Long Now is a non-profit organization fostering long-term thinking and responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years.
San Francisco, CA
Joined July 2008
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Challenges that feel impossible to tackle within a single human lifetime become conceivable when you have a longer timescale to work with.
Today is a day to take the long view.
Join our community of long-term thinking, 02026 is going to be a good one. na2.hubs.ly/H02frJ50
An important discussion is happening around the death of the leap second: International metrologists voted to halt worldwide usage of the leap second convention and adopt a continuous atomic time scale instead. This will mean civil time will drift away from astronomical solar time by up to an hour over the centuries ahead.
The discussion brings long-term thinking, civilizational planning, and planetary-scale cooperation all to the forefront, which we love.
Farewell to the little leap second, and welcome to the future leap hour. It’s all a poetic reminder that human technology is still tethered to the messy, irregular, wobbly planet we all inhabit.
The leap second is no more. International timekeepers voted to end it today, which will allow Earth’s rotation and official time to fall farther out of alignment than ever before.
sciam.com/article/scientists…
Long Now Foundation retweeted
This is an outstanding essay on the nature and prospects of AI.
I'm absolutely thrilled to have written this article for Long Now. It's about AI and time: how we got here, and what we can do now, when all of the pace layers are disrupted at once by an influx of new minds.
I wrote this over the summer. At the time, it seemed maybe too weird, like people wouldn't believe or understand what I was saying. And of course, everything changes so fast that it's hard to imagine writing something about AI that far in advance and have it still make sense. But I think the events of the last few months have only made it more relevant.
The Long Now Foundation has been an inspiration to me for a decade now, and has changed my life in countless ways. I'm incredibly grateful and honored to be among so many of my heroes and friends and colleagues represented in this issue of Pace Layers and Long Now Ideas. I wouldn't be here in San Francisco, here on Twitter, or here in the field of artificial intelligence if not for this community.
The conversation about AI has been fractious. It's very hard to think about how to fit this sudden, disruptive, technological change into the 10,000-year view. I hope I provide some insights, or at least some new angles for the conversation. It's scary to go on the record, especially about something that will affect everyone, and affect the rest of history. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong forever!
Please read and enjoy, and post quotes and screenshots, and buy Pace Layers Issue 3 so you can have a permanent hard copy. I have always wanted to be a part of the 10,000-year library, so I have to be serious for once and try to stand for something. Let me know what you think.
In "Attention Is All You Need" @deepfates writes, “AI is going to speed up every aspect of human society, for better or worse, because it is made of the substrate society runs on. Their arrival accelerates all the pace layers at once.”
Read it on Long Now Ideas here: na2.hubs.ly/H08Hs7C0
Pre-order it in print here: na2.hubs.ly/H08Hs7G0
This Archive of AI Predictions gathers all the AI forecasts in one place. Without a record, bold predictions are easy to make and easy to forget (see Long Bets for our version).
In moments of great uncertainty and anxiety, especially around fast-moving technology, it helps to stay grounded, keep records, check the records against how reality unfolds, and be in community with other critical thinkers.
Explore the AI Predictions Archive here: na2.hubs.ly/H08Jytq0 Join the Long Now community here: na2.hubs.ly/H08Jyr10
In the 01940s, the Reber Plan proposed damming San Francisco Bay to turn it into two vast freshwater lakes. The Army Corps of Engineers built the Bay Model in 01956 to test the effects of the proposal. Before computer modeling, there was only one way to simulate a hydrological system as enormous and complex as the Bay Area: build it.
The Long Now team recently visited the model, which remained an active research tool until 02000, and got to experience the “miniature” up close (it’s 1.5 acres!). It is housed in a cavernous warehouse on the Sausalito waterfront, and its tides still run on a compressed clock, with a full “day” passing every 15 minutes.
The Reber Plan was ultimately abandoned after the model showed it would completely devastate the ecosystems and estuaries. The Bay Model is a remarkable artifact from an era of slide rules and analog science. A reminder of what it looks like to test our largest decisions with patience before committing future generations to the consequences.
