2026 City Event
Seattle, WA
Featuring
Are we really building AGI?
Get TicketsAn evening of provocation, falsification, and the questions the AI field has never asked. Every contribution becomes part of the independently reviewed Seattle 2026 City AGI Report.
Guest Speakers
SPK_04
SUBJECT_04 // Seattle
Cofounder, Personally Identifiable Information Standards Architecture
Ben Goertzel
CEO, SingularityNet
Seattle, WA, USA
TBD
Bio
CEO of SingularityNET and the Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) Alliance
Dr. Ben Goertzel is a pioneering scientist, entrepreneur, and leading global voice in artificial general intelligence (AGI). He serves as the CEO of SingularityNET, the world’s first large-scale decentralized AI platform, and CEO of TrueAGI, which focuses on building practical, scalable AGI systems rooted in decades of cognitive architecture research. He is also Chairman of the AGI Society, the field’s longest-running scientific organization dedicated to advancing general intelligence research, and CEO of the Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) Alliance, a multi-project ecosystem committed to developing open, beneficial superintelligence outside the control of Big Tech and nation-states.
Ben coined and formalized the term “Artificial General Intelligence” in his landmark 2005 book Artificial General Intelligence, setting the conceptual foundation for the field long before AGI became mainstream discourse. He has authored over 25 books and 200+ scientific papers spanning AI, cognitive science, complex systems, machine learning, and philosophy of mind. His latest book, The Consciousness Explosion, outlines a vision for the coming transition where humans and advanced machine minds co-evolve toward higher forms of intelligence and experience.
A central focus of Ben’s current work is Hyperon, the largest non–Big Tech AGI architecture and the leading project globally that integrates multiple AI techniques, such as symbolic reasoning, neural learning, probabilistic inference, evolutionary computation, and distributed networks. Hyperon is designed to run on a decentralized, censorship-resistant compute fabric—in stark contrast to the closed, centralized AGI efforts of major corporations.
Throughout his career, Ben has built and led teams across academia, industry, and open-source communities. Prior roles include Chief Scientist of Hanson Robotics, where he led the development of the cognitive software behind Sophia the Robot (the first robot citizen), and leadership positions across bioinformatics, machine learning, and cognitive modeling labs worldwide. As a public intellectual, he is widely recognized for his thought leadership on AGI safety, decentralized AI governance, crypto-AI ecosystems, longevity science, and transhumanism. He is a frequent speaker at global forums including Davos, TEDx, the Web Summit, The United Nations, China’s Boao Forum, and major AI research conferences.
Outside of research and entrepreneurship, Ben is also a musician. His band Desdemona’s Dream, featuring a humanoid robot lead singer, tours internationally and explores the frontier of AI-human musical collaboration—merging art, embodiment, and generative creativity as another dimension of his lifelong exploration of intelligence.
Dr. Ben Goertzel is a pioneering scientist, entrepreneur, and leading global voice in artificial general intelligence (AGI). He serves as the CEO of SingularityNET, the world’s first large-scale decentralized AI platform, and CEO of TrueAGI, which focuses on building practical, scalable AGI systems rooted in decades of cognitive architecture research. He is also Chairman of the AGI Society, the field’s longest-running scientific organization dedicated to advancing general intelligence research, and CEO of the Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) Alliance, a multi-project ecosystem committed to developing open, beneficial superintelligence outside the control of Big Tech and nation-states.
Ben coined and formalized the term “Artificial General Intelligence” in his landmark 2005 book Artificial General Intelligence, setting the conceptual foundation for the field long before AGI became mainstream discourse. He has authored over 25 books and 200+ scientific papers spanning AI, cognitive science, complex systems, machine learning, and philosophy of mind. His latest book, The Consciousness Explosion, outlines a vision for the coming transition where humans and advanced machine minds co-evolve toward higher forms of intelligence and experience.
A central focus of Ben’s current work is Hyperon, the largest non–Big Tech AGI architecture and the leading project globally that integrates multiple AI techniques, such as symbolic reasoning, neural learning, probabilistic inference, evolutionary computation, and distributed networks. Hyperon is designed to run on a decentralized, censorship-resistant compute fabric—in stark contrast to the closed, centralized AGI efforts of major corporations.
Throughout his career, Ben has built and led teams across academia, industry, and open-source communities. Prior roles include Chief Scientist of Hanson Robotics, where he led the development of the cognitive software behind Sophia the Robot (the first robot citizen), and leadership positions across bioinformatics, machine learning, and cognitive modeling labs worldwide. As a public intellectual, he is widely recognized for his thought leadership on AGI safety, decentralized AI governance, crypto-AI ecosystems, longevity science, and transhumanism. He is a frequent speaker at global forums including Davos, TEDx, the Web Summit, The United Nations, China’s Boao Forum, and major AI research conferences.
