Definition of Organization is circular

[rivettp]

"A generic organization that can be formal or informal, legal or non-legal. It can have members, or not" says nothing about what it means to be an organization. For example it does not tell me whether a Sole Trader (inherently a single person) registered as a LLC counts as an :Organization.
Nor does it say how organized it has to be. I presume a group of people in line for a ticket would not count. But what about those people attending a single lecture? What if they register and attend the same class for a whole term? How about the group of people who happen to have the same person buy a lottery ticket for them each week? What if they agree with that person that if anyone of them wins the prize will be shared among them all? At any point have these become organizations as opposed to a set of individuals dealing with a common service provider?

[uscholdm]

Good input, those are questions we have struggled with over the years. If you have any proposed alternative definitions, please share them.

More generally, we are gradually updating class definitions so that they are more like definitions rather than merely saying some things that are true about instances, but are not sufficient to know whether an individual is an instance - as your comment lays out very well.

[rivettp]

How about this "persistent structure of one or more people formed to act towards some purpose; collection of the same" which allows for a Chamber of Commerce and the UN, which are organizations composed of other organizations

[uscholdm]

How about this "persistent structure of one or more people formed to act towards some purpose; collection of the same" which allows for a Chamber of Commerce and the UN, which are organizations composed of other organizations

I agree that purpose should be central to any organization, and that organizations often have sub-organizations. As far as necessarily having people as members, we did not want to commit to that. There are legal entities that function somewhat like organizations but have no people as members (e.g. special purpose vehicles) . A no-member organization will presumably have people directing it. Users are free to create subclasses of gist:Organization that are required to have members.

[MichaelSullivanArchitect]

The very first thing an AGI will do is incorporate within the USA, giving it the privileges of personhood. After that, the game is over,