AI and Humanity's Future

Let's explore this precipice together

Hi Folks,

This Sunday, we launch our new month-long seminar on Artificial Intelligence, exploring both its promise and its perils. We will be looking at the creative possibilities it offers us as individuals, and also the socially transformative power of this rapid technological evolution. We will also take stock of the many threatening and worrisome aspects of AI, while exploring philosophical questions around the nature of consciousness or sentience, and the new epistemic challenges posed by synthetic “superminds.”

We really want you to join us for this journey, which seems incredibly relevant right now. We are offering a 10% off “Late Bird” discount for readers of this newsletter and a 30% off deal for paid subscribers of Liminal News (if you are a paid subscriber, look for that in a separate email. You can also subscribe now and receive the discount).

Breaking the AI Barrier will help you prepare yourself and your community for this emergent future in many ways, personally as well as philosophically. It is crucial, right now, that well-meaning creative people don’t shy away from making use of these tools, even as the tools themselves keep evolving and society keeps transforming in relationship to them. AI may cause total unemployment, social chaos, bring about our extinction, or it can liberate humanity from mental and physical drudgery so that everyone can cultivate their unique essence — we truly do not know at this point. The timelines are shockingly short. This is why we all need to educate ourselves and involve ourselves in the development of this technology.

We will explore practical use cases, encouraging participants to produce their own short AI videos, learn “vibe coding,” and build their first Apps. We will review these efforts during our group discussion period. Some of the topics we will cover during our seminar:

• How you can use AI right now to enhance your life, creativity, and career

• How AI tools can help us build a more participatory, resilient, cooperative, and regenerative society

• How to navigate increasing prevalence of “deep fakes” and AI hallucinations

• History of LLMS and machine learning

• Right Wing Technofeudalism and AI-enabled authoritarianism

• The Singularity, Transhumanism, and the “AI Rapture”

• The nature of consciousness, the prospect that AI is bringing about a new epistemic paradigm which changes our understanding of the human being’s purpose and meaning

• The impact of AI on massive job loss: How this will lead to brutal despotism or collective emancipation (watch my video on AI unemployment), and what we can do as individuals and communities to support the best option

• Tactics for defiance against AI despotism and the social media “outrage machine”

• Indigenous critique of AI and perspectives on natural wisdom versus synthetic intelligence from the Kogi and other cultures.

Also, if you would like to take the seminar but don’t have the funds, we are happy to offer partial or full scholarships, depending on need. Email us at info@liminal.news with some information on your situation.

Breaking the AI Barrier

The arrival of synthetic super-intelligence brings both unprecedented potential and catastrophic risk, threatening to deconstruct, redesign, and transform reality as we have known it until now. Breaking The AI Barrier is a four-week online seminar offers a unique synthesis of philosophical inquiry, historical and mythic insight, critical analysis, and pragmatic techniques to help you comprehend and navigate what may be one of the most significant transitions in human history. The seminar provides guidance on the crucial question of our time: How do you navigate a world of synthetic super-minds?

The course runs from July 6-July 30, 2025, with main sessions held on Sundays and discussion groups on Wednesdays. Sessions will run from 1pm - 3pm EST. All sessions will be recorded and available for on-demand playback.

Presenters

Our presenters for Breaking The AI Barrier are: Douglas Rushkoff, Ari Kushnir, De Kai, and Vanessa Machado de Oliveira. We may add a few more during the month. You can find their bios listed below:

Douglas Rushkoff

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Douglas Rushkoff is an American media theorist, writer, lecturer, graphic novelist, and documentarian. He is famous for coining the term, “viral media.” Douglas is a rare voice of sanity and coherence in the smog of techno-capitalism. His books include Survival of the Richest, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus, Program or Be Programmed, and Cyberia, among others. His work delves into how digital technologies impact our lives and societies, offering solutions and hopeful possibilities. He hosts the Team Human podcast.

Ari Kuschnir

Ari Kuschnir is a new wave storyteller. Ari is a visionary and creative catalyst who uses AI to push the boundaries of contemporary storytelling. He is the founder of m ss ng p eces, which has produced award-winning content and immersive experiences with the world’s leading brands and was named Webby's Production Company of the Year. Recently, he’s become an online sensation, creating mind-bending viral AI videos such as one of Trump drinking ayahuasca and undergoing a spiritual awakening:

Through his unique works and speaking engagements, he seeks to plant seeds in the collective imagination revealing hopeful possibilities of a different future.

De Kai

De Kai is an author, professor, and Director of the Artificial Intelligence ethics think tank. De Kai is best known as the inventor of the first global online language translator, a breakthrough which led to Google Translate, Yahoo Translate, and Microsoft Bing Translator. He worked closely with Geoffrey Hinton, who is often described as the “godfather of AI” and has recently been warning of AI’s potential to cause human extinction.

Vanessa Machado de Oliveira

Vanessa Machado de Oliveira is a Brazilian/Canadian educator, artist, and researcher. Vanessa has spent over three decades tracing the scaffolds and shadows of modernity: its promises, its silences, and its systemic harms. She is the author of Hospicing Modernity and Outgrowing Modernity, co-author of Burnout From Humans: A little book about AI that is not about AI, and a co-weaver of the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures collective. Recently, she has been exploring Artificial Intelligence from a philosophical and anti-colonial perspective, publishing “From Assumption to Inquiry: Mapping the Ontological Terrain of AI,” among other works.

Vanessa’s work invites a deep reckoning with the ontological assumptions that threaten the future of human and more-than-human life on this planet. Through pedagogical and artistic containers, she opens spaces of inquiry where non-human kin, grief, humor, and complexity can co-compose relational ways of being, knowing, and becoming. She is currently reactivating her ancestral refusal of containment: no longer performing for legitimacy, but inhabiting the rhythms of a different fidelity.

We look forward to having you join us!