Sean Stevenson argues that AI is undergoing a 'descent' through Stewart Brand's pace layers—moving from fast fashion/commerce layers down through governance and culture toward nature itself—becoming less dramatic and less contestable as it sinks, following a pattern he traces via Clayton Christensen's theory of attractive profits migrating to the least-optimized layer of a value chain. He proposes a four-stage model (integrate, coordinate, embed, inherit) for this descent and introduces 'appeal foreclosure' versus 'ossification' as a way to distinguish genuine new nature from captured systems, while drawing on Spinoza's natura naturans/naturata and Philippe Descola's ontological framework (naturalism, animism, totemism, analogism) to speculate how AI-plus-protocols might shift human categories of inner life and matter.
0:31 Wonderful. Um, okay. Yes. So, my talk is uh called D-Dramatizing the digital, how AI uh descends into new nature. Um, and I’m going to be the third one here in the inventing psycho history world machines. Uh, I’m Sean Stevenson. I’m the author of the schematism on Substack uh Contraptions Book Club. uh a member I believe since it started uh and I’ve been active here in the special in SIG for psycho history. I also have uh uh made my dough with uh doing government contracting and business development and I live right outside uh uh Washington DC in Chevy Chase in Chevy Chase Maryland.
1:20 Um can everybody see my screen? I just want to make see the slides where it’s where the essay stopped. Yep.
1:28 Okay, great. So, um in the my very first essay for the schematism and is part of uh and as part of the contraptions book club uh was uh called dramatizing the digital and um uh uh I wanted to basically pick that up uh from where I had ended off um then and uh sort of take it all the way through our new nature our new nature idea. So, um, basically the the theory behind the essay and where I’m going to start, uh, is basically that I see, uh, it’s based on a on a hunch that I’ve had that a lot of people, especially right now, are seeing AI as sort of a possible thing that’s going to end the world. But I think that the long uh the long tale of AI is going to be that it’s going to make our technological lives especially around the current uh stack of technologies that we’re using now both easier and then therefore more boring. So that’s what when I say dramatizing that’s what I that’s what I mean and I see AI as um sort of a layer uh that’s coming uh for all the things that we use now. I see AI sort of an integrating layer that’s going to come and make using it uh all uh quite a lot easier and because it’s easier then um attention and other and other stresses in life are going to flow to are going to flow from other things. And so we’re going to um uh and that again uh you know part of what this has to do with the world machines uh sort of the long timelines that we’re talking about um in terms of you know hundreds of years. I don’t think that this is necessarily going to happen uh right away. And this hunch was um inspired by basically watching uh Andor and watching Star Trek and thinking that you know in the future even though um technology is obviously very important it’s also become such an import such a a part of their lives that nobody really talks about it and it doesn’t really it isn’t really a subject of concern um the way that technology is.
4:06 Okay, great. Maybe you want to like uh rewind 30 seconds so in case we missed any slides.
4:12 Yeah. Uh happy to do it. So um this is just the first slide. This was me um uh talking about myself and then but basically I was still sort of focused on the where the uh where you know where my essay stopped and where I want to begin. Just a one last um important uh important thing on uh dramatizing the digital of the essay before now the dramatizing the digital of the presentation is that uh um is this idea of uh taking doing an integration of Clayton Christensen’s idea of the uh uh um um basically his his idea about attractive profits and uh basically how um and if you take a value chain um uh the part of a value chain that is the least uh that works the least well is going to um is going to be where uh a lot of the profits flow because it’s where a lot of the uh work u that people are doing um uh uh it’s you know because it has so much uh effort associated with it um that’s where a lot of the profits are going to flow. And then and the integration uh on either side of that value chain is going to be uh where you’re going to be seeing a lot of um uh you know a lot of uh profits go. So for example, if you take the PC for the longest time uh the uh the integration that was the most important because they needed the furthest to go would be between like the operating system and the CPU. And so uh that that’s also where you know you see a lot of the um where you see a lot of the uh uh of the the money going in that particular one.
