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2023 Retrospectus

Paper Summer of Protocols

The 2023 Retrospectus is a collection of essays from the Summer of Protocols initiative examining how protocols function across social, economic, and technological domains, featuring contributions on topics ranging from killswitch mechanisms and protocolized economics to memory-making and emergency response systems. The volume presents a multidisciplinary exploration of protocols as generative frameworks for organizing collective behavior, coordination, and cultural production in both digital and physical contexts.

Related resources

Article

Memory Research Group Six Months

The Memory Research Group convened over six months to read texts about memory in reverse chronological order, from classical techniques through digital AI systems and back to physical substrates, tracing which contemporary memory problems are genuinely new versus recurring under different names. The group met biweekly with interdisciplinary participants from neuroscience, computer science, philosophy, architecture, and design to understand how memory operates differently across contexts rather than develop a unified theory.

article memory organizations

Kei Kreutler

Paper

Protocol Pattern Language (Anthology)

This anthology explores how protocols function as distributed coordination mechanisms that generate emergent patterns rather than hierarchical structures, using real-world examples like traffic jams to illustrate how protocols operate across interconnected layers of infrastructure, behavior, and rules. The work argues that understanding protocols requires examining the complex interactions between human actors, physical systems, and institutional constraints rather than treating protocols as top-down designs.

design protocols research

Drew Austin

Article

Sigp4b Update 4 Drift Stacking

SIGP4B held a Berlin workshop exploring AI adoption curves over 30 years using a Capability Maturity Model framework, where blue teams designed AI adoption strategies progressing from uncontrolled LLM usage to AI-integrated workflows while red teams introduced realistic crises and governance challenges. The update previews two upcoming Summer of Protocols projects: an AI Knowledge Futurama scenario planning exercise and a Bridge Atlas, both building on SIGP4B's business protocol research.

article organizations protocols

Timber Stinson-Schroff