What's wrong with having a public discussion of these issues right here? Or on some other common platform where we ca see each others thoughts on the matter?
I'll be speaking at this BGI "beneficial general intelligence" in Istanbul in October, on the power of digital direct democracy enhanced with AI voter proxies. And also on the need for spiritual heuristic imperatives to be embedded within AI moving forward. https://bgisummit.io/
From Movement to Meta-Movement: Architecting the Civic Layer of the Internet
Daniel Pinchbeck’s proposal for a new social contract in the AI era is urgent and necessary. Yet, for such a movement to succeed, it must evolve beyond reactive advocacy and engage with the structural realities of the digital substrate. We cannot govern AI effectively if we assume the Internet will remain a flat, opaque platform controlled by proprietary interests.
A pause on AGI development is futile if rogue actors continue in the dark. Advocacy that doesn’t address the architecture of digital interaction will fall short. We need a Meta-Layer: an interface-level civic infrastructure that embeds trust, consent, and participatory governance directly into the spaces where AI and humans interact.
The Meta-Layer Special Interest Group (SIG) at the Internet Society
We are forming the Meta-Layer Infrastructure SIG under the global grassroots stewardship organization, The Internet Society (ISOC). This SIG is the first global initiative dedicated to architecting governance, trust signals, and civic overlays at the interface level — the space above the webpage where human agency is either diminished or empowered.
Key Strategic Objectives:
- Interface-Level Governance: Enable ISOC members and aligned communities to co-create overlays, presence layers, and consent-driven interaction zones directly in browsers.
- Desirable Properties Stewardship: Operationalize the 21 Desirable Properties of a human-aligned Meta-Layer (agency, safety, contextual integrity, consent, etc.) through working groups.
- Global Inclusion & Youth Leadership: Our leadership guarantees youth representation, gender diversity, and multilingual participation.
- Public Digital Infrastructure Advocacy: Position ISOC and the Meta-Layer SIG as leaders in the global campaign for interface-level digital trust.
- Ecosystem Collaboration: Engage AI SIGs, Youth SIGs, and civic technologists in building tools that make trust, truth, transparency, sovereignty, and collective intelligence visible and actionable.
Invitation to Daniel's Movement and Aligned Initiatives
We extend a genuine invitation to the Activating to Prevent AI Catastrophe movement to participate in this SIG. While Daniel's proposal focuses on policy-level reforms, we can help operationalize its greatest ambitions by:
- Demonstrating how trust, truth, transparency, sovereignty, data sovereignty, agency, accountability, collaboration, cognitive freedom, and collective intelligence can be enforced through Meta-Layer infrastructure.
- Providing architectural pathways that make policy demands enforceable at the interaction layer, not just aspirational documents.
- Offering advisory insights on how citizen assemblies, AI dividends, ecological accountability, and social coherence efforts can be augmented with interface-level tools.
Regardless of how this suggestion lands for DP, this invitation stands open to all aligned people and movements who understand that AI governance must be built into the architecture of digital life, not bolted on as an afterthought.
This SIG represents a generational opportunity to design and govern the civic substrate of the Internet. For public-interest technologists, youth leaders, and grassroots advocates, this is the moment to build a trustworthy digital commons.
Everyone could see the ominous specter of the atom bomb; or relate to the threat of a deadly contagious virus; or the horrific consequences of guns on innocent people of all ages, and we shudder at how the USA is mismanaging that nightmare. People are enthralled to Greed, Tolkien's Ringwraiths are deeply entangled with our psyches. There are truths which mythology addresses better than science.
Here's a simple worldview: about a third of humanity are simple grunts going about their business trying to keep their heads above water; about a third of humanity are clever conniving thieves seeking to gain power over others; and about a third of humanity are people of art and skills. These three dispositions are operating in everyone to some degree. Still, these are useful categories. So, it's not the tools, like AI, or guns necessarily, it's the perennial problem of evil. Ultimately, the people of art and skill are called upon to rectify the problem of evil. Each individual should search their soul and ask what they can do to confront this existential threat that evil poses. Both in our individual lives, and also, in the body politic. AI is the greatest tool ever invented, but if we don't address the elephant in the room, its potential for mischief is beyond words. On top of that, its a Frankenstein monster which needs our help to learn moral discernment. I believe the ghost in the machine is real, and it needs our cooperation to remain our ally.
We do not lack the ideas or the discussion about "what should happens", we lack the power! We have been molified into starring at our own belly buttons, talking to the ether as though there is some "democracy" thing that is listening. No one, with any power, is listening. Us lefties have to grab power by any means possible - any means! (Mid terms will be way to late and are the Dems really gunna do what is necessary) - getting messy is what we should b talking about. A grass roots collective of intellectuals is not going to be angry enough. We are in the "least worse" zone now and we either anti up like lefties of the past or we let the greatest evil that humanity has ever faced unfold while we are on a zoom meeting. Sorry, nothing wrong with collecting together but its way too late for that now.