Outside of research and entrepreneurship, Ben is also a musician. His band Desdemona’s Dream, featuring a humanoid robot lead singer, tours internationally and explores the frontier of AI-human musical collaboration—merging art, embodiment, and generative creativity as another dimension of his lifelong exploration of intelligence.
Roman Yampolskiy
Associate Professor, University of Louisville
Louisville, KY, USA
Bio
Roman Yampolskiy, a tenured AI expert at the University of Louisville, boasts 100+ publications in AI safety, cybersecurity, and digital forensics. Known for dynamic speaking, he simplifies complex topics for diverse audiences, from academic conferences to public lectures.
As the founding director of the Cyber Security Lab, Yampolskiy's insights on AI and cybersecurity trends remain relevant. Honored with distinctions like Distinguished Teaching Professor, his dedication to education and research is evident. Holding a PhD from the University at Buffalo, he has contributed to global research institutions.
Yampolskiy's expertise spans AI Safety, Behavioral Biometrics, Cybersecurity, and more, with broad impact in academic and media circles.
As the founding director of the Cyber Security Lab, Yampolskiy's insights on AI and cybersecurity trends remain relevant. Honored with distinctions like Distinguished Teaching Professor, his dedication to education and research is evident. Holding a PhD from the University at Buffalo, he has contributed to global research institutions.
Yampolskiy's expertise spans AI Safety, Behavioral Biometrics, Cybersecurity, and more, with broad impact in academic and media circles.
Michael Levin
Director, Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University
Medford, MA, USA
Embodied intelligence beyond emergence, Platonic patterns beyond mathematics
Bio
Dr. Michael Levin is the Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor of Biology at Tufts University and Director of the Allen Discovery Center. His background is in computer science and biology, and his group works at the intersection of developmental biophysics, computer science, and cognitive science. He is primarily interested in how intelligence self-organizes in a diverse range of natural, engineered, and hybrid embodiments. Levin has been developing a framework for recognizing and communicating with unconventional cognitive systems; applied to the collective intelligence of cell groups undergoing morphogenesis, these ideas have allowed the Levin lab to develop new applications in birth defects, organ regeneration, and cancer suppression. His lab also produces synthetic life forms, such as Xenobots and Anthrobots, as exploration platforms for patterns of form and behavior in space of possibilities that in-forms systems from simple algorithms to complex animal life.
Hessie Jones
Cofounder, Personally Identifiable Information Standards Architecture
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
The Uphill Crusade against the AGI Hype
This Is AGI
a basic definition is an effective transfer of knowledge across different problems, akin to how a human brain works.
An illusory concept of a world, ambitiously marketed by Silicon Valley elites that debases human purpose while miraculously creating an Eden for humanity.
An illusory concept of a world, ambitiously marketed by Silicon Valley elites that debases human purpose while miraculously creating an Eden for humanity.
Bio
Hessie Jones is a writer, an investor, and a strategist advocating for human-centred AI, education and the ethical distribution of AI. She is a freelance journalist, a former contributor to Forbes, Grit Daily, and the Huffington Post, and a former editor for Towards Data Science.
Her substack is HessieJones and, more recently, System Malfunction. In the last decade, Hessie has worked in the responsible tech space. She is the Cofounder of Personally Identifiable Information Standards Architecture (PIISA), developing an open model to detect and remediate PII in AI models; She is a former board member of Women in AI Ethics™ (WAIE) to elevate the voices of the experts working towards responsible development and design of AI models and systems. In her work, she aims to advance the quality of human-computer experiences through values-based innovation, prioritizing human-centred design.
Her substack is HessieJones and, more recently, System Malfunction. In the last decade, Hessie has worked in the responsible tech space. She is the Cofounder of Personally Identifiable Information Standards Architecture (PIISA), developing an open model to detect and remediate PII in AI models; She is a former board member of Women in AI Ethics™ (WAIE) to elevate the voices of the experts working towards responsible development and design of AI models and systems. In her work, she aims to advance the quality of human-computer experiences through values-based innovation, prioritizing human-centred design.
Adam Peer
VP, Strategic Partnership, Global Economic Alliance
Eugene, OR, USA
Welcome To This Is AGI!
Bio
Adam Peer has been working in AGI since 2016, when he joined Kimera Systems — a decade of direct exposure to the science, the politics, and the institutional dynamics of building toward general intelligence. That puts him among a small group of non-engineers with substantive, long-form experience inside an AGI research organization, at a time when most "AI experts" entered the field after ChatGPT.
His decade in AGI has included extensive work with industry partners on what most AGI researchers have never seriously considered: how a general intelligence would actually be deployed. Specifically, Adam has spent years exploring AGI in the context of ambient intelligence — environments where intelligence is woven into the fabric of daily life rather than confined to a chatbot window. This is the productization layer of AGI, and it remains almost entirely absent from mainstream AGI discourse, which is dominated by people who have never had to think past the demo.