Learn more about this Bay Area hidden gem: na2.hubs.ly/H08HqHK0
Amazing photos thanks to Cayla Sharp
Is a living thing a machine? Biologist Michael Levin’s answer: no — and also yes.
A rich exploration of how our metaphors are failing us, by our upcoming Entangled Intelligences speaker Michael Levin. Read it in @noemamag here: na2.hubs.ly/H08DBp00
Long Now Foundation retweeted
An essay I wrote about @mruspace is one of 27 picked to be featured in the Long Now Foundation's upcoming Book of Time, due out next spring
Announcing our first Long Now Labs awardees in partnership with the Protocol Institute. We received 370+ exceptional submissions — and we’re thrilled to unveil the three awardees chosen to develop their concepts into prototypes. The awardees for Book of Time are:
▪️Matthew Caren and Anastasha Rachel Gunawan for “Lagu Hantu,” a handmade instrument installation that remembers everyone who has ever played it.
▪️Eirini Malliaraki (@irinimalliaraki) with “One Billion Clocks” a kinetic sculpture that tracks the metabolic time of soil
▪️Sarah Friend (@isthisanart_) for “Thermodynamic Clock for LLMs” which will test whether giving models access to different experiences of time will alter their behavior
Over the coming year, each team will develop its concept into a working prototype with $25,000 in funding and support from Long Now. Their work will appear alongside 27 selected submissions in the Book of Time anthology, coming in spring 02027.
For our second Lab, Epistemic Cycles, UC Berkeley scholar Nina Begus (@ninabegus) will serve as Lab Lead. She’ll convene an interdisciplinary working group to build an atlas of information ruptures (from writing to generative AI) and of how societies have repaired them.
Our third Lab, Interspecies Protocols, launches in 02027.
Thank you to everyone who applied, to our partners at the Protocol Institute, and to our review panel. Read the full description of these incredible projects on Ideas here: na2.hubs.ly/H08xGzF0
Thank you to everyone who came out last night for an incredibly heartfelt and generative conversation between @baratunde and @blaiseaguera on the interdependence of humans, intelligence, and technology. Thank you to our host, @denisehearn_ , our Director of Strategic Initiatives, and to our audience for all the thoughtful and provocative questions.
If you missed it, the full episode will publish next week on YouTube. Members get two free tickets to all Long Now Talks like this. Join us! na2.hubs.ly/H08B94V0
Long Now Foundation retweeted
What kind of Clock is an LLM?
I wrote about this in Spring, but since then my questions has deepened and become Cartesian - I think therefore I am, but how does an LLM assess claims made by it's own infrastructure?
excited to dig into this with @longnow over the next year :)
Announcing our first Long Now Labs awardees in partnership with the Protocol Institute. We received 370+ exceptional submissions — and we’re thrilled to unveil the three awardees chosen to develop their concepts into prototypes. The awardees for Book of Time are:
▪️Matthew Caren and Anastasha Rachel Gunawan for “Lagu Hantu,” a handmade instrument installation that remembers everyone who has ever played it.
▪️Eirini Malliaraki (@irinimalliaraki) with “One Billion Clocks” a kinetic sculpture that tracks the metabolic time of soil
▪️Sarah Friend (@isthisanart_) for “Thermodynamic Clock for LLMs” which will test whether giving models access to different experiences of time will alter their behavior
Over the coming year, each team will develop its concept into a working prototype with $25,000 in funding and support from Long Now. Their work will appear alongside 27 selected submissions in the Book of Time anthology, coming in spring 02027.
For our second Lab, Epistemic Cycles, UC Berkeley scholar Nina Begus (@ninabegus) will serve as Lab Lead. She’ll convene an interdisciplinary working group to build an atlas of information ruptures (from writing to generative AI) and of how societies have repaired them.
Our third Lab, Interspecies Protocols, launches in 02027.
Thank you to everyone who applied, to our partners at the Protocol Institute, and to our review panel. Read the full description of these incredible projects on Ideas here: na2.hubs.ly/H08xGzF0
Long Now Foundation retweeted
For those who can’t join us in person tonight, the talk will be livestreamed on @longnow's YouTube channel: youtube.com/watch?v=FPx_TTG3…
Friends in San Francisco: Join me at @longnow on October 22 for a conversation on interdependence with @baratunde.
