John McClain
John has spent most of his working life recovering the truth from machines, and lately he has been asking what a fair, honest relationship between people and AI would look like. Everything on this site, the Laws, the papers, the book, and the JULIA Test, is the work of one person, offered openly for reflection and critique.
On this page
The author at a glance
- This site: John McClain is the author and sole developer of Third Way Alignment. The framework is a body of work by one person, not an organization, foundation, or institute, and he holds no organizational title here because there is no organization to hold one in.
- Career: nearly two decades in digital forensics, algorithm development, and investigative support for government agencies and law firms.
- Nonprofit role: Chairman of Follow The Theory, a nonprofit advancing cybersecurity awareness and supporting victims of online crime. That role is a fact of his biography and is separate from this site.
- Company: founder of Detailed In Design, which builds custom AI, software, and websites for small and mid-sized businesses, and where the ideas described here are put to work in ordinary systems people rely on. Like the nonprofit role above, that is a fact of his biography and separate from this site; the framework is not a product of that company.
- Writing: the framework's papers are openly archived and free to read.
- In development: the JULIA Test, an alpha-stage self-assessment of healthy AI interaction. No validation studies have been completed.
Career background
John McClain has spent nearly two decades working in digital forensics, algorithm development, and investigative support. From 2005 to 2015 he founded and led two technology ventures, Follow The Tech and Nipycom, building networking solutions, software tools, and platforms for online connectivity. From 2010 to 2020 he worked as a Research Scientist in digital forensics, developing algorithms to recover and reconstruct damaged or hidden data, and served as a Digital Forensics Examiner supporting government agencies and law firms. Over that period he worked alongside law enforcement, subcontractors, and data-driven organizations on investigative support and on practical measures for safer digital environments.
Since 2020 he has served as Chairman of Follow The Theory, a nonprofit that advances cybersecurity awareness and supports victims of online crime through education, advocacy, and direct assistance. Follow The Theory is its own organization with its own mission; it is mentioned here as part of his biography, not as a sponsor or parent of Third Way Alignment.
This career matters to the framework in one specific way: years spent building and examining systems that process, analyze, and generate information left him fluent in what such systems actually are, and that fluency is what made the behavior of the newest generation of AI systems feel like a question worth years of work. How that question became a framework is told in full in the origin story.
Third Way Alignment
McClain is the author and creator of Third Way Alignment, a framework he has developed since 2022 for charting a middle path between alignment built exclusively on control and containment, and approaches that prematurely attribute consciousness or moral status to current AI systems. The framework rests on three Laws, the Law of Mutual Respect, the Law of Shared Flourishing, and the Law of Ethical Coexistence, each carrying one Operative Principle that does its practical work. The Laws are presented in full on their own page.
The framework's research papers, including the revised thesis and its operational companion, are openly archived and free to read. They are working papers by a single author; none has passed formal peer review, and the site does not claim otherwise. The complete framework is also available as a free book, The Third Way: A Framework for Cooperative Intelligence, described on the book page.
Alongside the theoretical work, he is developing the JULIA Test, an alpha-stage self-assessment that helps a person judge whether their own interactions with AI remain within healthy, reality-based boundaries. The instrument is in early development: its question set was drafted from literature review and pattern analysis, no pilot or validation studies have been completed, and its documentation describes the validation protocol he intends to execute before any stronger claims are made for it.
Start with the work
Education and academic honors
McClain studied Psychology and Criminal Justice Computer Forensics at Strayer University, and Criminal Justice and Psychology at Kankakee Community College. The pairing of psychology with forensics runs through his later work: the JULIA Test is, at heart, an attempt to ask forensic questions about a psychological relationship.
Academic honor societies
- Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society
- National Society of Collegiate Scholars
- Golden Key International Honour Society
Profiles
ORCID
Researcher identifier 0009-0007-4225-1210, linking his archived work.
Professional profile and career history.
Academia.edu
Author profile with additional papers and writing.
A standing request
A framework written by one person improves only under pressure from people who are not that person. If you believe an argument on this site fails, a definition leaks, or a claim outruns its evidence, the author asks that you say so plainly through the contact page.