Artificiality Summit 2025: Reflections

The second Artificiality Summit is complete. Twice the time, twice the people, twice the brain expansion.

This year's gathering brought together philosophers, technologists, artists, and researchers to grapple with AI's deeper implications—not scaling laws and engagement metrics, but questions of intelligence, consciousness, and what it means to be human. Speakers included Blaise Agüera y Arcas, Ellie Pavlick, Eric Schwitzgebel, and Benjamin Bratton.

But the Summit isn't really about the speakers. It's about what happens when you bring together people willing to sit with uncertainty.

Here's what attendees had to say:

• "The Summit centered complex social systems. It held space for multiple definitions of intelligence. It focused on uncertainty, not-knowing, and multiple ways of knowing." — Charley Johnson

• "It was so refreshing to be in a space where friction was welcome, discord meant healthy debate, and the community held one another through the uncertainty despite our differences." — Sarah Fink

• "30 years of all kinds of gatherings, this weekend was very best by a mile. Was most impressed with how quickly I felt like I was part of a real community." — Jess Graham

• "I couldn't tear myself away from any of the fantastic sessions." — Maggie Jackson

• "A real community of intelligent, creative, caring and open souls who wanted to be in a space to explore, be curious, and build relationships with really great people—all in a beautiful and inspiring environment." — Rix Kramlich

We came away with a conviction that it's possible to be in a dual state: "unknowing" but energized inside all that uncertainty—still thinking, questioning, noticing what these new forms of intelligence are showing us about our own.