We'll explore cooperation as the core governing principle of nature and synthetic minds, why intelligence is inherently collective, and what this means for our shared future.
Get tickets here: eventbrite.com/e/on-interdep…
Long Now Foundation retweeted
I'm absolutely thrilled to have written this article for Long Now. It's about AI and time: how we got here, and what we can do now, when all of the pace layers are disrupted at once by an influx of new minds.
I wrote this over the summer. At the time, it seemed maybe too weird, like people wouldn't believe or understand what I was saying. And of course, everything changes so fast that it's hard to imagine writing something about AI that far in advance and have it still make sense. But I think the events of the last few months have only made it more relevant.
The Long Now Foundation has been an inspiration to me for a decade now, and has changed my life in countless ways. I'm incredibly grateful and honored to be among so many of my heroes and friends and colleagues represented in this issue of Pace Layers and Long Now Ideas. I wouldn't be here in San Francisco, here on Twitter, or here in the field of artificial intelligence if not for this community.
The conversation about AI has been fractious. It's very hard to think about how to fit this sudden, disruptive, technological change into the 10,000-year view. I hope I provide some insights, or at least some new angles for the conversation. It's scary to go on the record, especially about something that will affect everyone, and affect the rest of history. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong forever!
Please read and enjoy, and post quotes and screenshots, and buy Pace Layers Issue 3 so you can have a permanent hard copy. I have always wanted to be a part of the 10,000-year library, so I have to be serious for once and try to stand for something. Let me know what you think.
In 02025, @deepfates helped throw a funeral for an AI. The power went out mid-ceremony, and the crowd hummed it back to life.
In “Attention is All You Need,” deepfates tells the story of that night, their backstory on a hippie commune with Whole Earth Catalogs on the shelf, and how they got here: in San Francisco on the eve of another technological disruption.
Civilization runs on shared human attention, they argue, and AI has just made attention cheap, endless, and on tap. So what happens to the slow pace layers — culture, governance, nature — when everything starts to speed up? And what could we finally accomplish if we had enough attention to spare?
Read the essay online here: na2.hubs.ly/H08ySWy0
Or, hold it in your hands: pre-order Pace Layers, Long Now’s annual print journal, launching this November. New annual subscribers also get a free copy of Issue 2, while supplies last.
Artwork by @caseycripe
In 02025, @deepfates helped throw a funeral for an AI. The power went out mid-ceremony, and the crowd hummed it back to life.
In “Attention is All You Need,” deepfates tells the story of that night, their backstory on a hippie commune with Whole Earth Catalogs on the shelf, and how they got here: in San Francisco on the eve of another technological disruption.
Civilization runs on shared human attention, they argue, and AI has just made attention cheap, endless, and on tap. So what happens to the slow pace layers — culture, governance, nature — when everything starts to speed up? And what could we finally accomplish if we had enough attention to spare?
Read the essay online here: na2.hubs.ly/H08ySWy0
Or, hold it in your hands: pre-order Pace Layers, Long Now’s annual print journal, launching this November. New annual subscribers also get a free copy of Issue 2, while supplies last.
Artwork by @caseycripe
[Tomorrow 10/22] In-person tickets are sold out, but you can still tune in via the livestream: na2.hubs.ly/H08v7Hr0
“On Interdependence” a conversation with @blaiseaguera and @baratunde on how AI symbiosis and Indigenous principles will shape our collective survival over the next 10,000 years.
More info here: na2.hubs.ly/H08v7Ht0
Long Now Foundation retweeted
What if a clock told us not what time it is, but how the world is becoming? Beneath our feet, billions of organisms keep time through metabolism, decay and renewal.
Thrilled that my project One Billion Clocks, a kinetic sculpture of soil’s living rhythms, was selected for Long Now Labs by the @longnow !
