The Future of Sovereign AI
We still don’t know just how important and disruptive artificial intelligence will be, but one thing seems clear: the power of AI should not remained cordoned off by centralized companies. Our panelists—Cody Wilson of Defense Distributed, Native Planet’s ~mopfel-winrux, Tlon’s Lukas Buhler, along with @mogmachine from Bittensor and David Capone from Harmless AI—are the perfect team to explore the possibilities unlocked by more sovereign, decentralized, and open AI.
[A bitcoiner, an ancap, a 3-D gun printer, an alt-righter, the founder of Hatreon and a convicted kiddle fucker walk into a bar. The barman picks up a baseball bat and says “get the fuck out of my bar, Cody.”]
Cancelling the Culture Industry
In a world of moral totalitarianism, sometimes freedom looks like a short story about sex tourism in the Philippines. In this panel, author Sam Frank hosts MRB editor in chief Noah Kumin, romance writer Delicious Tacos, sex detective Magdalene Taylor and frog champion Lomez of Passage Press. Join them for a freewheeling discussion of saying whatever they want while evading the digital hall monitors.#
[not being able to live within five hundred feet of a school is a small price to pay for true freedom]
Securing Urbit
How do we make Urbit secure? And what does a secure Urbit look like? The great promise of Urbit has always been that it can provide a sovereign computing platform for the individual—a means by which to do everything you would want to do on a computer without giving up your data. For that dream to be fulfilled, Urbit should be as secure as your crypto hardware wallet—perhaps moreso. Moderated by Rikard Hjort, Urbit experts Logan Allen, and Joe Bryan discuss with Urbit fan and cybersecurity expert Ryan Lackey.
[as secure as a crypto hardware wallet, you say]
Rebooting the Arts
The culture war is over—Culture lost. Now it’s a race to build a new one. Media whisperer Ryan Lambert leads a conversation with Play Nice founder/impresario Hadrian Belove. trend forecaster Sean Monahan, and controversial art-doc collective Kirac. They discuss how to win the culture race, and create a new arts ecosystem out of the rubble.
[the answer is to get Peter Thiel to try to magic up Dimes Square out of nothing, isn’t it?]
How to Fund a New World
Cosimo de Medici persuaded Benvenuto Cellini, the Florentine sculptor, to enter his service by writing him a letter which concluded, ‘Come, I will choke you with gold.’ Join UF Director of Markets Andrew Kim as he discusses how to get more gold onto Urbit with Jake Brukhman of Coinfund, Jae Yang of Tacen, @BacktheBunny from RabbitX and Evan Fisher of Portal VC.
[the answer’s still Thiel, isn’t it?]
I literally lol’d. Beyond parody.
On a actually serious note: When I look back at the multiple years I spent on sneerclub and otherwise following the rationalists, I increasingly feel that I had been tilting at windmills. I had spent most of that time making fun of them instead of looking into their finances, and in doing so I had missed the big picture and simply hadn’t realized how integral Peter Thiel was in propping them up and building a network to support them.
Thiel funds or funded MIRI, EA groups, Curtis Yarvin, FTX and OpenAI.