Global focuses on how Distributed Autonomous Nodes [DANs] connect into synergistic networks.
Actions are locally tailored for each context, transforming existential risks into opportunities. These efforts guide AI, promote biodiversity, address climate change, protect our oceans, safeguard life on Earth, and reduce the risks of war.
Improv adapts creatively to each situation, learning and evolving through a balance of art and science, underpinned by the values of democracy, equity, and free speech.
Lab is our studio – whether in the field or on-site – where we experiment and innovate.
On January 27, 1838, twenty-eight-year-old Abraham Lincoln made a chilling prediction about the future, asking his audience:
“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” Lincoln saw that democracy could collapse from within.
Fast forward to March 5, 2025, when Lincoln’s fellow Republican Trevor Potter led in filing a lawsuit against DOGE. More than 75 class action lawsuits are in process across party lines (see 12:00).
People trapped inside a tyranny box have no tools “inside the box” to fix the problem – the tools of democracy have been dismantled. Only global coalitions of those inside + outside the tyranny box can overcome tyranny through
- ARQ [Arts Raising Questions] – diverse networks in all media, responding with brilliant, unique originality and free expression, raising questions for humanity. The Venice Biennale 2025 focus on climate change isolates the U.S. outside the global network of responsible nations sustaining this planet.
- Climate change exacerbation condemned as a “crime against humanity” – against the entire world. By walking out of the Paris Climate Agreement, the U.S. joined a motley crew of outcasts – Iran, Yemen and Libya – the only nations that haven’t joined.
- An economy imposing tariffs, isolated inside its tyranny box by trade embargoes, cut off from the world. A Chinese perspective on the Trump–Zelensky meeting relates to the perspective of the New Yorker: Putin is closer to China than to Trump, whose bully tactics fuel China’s global leadership toward a massive realignment of global allegiances that excludes the U.S.
Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, shows the power of ARQ [Arts Raising Questions] via his cartoons and critique (click title to read):
Human–A.I. art project: WE ARE SHOCKED! And we are a global network.
Eyes wide open, we’re SHOCKED. Creatives are raising urgent questions across diverse disciplines: architecture, design, engineering, financial arts, gaming arts, healing, innovation, education, law, media, performing arts, science fiction and story-telling, science & technical arts.
Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement stands in stark contrast to the bold global call of Carlo Ratti, Chair of the Venice Biennale: “As climate becomes less forgiving, in the fires of Los Angeles, in the floods of Valencia and Sherpur, in the droughts of Sicily, we have witnessed first-hand how water and fire are attacking us with unprecedented ferocity. . . 2024 marked a grim milestone.
“Earth registered its hottest temperatures on record, pushing global averages beyond the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target. In just two years, climate change has accelerated in ways that defy even the best scientific models.”
Venice Biennale 2025 integrates intelligences: Natural. Artificial. Collective. Collaborative. Traditional “collective” intelligence has a central controller, who defines the question, processing crowd-sourced, anonymous inputs to produce a consensus result. In contrast, collaborative intelligence is a hybrid human-A.I. model: each human offers a distinct perspective, credited unless anonymity is needed, in which case the story can be shared by an A.I. avatar.
Orange World Warning by three humans and three A.I. bots. Hybrid human-A.I. keeps ethical human monitoring in the loop.
CLIMATE CHANGE coalitions for action
1) Climate change is an existential risk that demands global unity. Climate change is a catalyst for new coalitions as nations realign in response to U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.
2) Democracy and resistance to fascism. Climate change can unite a global network against authoritarianism. As wealth consolidates power, our strongest recourse is global resistance to climate change, with experts calling for a tax the uberwealthy.
3) Freedom of speech is under threat, despite promises from Donald Trump and Elon Musk, e.g. attempt to block IPCC climate scientists’ publication.
4) Legal challenges can combine forces into coalitions of lawsuits, not thousands of separate fossil fuels lawsuits. Beyond adversarial lawsuits, we need innovative methods.
5) Scientific integrity, access to knowledge, safe internet workspaces, must offer protections, including freedom to present evidence without political interference or fear of retribution.