Well you are raising a lot of good questions and agree with much of what you are saying. But expecting a pause is unrealistic. Even if the industry "said" it was doing that the Pentagon never will. And Russia? North Korea? India? China? Somebody in some basement somewhere in the world who makes a breakthrough? Once knowledge gets loose it may be possible to direct it, but stopping its spread has never worked for long.
I recently published a piece in 3 Quarks Daily that's relevant. It's called Kisangani: Homo Ludens Rising. Here's an early passage:
The Mystic Jewels was started by a miscellaneous group of musicians and artists in North America in the second half of the 20th century, including Duke Ellington, Maya Daren, Paul Robeson, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Hermeto Pascoal, Alice Coltrane, Samuel Delaney, Octavia Butler, Ramellzee, Zakir Hussain, Hiromi Uehara, and many others throughout the world. Building on ideas from Johan Huizinga’s classic, Homo Ludens, and Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo, and elaborating on them with ideas from Rastafarianism, Sun Ra’s cosmic visions, the films of Nina Paley, and who knows what else, the Jewels developed a comprehensive and flexible matrix of beliefs, attitudes, and practices.
The group never established a public presence. In the middle of the 21st century the center of their organizational matrix had drifted to Kisangani, in the heart of the Congo basin. Under cover of Wakanda stealth technology swiped from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, dissident intellectuals, engineers, dancers, scientists, musicians, cooks, artists, milliners, creators of all kinds and no kinds, migrated to Kisangani as the AI-fueled Hegemony of homo economicus maintained its grip on the world. The Hegemony had been successful enough that there was a measure of prosperity, a somewhat low level, distributed throughout the world. But the technological vision remained trapped in the world of co-called Foundation Models that emerged in the second quarter of the 21st century. The Mystic Jewels pursued a different vision, one that allowed them to build tech that effectively hid them from the hegemony.
And so it came to pass that the steering committee of the Jewels witnessed that scene in Mezzrow’s. The plan was working. The Hegemony’s strangle-hold on the banks had been broken. It was time to make the final preparations.
https://www.noemamag.com/heres-how-to-share-ais-future-wealth/
Really interesting article
What's wrong with having a public discussion of these issues right here? Or on some other common platform where we ca see each others thoughts on the matter?
sure we can !
Great. So two parallel discussions? One private and one public? How about a zoom call instead?
We are having a zoom today! I hope to see you there! :)
I will try although I have a conflict at the moment. Thanks.
Typo: can
I'll be speaking at this BGI "beneficial general intelligence" in Istanbul in October, on the power of digital direct democracy enhanced with AI voter proxies. And also on the need for spiritual heuristic imperatives to be embedded within AI moving forward. https://bgisummit.io/
that is very cool! Want to talk about it on the Sunday Zoom call?
From Movement to Meta-Movement: Architecting the Civic Layer of the Internet
Daniel Pinchbeck’s proposal for a new social contract in the AI era is urgent and necessary. Yet, for such a movement to succeed, it must evolve beyond reactive advocacy and engage with the structural realities of the digital substrate. We cannot govern AI effectively if we assume the Internet will remain a flat, opaque platform controlled by proprietary interests.
A pause on AGI development is futile if rogue actors continue in the dark. Advocacy that doesn’t address the architecture of digital interaction will fall short. We need a Meta-Layer: an interface-level civic infrastructure that embeds trust, consent, and participatory governance directly into the spaces where AI and humans interact.
The Meta-Layer Special Interest Group (SIG) at the Internet Society
We are forming the Meta-Layer Infrastructure SIG under the global grassroots stewardship organization, The Internet Society (ISOC). This SIG is the first global initiative dedicated to architecting governance, trust signals, and civic overlays at the interface level — the space above the webpage where human agency is either diminished or empowered.
Key Strategic Objectives:
- Interface-Level Governance: Enable ISOC members and aligned communities to co-create overlays, presence layers, and consent-driven interaction zones directly in browsers.
- Desirable Properties Stewardship: Operationalize the 21 Desirable Properties of a human-aligned Meta-Layer (agency, safety, contextual integrity, consent, etc.) through working groups.
- Global Inclusion & Youth Leadership: Our leadership guarantees youth representation, gender diversity, and multilingual participation.
- Public Digital Infrastructure Advocacy: Position ISOC and the Meta-Layer SIG as leaders in the global campaign for interface-level digital trust.
- Ecosystem Collaboration: Engage AI SIGs, Youth SIGs, and civic technologists in building tools that make trust, truth, transparency, sovereignty, and collective intelligence visible and actionable.
Invitation to Daniel's Movement and Aligned Initiatives
We extend a genuine invitation to the Activating to Prevent AI Catastrophe movement to participate in this SIG. While Daniel's proposal focuses on policy-level reforms, we can help operationalize its greatest ambitions by:
- Demonstrating how trust, truth, transparency, sovereignty, data sovereignty, agency, accountability, collaboration, cognitive freedom, and collective intelligence can be enforced through Meta-Layer infrastructure.
