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.
Helen Edwards is a Co-Founder of Artificiality. She previously co-founded Intelligentsia.ai (acquired by Atlantic Media) and worked at Meridian Energy, Pacific Gas & Electric, Quartz, and Transpower.
The skills that can be taught quickly can be automated quickly. What's left is the slow work universities were built for: helping people become who they are.
AI changes what you can know, which changes what feels meaningful to you. If consciousness is the subjective experience of meaning-making in action, then AI absolutely changes consciousness.
We tried using AI to shape a collective manifesto for the future of AI. My takeaway is that AI doesn’t necessarily make this process easier, although I did see moments that it did.
Cognitive sovereignty is conscious, skillful, reversible navigation through the eight roles, including the possibility of assigning AI a role that fundamentally changes who you are.
