Imagining a Hopeful Future with AI

On October 12th in Bend, Oregon, we will open the doors to The Imagining Summit—an event that aims to seed a better future through the collaborative exploration of AI's potential to amplify human creativity, culture, and understanding. 

At the Imagining Summit, we aim for productive imagination—the process of envisioning possibilities that extend beyond our current experience. Through creative exploration and collaboartive discussion, we seek to shift perspectives and imagine a path to a hopeful future with AI. 

Together, we will craft a new vision and design philosophy for human-machine collaboration—in which AI serves as a Mind for our Minds, amplifying humanity's creativity, culture, knowledge, trust, values, fun, play, and understanding of the world. We will synthesize this work into a collectively authored report shared after the Summit, with the hope of catalyzing change.

We acknowledge the profound, even existential, risks presented by adopting AI. We reject the utopian AI rhetoric, fear Big Tech's fantasy to make machines that replace us, and worry about the impact of the unthinking AI hypesters and influencers. While we believe it is important to reveal and address these problems and challenges, we also believe it is important to imagine a future which surpasses the negative.

The Imagining Summit provides an opportunity to set aside the current hype and future fears to imagine a future we can hope for. Because if we can imagine it, we have a shot at creating it. 

The Imagining Summit will feature a series of conversations and collaborative sessions led by some of our favorite minds, including Jonathan Coulton, Adam Cutler, Katie Davis, Josh Lovejoy, Don Norman, Steven Sloman, Barbara Tversky, and more. These conversation catalysts will bring rich and thought-provoking ideas to help lead all collaborators in an exploration of the possible. 

Due to limited space, The Imagining Summit will be invite-only event. Please check out the details here and fill-in the form or simply reply to this email to indicate your interest. We look forward to bringing together a creative, diverse group of imaginative thinkers and innovators who share our hope for the future and are crazy enough to think we can collectively change things. 

We’re excited to welcome our community in person. And we highly encourage you to extend your stay to enjoy beautiful Bend, Oregon.