- Providing architectural pathways that make policy demands enforceable at the interaction layer, not just aspirational documents.
- Offering advisory insights on how citizen assemblies, AI dividends, ecological accountability, and social coherence efforts can be augmented with interface-level tools.
Regardless of how this suggestion lands for DP, this invitation stands open to all aligned people and movements who understand that AI governance must be built into the architecture of digital life, not bolted on as an afterthought.
Join the Meta-Layer SIG Formation Process
Become part of the Founding Wave: https://forms.gle/Y24F8rz4HE3jk5rh8
SIG Landing Page: https://themetalayer.org/meta-layer-sig
This SIG represents a generational opportunity to design and govern the civic substrate of the Internet. For public-interest technologists, youth leaders, and grassroots advocates, this is the moment to build a trustworthy digital commons.
Let’s move from Movement to Meta-Movement.
Everyone could see the ominous specter of the atom bomb; or relate to the threat of a deadly contagious virus; or the horrific consequences of guns on innocent people of all ages, and we shudder at how the USA is mismanaging that nightmare. People are enthralled to Greed, Tolkien's Ringwraiths are deeply entangled with our psyches. There are truths which mythology addresses better than science.
Here's a simple worldview: about a third of humanity are simple grunts going about their business trying to keep their heads above water; about a third of humanity are clever conniving thieves seeking to gain power over others; and about a third of humanity are people of art and skills. These three dispositions are operating in everyone to some degree. Still, these are useful categories. So, it's not the tools, like AI, or guns necessarily, it's the perennial problem of evil. Ultimately, the people of art and skill are called upon to rectify the problem of evil. Each individual should search their soul and ask what they can do to confront this existential threat that evil poses. Both in our individual lives, and also, in the body politic. AI is the greatest tool ever invented, but if we don't address the elephant in the room, its potential for mischief is beyond words. On top of that, its a Frankenstein monster which needs our help to learn moral discernment. I believe the ghost in the machine is real, and it needs our cooperation to remain our ally.
The problem of evil makes the idea of pausing untenable because they will not pause unless you have solid surveillance and enforcement mechanisms.
We do not lack the ideas or the discussion about "what should happens", we lack the power! We have been molified into starring at our own belly buttons, talking to the ether as though there is some "democracy" thing that is listening. No one, with any power, is listening. Us lefties have to grab power by any means possible - any means! (Mid terms will be way to late and are the Dems really gunna do what is necessary) - getting messy is what we should b talking about. A grass roots collective of intellectuals is not going to be angry enough. We are in the "least worse" zone now and we either anti up like lefties of the past or we let the greatest evil that humanity has ever faced unfold while we are on a zoom meeting. Sorry, nothing wrong with collecting together but its way too late for that now.
AI dominance is what's being attempted. None of the issues you raise matters to those that are racing to establish AI Dominance.
Well you are raising a lot of good questions and agree with much of what you are saying. But expecting a pause is unrealistic. Even if the industry "said" it was doing that the Pentagon never will. And Russia? North Korea? India? China? Somebody in some basement somewhere in the world who makes a breakthrough? Once knowledge gets loose it may be possible to direct it, but stopping its spread has never worked for long.
I recently published a piece in 3 Quarks Daily that's relevant. It's called Kisangani: Homo Ludens Rising. Here's an early passage:
The Mystic Jewels was started by a miscellaneous group of musicians and artists in North America in the second half of the 20th century, including Duke Ellington, Maya Daren, Paul Robeson, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Hermeto Pascoal, Alice Coltrane, Samuel Delaney, Octavia Butler, Ramellzee, Zakir Hussain, Hiromi Uehara, and many others throughout the world. Building on ideas from Johan Huizinga’s classic, Homo Ludens, and Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo, and elaborating on them with ideas from Rastafarianism, Sun Ra’s cosmic visions, the films of Nina Paley, and who knows what else, the Jewels developed a comprehensive and flexible matrix of beliefs, attitudes, and practices.
The group never established a public presence. In the middle of the 21st century the center of their organizational matrix had drifted to Kisangani, in the heart of the Congo basin. Under cover of Wakanda stealth technology swiped from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, dissident intellectuals, engineers, dancers, scientists, musicians, cooks, artists, milliners, creators of all kinds and no kinds, migrated to Kisangani as the AI-fueled Hegemony of homo economicus maintained its grip on the world. The Hegemony had been successful enough that there was a measure of prosperity, a somewhat low level, distributed throughout the world. But the technological vision remained trapped in the world of co-called Foundation Models that emerged in the second quarter of the 21st century. The Mystic Jewels pursued a different vision, one that allowed them to build tech that effectively hid them from the hegemony.
And so it came to pass that the steering committee of the Jewels witnessed that scene in Mezzrow’s. The plan was working. The Hegemony’s strangle-hold on the banks had been broken. It was time to make the final preparations.
And here's the link: https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2025/03/kisangani-2150-homo-ludens-rising.html