Originally from South Africa, Adam brings a perspective shaped by both mature and emerging markets, with a clear understanding of how advanced technologies create opportunity in regions often overlooked. His background spans advanced engineering environments, large-scale IT modernization, and AI-driven strategy, and he is known for translating complex technical concepts into strategic direction that bridges technical and business audiences.
At the Global Economic Alliance, Adam leads strategic partnerships and serves as the public face of the organization's events, where his combination of long-tenure AGI exposure, productization experience, and cross-domain fluency makes him a natural host for the kinds of conversations the AI field has been avoiding.
His decade in AGI has included extensive work with industry partners on what most AGI researchers have never seriously considered: how a general intelligence would actually be deployed. Specifically, Adam has spent years exploring AGI in the context of ambient intelligence — environments where intelligence is woven into the fabric of daily life rather than confined to a chatbot window. This is the productization layer of AGI, and it remains almost entirely absent from mainstream AGI discourse, which is dominated by people who have never had to think past the demo.
Originally from South Africa, Adam brings a perspective shaped by both mature and emerging markets, with a clear understanding of how advanced technologies create opportunity in regions often overlooked. His background spans advanced engineering environments, large-scale IT modernization, and AI-driven strategy, and he is known for translating complex technical concepts into strategic direction that bridges technical and business audiences.
At the Global Economic Alliance, Adam leads strategic partnerships and serves as the public face of the organization's events, where his combination of long-tenure AGI exposure, productization experience, and cross-domain fluency makes him a natural host for the kinds of conversations the AI field has been avoiding.
Mounir Shita
Global Economic Alliance
Portland, OR, United States
Intelligence Is a Law of Physics — Not a Property That Emerges From Complexity
This Is AGI
Machines that comprehend the physical world, not just reason.
Machines engineered based on a falsifiable scientific theory of intelligence.
Machines engineered based on a falsifiable scientific theory of intelligence.
Bio
Mounir Shita has spent nearly thirty years asking a question the AI field has refused to ask: what is intelligence, scientifically? His answer is that intelligence is a physical phenomenon governed by the same laws as gravity and electromagnetism — and that no amount of scaling, benchmarking, or capital deployment will produce AGI until the field accepts that and builds the science to match. He formalized this position in the Theory of General Intelligence, presented at the International Conference for Advanced Research in Applied Science, Engineering, and Technology, and expanded it in his book Science of Intelligence, which argues for establishing intelligence as a distinct field within physics. He founded Kimera Systems, an early AGI research company that built a working prototype before being shut down — an experience that convinced him AGI requires independent scientific oversight, not industry self-regulation. He now leads EraNova Global and the Global Economic Alliance, the nonprofit behind This Is AGI, where his work spans the physics of intelligence, the economics of post-scarcity cognition, and the governance of a civilization that is about to meet something smarter than itself.
Mounir Shita has spent nearly thirty years asking a question the AI field has refused to ask: what is intelligence, scientifically? His answer is that intelligence is a physical phenomenon governed by the same laws as gravity and electromagnetism — and that no amount of scaling, benchmarking, or capital deployment will produce AGI until the field accepts that and builds the science to match. He formalized this position in the Theory of General Intelligence, presented at the International Conference for Advanced Research in Applied Science, Engineering, and Technology, and expanded it in his book Science of Intelligence, which argues for establishing intelligence as a distinct field within physics. He founded Kimera Systems, an early AGI research company that built a working prototype before being shut down — an experience that convinced him AGI requires independent scientific oversight, not industry self-regulation. He now leads EraNova Global and the Global Economic Alliance, the nonprofit behind This Is AGI, where his work spans the physics of intelligence, the economics of post-scarcity cognition, and the governance of a civilization that is about to meet something smarter than itself.
Mounir Shita has spent nearly thirty years asking a question the AI field has refused to ask: what is intelligence, scientifically? His answer is that intelligence is a physical phenomenon governed by the same laws as gravity and electromagnetism — and that no amount of scaling, benchmarking, or capital deployment will produce AGI until the field accepts that and builds the science to match. He formalized this position in the Theory of General Intelligence, presented at the International Conference for Advanced Research in Applied Science, Engineering, and Technology, and expanded it in his book Science of Intelligence, which argues for establishing intelligence as a distinct field within physics. He founded Kimera Systems, an early AGI research company that built a working prototype before being shut down — an experience that convinced him AGI requires independent scientific oversight, not industry self-regulation. He now leads EraNova Global and the Global Economic Alliance, the nonprofit behind This Is AGI, where his work spans the physics of intelligence, the economics of post-scarcity cognition, and the governance of a civilization that is about to meet something smarter than itself.