Common Questions

Identify a primary track under Rule 4.1.a and note any cross-referenced tracks under Rule 4.1.b. The review board applies the primary track's criteria to the presentation as a whole and applies cross-referenced tracks' criteria to the specific claims that fall in those tracks.

If you are uncertain which track should be primary, discuss with the event coordinator before submitting.

If the presentation is primarily about what is wrong with an approach as a scientific or disciplinary matter, it is Meta-Analysis (Rule 4.5).

If the presentation also proposes a positive alternative framework, it may be primary in whichever track the alternative fits, with a Meta-Analysis cross-reference.

Partially. The event is a science event, not an engineering event. Engineering content is welcome when it serves the scientific purpose of the statement your presentation is linked to — for example, an engineered implementation that demonstrates the viability of a scientifically grounded framework supporting the statement, or an engineered system used as evidence for or against the statement. In these cases the science is the subject and the engineering is support.

Engineering content is not welcome as the subject of the presentation. Presentations about how you built a system, what architecture you chose, what benchmarks it achieved, or what engineering problems you solved — without scientific grounding of what the work claims and how that claim bears on the statement it addresses — do not fit the event. See Rule 3.5 on conceptual focus and Rule 3.6 on marketing content.

A useful test: "What does my presentation claim about the statement it addresses, and how does the engineering I describe support that claim?" If you can answer that cleanly, the engineering belongs. If the answer becomes difficult to articulate, or if the engineering is the point and the statement connection is added to justify it, the presentation is unlikely to fit.

If you are uncertain whether your work fits, contact the event coordinator before deciding not to submit. Some presentations that appear engineering-focused at first glance can be framed scientifically, and the coordinator can help you think through whether your work has a grounded scientific angle.

No. Under Rule 1.2, you may support a statement, oppose it, or approach it orthogonally. Opposition is as legitimate as support.

What is not acceptable is presenting without any explicit connection to a statement (Rule 1.1 and Rule 1.3).

Contact the event coordinator. The statement pool evolves across cities, and new statements may be added when the work is strong and fills a real gap.

The goal of the pool is to cover the landscape of AGI questions, not to constrain speakers arbitrarily.

No. Rule 1.4 makes acceptance of peer review a condition of participation.

The Report's value to external readers depends on comprehensive review; opt-in review would undermine that value.

No. Rule 6.3.a and Rule 9.2 provide that the Report does not adjudicate truth.

The Report describes the scientific state of each statement given the grounded work presented, surfaces the disagreements between grounded approaches, and identifies grounded challenges to each. The grounding standard filters for scientific seriousness; the statement verdicts report the scientific state of each statement as addressed at the event. Neither declares truth.

Less than you may expect. Under Rule 3.5, presentations should focus on concepts, pathways, and grounding rather than deep technical detail.

A presentation that identifies its foundations clearly, engages with them correctly, acknowledges its extensions, reasons coherently, and states its claims falsifiably will review well at the conceptual level. A presentation heavy on technical detail without grounding will not.

Both. Under Rule 6.1, your presentation is first evaluated individually against the grounding criteria of its track. If it meets or partially meets the standard, it feeds into the statement-level evaluation under Rule 6.2, where the board synthesizes all grounded contributions addressing the same statement and reaches a verdict on the statement's scientific state.

The Report appears in statement-organized form under Rule 9.3, so your presentation is published in the section for the statement it addresses, alongside other grounded contributions on the same statement.

A presentation that does not meet the grounding standard is still published in the Report, with the board's reasoning, but does not feed into the statement-level verdict.

Under Rule 6.1, each presentation receives a grounding verdict: meets, partially meets, or does not meet the grounding standard. This is an evaluation of your presentation as a scientific contribution.

Under Rule 6.2, each statement receives a scientific state verdict: supported, opposed, contested, unsupported at this event, or outside scientific reach. This is an evaluation of the statement given all grounded contributions addressing it, not of any individual presentation.

Your presentation's grounding verdict determines whether you qualify as an input to the statement verdict; the statement verdict reports the scientific state of the claim itself.

You may submit a response under Rule 8. The response is your final word in the Report on the board's evaluation of your work.

Responses must fall within the scope defined in Rule 8.3 and Rule 8.4 and are limited to 1,000 words under Rule 8.5.

If your response falls outside scope after revision opportunities, it is not included in the Report (Rule 8.7), but you are free to publish it through your own channels under Rule 8.8.

Under Rule 10, audience members submit questions through a web application on their mobile devices. Questions are evaluated against the Scientific Code of Conduct, first by AI and then by a human moderator, before being posted to the queue.

A live curator selects from the queue for on-stage Q&A during your challenge period. After the event, all posted questions are available for you to respond to in writing at your discretion (Rule 10.9). Written responses are optional.

Pro Tickets are a class of event ticket that includes the right to submit a written analysis of one or more presentations for possible inclusion in the City AGI Report (Rule 11).

Pro-ticket submissions are reviewed in two stages — against the Scientific Code of Conduct and then by the Independent Review Board — and appear in the Report alongside the board's evaluation of each submission.

As a presenter, you may receive pro-ticket submissions that address your presentation; these are evaluated under the same scientific standard as your own presentation, and the board's evaluation of each submission appears in the Report.

Rule 12 defines the Scientific Code of Conduct — the floor standard for non-presenter participation. It applies to audience questions, pro-ticket submissions, and presenter responses to the review board and to audience challenge.

Your own presentation is governed by Rule 4 (track criteria), not by the code of conduct; the code applies to how you engage with others' work, not to how your own work is evaluated.

The event coordinator for your city is the first point of contact for all logistics and content questions. The coordinator will route questions to the appropriate GEA contact where needed.

For general speaker-guide questions, email [email protected].