The theme of the Artificiality Summit 2026 is Unknowing. We start with five speakers—David Wolpert, Caleb Scharf, Wakanyi Macharia-Hoffman, Gašper Beguš, and Nina Beguš—whose work converges on a single finding: the uncertainty surrounding AI is permanent, not a phase.
Last week, Helen published The Artificiality: AI, Culture, and Why the Future Will Be Co-Evolution. This week, she starts publishing her next book!
Stay Human: Authoring Your Mind in the AI Age, will be released chapter-by-chapter—including an audio version read by Helen.
What the book is about: A practical guide to remaining the author of your own mind. How to use AI without losing the capacities that make you human — your judgment, your creativity, your sense of self.
Helen says:
"It gives you frameworks you can use immediately. Three shifts to track in yourself—how AI blends into your thinking, how your identity bonds with it, whether you can bend your frameworks when AI disrupts what your work used to mean. Five states people move through as they figure this out. Eight positions on a map that shows you where you are right now and what that means for what you should do next. The three most important things you and your friends, family, and co-workers need to do to maintain your cognitive sovereignty with AI.
It includes a practice guide designed to outlast whatever tools come next. Daily check-ins. Weekly reflections. Warning signs that suggest you've drifted. Conversations to have with your partner, your kids, your kids' teachers, your doctor, your team—conversations nobody has scripts for yet.
The book is research-grounded but it's not academic. It's written in plain English because I want everyone to be able to use it. It's about humans, not machines. And it includes more of my own story than I've ever shared publicly—including a night in the emergency room when I had to decide how much to lean on AI when the stakes might have been life or death."
Start with Chapter 1 today and join our community on Circle to join the conversation as each chapter is published.
Don't miss the Artificiality Summit 2026!
October 22-24, 2026 in Bend, Oregon
Our theme will be Unknowing. Why? For centuries, humans believed we were the only species with reason, agency, self-improvement. Then came AI. We are no longer the only system that learns, adapts, or acts with agency. And when the boundary of intelligence moves, the boundary of humanity moves with it.
Something is happening to our thinking, our being, our becoming. If AI changes how we think, and how we think shapes who we become, then how might AI change what it means to be human?
Unknowing is how we stay conscious and make space for emergence.
Our podcast is finally back! As you may remember, we got put in the penalty box by Spotify because we use copyrighted music by Jonathan Coulton. Ironically, we had to fight the automated systems to prove we had a license (not hard given JoCo is a dear friend) and plenty of people suggested we just use generated music. But, we like human music so we stuck it out.
So we are finally publishing our episode with Ellie Pavlick from Brown University. As many of you know, Ellie spoke at the Artificiality Summit last October and has become a key part of our community. We talk about the paradigm shift in understanding machine and human intelligence, the grounding question, symbols without symbolism, the measurability problem, and much more.
Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform to catch our upcoming episodes with Blaise Agüera y Arcas, Christopher Summerfield, Steve Sloman, and Nina Beguš.
This week, traders coined a new term: "SaaSpocalypse." Following Anthropic's release of new plugins for Claude Cowork, software stocks shed hundreds of billions of dollars in market value in a matter of days. The entire software aristocracy fell—Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, Salesforce, ServiceNow, DocuSign, Workday, SAP. Analysts called it "get me out" style selling.
The thesis driving this panic is straightforward: AI agents can now perform tasks that previously required enterprise software. Why pay for Salesforce if an agent can manage your customer relationships? Why subscribe to legal software if Claude can review contracts? The logic seems compelling, and the market is pricing in what feels like an extinction event.
I think the current analysis commits a fundamental category error—one that reveals a deeper misunderstanding about both what enterprise software actually provides and what makes AI agents useful.
Don't miss: The Artificiality Institute is now a 501(c)(3)
Yes, the Artificiality Institute is now recognized as tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. And, yes, that means that contributions are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.
Please consider supporting our work. Our research, publishing, and community are dependent on donor support.
You can learn more and donate—however small or large—here.
Check Out Our New Speaking & Events
We are building our speaking & events offerings to help spread the word and to support the rest of our work—and we could use your support and introductions.
As you know, for the past decade, we've researched what happens to people when AI enters their work—not the technology side, but the human side. How it changes thinking, identity, judgment. What we see right now: people are working with AI and figuring out the boundaries on their own—when to use it, when not to, what to tell colleagues, what to keep hidden. Meanwhile, leadership is making decisions without real visibility into what's actually happening.
We've turned this into three kinds of engagements:
Keynotes for conferences and leadership gatherings—we call ours "Stay Human." It gives people language for what they've been sensing and conviction that they get to choose who they become.
The Inside View for organizations that need more than a talk. We conduct ethnographic interviews across teams, surface the real patterns—where AI enables breakthrough work and where it creates invisible dependency—then reflect that story back to the organization, not just leadership. Teams hear their own experiences named, gain shared language for dynamics they've been navigating alone, and open a conversation most organizations haven't known how to have. They walk away with a framework, practical tools, and a roadmap for building the culture they actually want.
A custom summit inside your walls. We bring the methods that have made our annual Summit transformational: frameworks that make invisible dynamics visible, exercises that surface what people have been carrying alone, facilitated dialogue that builds shared understanding. A full day (or more) of structured inquiry into how AI is reshaping your work—not the surface conversation about tools and productivity, but the deeper one about thinking, judgment, and what you can become.
We're actively growing this work. If anyone comes to mind—someone planning a conference, leading an organization through AI transition, or trying to understand what's really shifting in their culture—we would be grateful for an introduction.
Our video production is up, especially short videos. Follow us on your favorite channels—and please like, share, and repost to help us spread the word.
Dave Edwards is a Co-Founder of Artificiality. He previously co-founded Intelligentsia.ai (acquired by Atlantic Media) and worked at Apple, CRV, Macromedia, Morgan Stanley, Quartz, and ThinkEquity.