Announcing our first Long Now Labs awardees in partnership with the Protocol Institute. We received 370+ exceptional submissions — and we’re thrilled to unveil the three awardees chosen to develop their concepts into prototypes. The awardees for Book of Time are:
▪️Matthew Caren and Anastasha Rachel Gunawan for “Lagu Hantu,” a handmade instrument installation that remembers everyone who has ever played it.
▪️Eirini Malliaraki (@irinimalliaraki) with “One Billion Clocks” a kinetic sculpture that tracks the metabolic time of soil
▪️Sarah Friend (@isthisanart_) for “Thermodynamic Clock for LLMs” which will test whether giving models access to different experiences of time will alter their behavior
Over the coming year, each team will develop its concept into a working prototype with $25,000 in funding and support from Long Now. Their work will appear alongside 27 selected submissions in the Book of Time anthology, coming in spring 02027.
For our second Lab, Epistemic Cycles, UC Berkeley scholar Nina Begus (@ninabegus) will serve as Lab Lead. She’ll convene an interdisciplinary working group to build an atlas of information ruptures (from writing to generative AI) and of how societies have repaired them.
Our third Lab, Interspecies Protocols, launches in 02027.
Thank you to everyone who applied, to our partners at the Protocol Institute, and to our review panel. Read the full description of these incredible projects on Ideas here: na2.hubs.ly/H08xGzF0
Long Now Foundation retweeted
whoa “Thermodynamic Clock for LLMs” has a neat ring to it
Announcing our first Long Now Labs awardees in partnership with the Protocol Institute. We received 370+ exceptional submissions — and we’re thrilled to unveil the three awardees chosen to develop their concepts into prototypes. The awardees for Book of Time are:
▪️Matthew Caren and Anastasha Rachel Gunawan for “Lagu Hantu,” a handmade instrument installation that remembers everyone who has ever played it.
▪️Eirini Malliaraki (@irinimalliaraki) with “One Billion Clocks” a kinetic sculpture that tracks the metabolic time of soil
▪️Sarah Friend (@isthisanart_) for “Thermodynamic Clock for LLMs” which will test whether giving models access to different experiences of time will alter their behavior
Over the coming year, each team will develop its concept into a working prototype with $25,000 in funding and support from Long Now. Their work will appear alongside 27 selected submissions in the Book of Time anthology, coming in spring 02027.
For our second Lab, Epistemic Cycles, UC Berkeley scholar Nina Begus (@ninabegus) will serve as Lab Lead. She’ll convene an interdisciplinary working group to build an atlas of information ruptures (from writing to generative AI) and of how societies have repaired them.
Our third Lab, Interspecies Protocols, launches in 02027.
Thank you to everyone who applied, to our partners at the Protocol Institute, and to our review panel. Read the full description of these incredible projects on Ideas here: na2.hubs.ly/H08xGzF0
Announcing our first Long Now Labs awardees in partnership with the Protocol Institute. We received 370+ exceptional submissions — and we’re thrilled to unveil the three awardees chosen to develop their concepts into prototypes. The awardees for Book of Time are:
▪️Matthew Caren and Anastasha Rachel Gunawan for “Lagu Hantu,” a handmade instrument installation that remembers everyone who has ever played it.
▪️Eirini Malliaraki (@irinimalliaraki) with “One Billion Clocks” a kinetic sculpture that tracks the metabolic time of soil
▪️Sarah Friend (@isthisanart_) for “Thermodynamic Clock for LLMs” which will test whether giving models access to different experiences of time will alter their behavior
Over the coming year, each team will develop its concept into a working prototype with $25,000 in funding and support from Long Now. Their work will appear alongside 27 selected submissions in the Book of Time anthology, coming in spring 02027.
For our second Lab, Epistemic Cycles, UC Berkeley scholar Nina Begus (@ninabegus) will serve as Lab Lead. She’ll convene an interdisciplinary working group to build an atlas of information ruptures (from writing to generative AI) and of how societies have repaired them.
Our third Lab, Interspecies Protocols, launches in 02027.
Thank you to everyone who applied, to our partners at the Protocol Institute, and to our review panel. Read the full description of these incredible projects on Ideas here: na2.hubs.ly/H08xGzF0