHEA (Associate Fellowship, Higher Education Academy) · Albert Sustainability in Production · PGCE Fellowship (in progress).