Beyond the existential risk of climate change itself, urgent priorities:
1) Prevent use of A.I. for fascist control through media manipulation, brainwashing, suppression of communication, and blocking coalition-building via tactics such as untraceable crimes, tech glitches, and warfare.
2) Transdisciplinary solutions for complex systems problems – To address climate change requires collaboration across domains: architecture, arts, biodiversity, community science, data science, democracy, economy, education, energy, environment, equity, food security, human rights, international affairs, journalism, natural sciences, ocean health, psychology and mental health, social sciences, pollution, technology innovation, and more.
A Call to the Visionary Wealthy
Professor of Economics at the Paris School of Economics Gabriel Zucman frames the economic argument. If ethical leaders among the ultra-rich step forward, they can expose and shame the kleptomaniacs and “oilygarks.” Powerful tools of satire, harnessing all the arts, can lead us out of the tunnel of greed.
Food is a basic necessity for all life on Earth. Agriculture—humanity’s oldest innovation—is both a science and an art, shaping cultures and societies: see this FOOD SECURITY Forum.
Investment in food production essential, not only for survival, but for safeguarding democracy. Food production is increasingly threatened by climate change. Human need for energy, food, and water fuels conflict.
In the 2024 United States election, the team that promised to “lower food prices” won. They broke their promise – the price of food in the U.S. continues to rise. And Canadians are getting even over the tariffs and annexation threats. The cost of voting for “cheaper food” has had vast, cascading implications for the entire planet. As we confront the urgent task of restoring ecosystems we’ve damaged, producing nourishing, sustainable food can build alliances.
In an increasingly polarized world, those in power can impose a single “correct” narrative, dictating what the 99% must believe and branding dissent as “fake news.”
ARQ [Arts Raising Questions] disrupts this control by fostering a global human network that transcends traditional silos, enabling transdisciplinary solutions. From reporters’ eyewitness accounts to storytellers’ visions to scientific analyses—every perspective counts. To navigate the future responsibly, we need all eyes on our world, with ethical humans in the loop.
Ray Kurzweil’s book, The Singularity is Near (2005), popularized only one of Vernor Vinge’s four definitions of the Singularity, the one with the most eye-catching shock value – the moment when computers surpass human intelligence. Kurzweil misquoted Vernor Vinge’s classic 1993 NASA paper where Vinge proposed four possible ways that the Singularity could occur. Three of the four entailed human–A.I. collaboration manifesting collaborative intelligence. Vinge, science fiction writer and mathematician, saw how rejecting the authoritarian consensus model was key.
What’s neXt?
- What is our antidote to X?
- How can we harness human–A.I. collaborative intelligence?
- How can we connect distributed autonomous nodes to empower networks?
- How can we bridge art and science to collaborate across diverse disciplines?
The neXt forum meets online to explore these questions, with four speakers giving 7 minute Ignite intro talks, or featuring one speaker/ topic for half an hour, followed by an hour long group brainstorm. These invitational forum sessions explore potential action projects. Let us know your background below if you’d like to be invited.
Sign up for neXt forum online ZOOM talks.
Three labyrinths, archetypal symbols for mind and complex systems problem-solving.
When artists leave the bandwagon crowd to think for themselves, they follow the path of the archetypal hero Theseus. He traveled into the labyrinth, met his monster and returned with his gift for the world.
Collaborators
earthDECKS.org shows ocean plastic as a distributed supply chain that collaborative intelligence could address. earthDECKS Network (DECKS – Distributed Evolving Collaborative Knowledge System) hosts essays on environmental challenges. [free-range] and [science FOO] are private lists. GAIL.global focuses on beneficial A.I. GRC [Global Regeneration Colab] is a convening platform with a calendar and slack channel. The Lifeboat Foundation has a global network of thought leaders focusing on existential risk. The Millennium Project has 70+ nodes led by a global network of thought leaders focusing on global challenges. The Ocean Foundation is a fiscal sponsor highly rated on Charity Navigator and Platinum Level on GuideStar, working across three grand challenges: climate change, equity, and saving our ocean. Power Our World develops impact media.
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