5:57 And then the other uh idea is that treating Stuart Brand’s pace layers uh basically as a sort of value chain. And so um and basically I’ll I’ll uh I’ll I’ll very quickly uh go and show the um uh show the pace layers here real quick. just to I think that this is an idea that lots of people use uh you know in in our you know uh in the world machines and then sort of in the broader protocol institute um uh uh community. Uh but just to just to you know recap real quick is that the layers at the top fashion commerce are very fast whereas you know the layers towards the bottom infrastructure governance um are get to be more and more slow and then culture is even slower itself you know going over decades and centuries and then nature is a sort of a geo you know a geological a geological pace and so what I wanted to do. Um here is uh and when it comes to this idea of new nature is that a new nature is also going to be working its way down uh these layers uh to be able to um become very slow. Now I would say AI plus protocols now is definitely you know uh at some of the higher layers because we’re seeing lots of changes um and lots of uh you know it’s changing you know day by day and week by week. Uh but this is this sort of the last um uh last idea that I want to sort of bring that I want to sort of bring together. And so um the d-dramatizing way of doing it is that is it goes uh as it goes down um uh it also becomes less it also becomes less drama because it changes less. So um so I I do want to uh be able to talk about um the uh the tools that uh Anish and the rest of the gang have put together. Um are very and I was sharing it for a while there. So I actually think that maybe you’ve already had a chance to see uh the first sharing uh was the the search worldachines.org and the and the search function. If you go to the wiki and you type in um you type in new nature, you will get you will get um uh you know five or six items and then this here what I’ve captured here was just from a few days ago. Uh the first four items uh that you will get that pop up on worldmachines.org if you type in new nature. first one being broadly the concept um uh and then the second one uh being about new nature as a life era and then uh the third one the descent chain uh this is one that I’ve added which is essentially a lot of what this talk and uh it’s important to note that um you know as we enter uh things into the world machines uh wiki uh it’s a pretty easy process uh it’s really fun as you’re working uh your different articles or you’re working through the contraptions, book club, book club selections to be able to write to be able to write things up and to be able to put your ideas in here and then um it all gets kind of put together uh you know as you ask questions of the oracle and then uh then you can use that then to be able to help your uh articles and your thinking going forward. So it’s it’s fun. It’s a great resource. And then this bottom one here, appeal foreclosure. You’re going to see down um in in a future slide.
9:46 Okay. So, we’ve talked about the uh pace layers. We talked about uh going to worldmachines.org. Um you know, uh I got to be able to see um just uh you know, just want to uh just drafting off of what Florian just talked about when it comes to the when it comes to the clock. You tal he talked about layers. Um I didn’t talk about the pace layers exactly but you could definitely see that um that the clock had been working down uh the you know the the layers and the idea of uh you know getting down to this the nanocond and that how that is definitely a good example about how something that has kind of um started as a technology has now made its way down into culture and then even I believe even though it models nature I believe that the way I don’t think that we would think that time independent of counting um or independent of time pieces. I don’t think that we would think that that is necessarily natural. I I’m not going to um I mean there’s ways of thinking about nature, you know, outside of countable time, but I do believe that the technology has sort of made its way down um you know, down through these layers and then you know it has made its way down towards um down towards nature at the very least.
11:12 So um uh basically uh I just want to now talk about um new nature and as we’ve said before this is AI plus protocols. So um uh one of the ways of uh a lot of the work that I’ve done is sort of signposting about how do we know when we’re there? Um, and then one there’s a number of different there’s a number of different ways of being able to and this builds on on on Venet’s ideas and things that Nish has also brought forward on his on his um uh through his essays uh is that there’s a um uh is that basically as things become more nature uh they become more uh able uh they become less able to be changed. They’ve become more um of themselves uh you know self-caused and um and while there might be some elements of maintenance or there might be some elements of prediction uh you do you will see less and less an ability to be able to you know petition it change it uh you know can you obtain an you know you can’t obtain an exception from the weather you can’t really opt out from a lot of these so as it you know as to begin to see uh these things come together. Um and then I also want to on this page sort of um uh um contrast two ideas. Uh one is the new nature idea where there’s no um you can’t really petition it or that is to say it has appeal for closure. You can’t appeal to it. Uh there’s also ocification and ocification is what I think we could um you know uh expect if uh new nature uh protocols and AI are sort of captured by different interests. And so um you know it’s like that idea of you know you if you have you know if you lose access to your um to your Facebook profile and you for whatever reason can’t um use their automated system. There really isn’t that anybody who’s going to pick up the phone and be able to uh to be able to handle your um now this hasn’t happened to me. Maybe there is actually somebody that’ll pick up the phone. But just in that sort of instance about you know for some of these larger you know interests that exist in the world um oification is it seems like new nature to the extent that there’s no there you do have appeal foreclosure and there isn’t there there is a lever but the lever is jammed. Uh there isn’t really um Anishh came up with this I uh with this metaphor about a lever and wrote an article about it a good one called I believe not my lever uh where he um talked about uh you know this this sort of similar similar idea um and I’m doing this all from memory so if I’m getting it wrong please in the chat uh please uh correct me so um now let’s go to an idea that we um that we talked about earlier in the year uh right around the uh when I was writing that article uh that comes from the um uh the cordier and the heretic uh which is the the book we read in the spring on linets and spinosa. So um I wanted to talk about uh spinosa and his two two um ways of looking at at nature. Uh so it’s natur is sort of nature is the producing force the sort of the self-caused cause what is in itself free and the natur is sort of that um diconic uh way of looking at uh way of looking at nature and then at every single moment you have natur which is what we are living in right now at this moment and then this moment and then this moment everything that is sort of it’s sort of the synchronic way of thinking about nature where nature is the produced order and that this is the nature that we’re both living in but then is always passing away and so um they aren’t different there are they are sort of two fa two faces of the same of the same thing uh but then I think this is also potentially a a metaphor for thinking about the different about uh AI as sort of the naturerons of new nature and protocols a bit of the natura and again this is a metaphor and it’s um I think it’s something that we could continue to explore but it’s how you be able to have nature that is uh has continuing generativity or livveness but then also um has a a a durable order.
16:13 Okay. And so how are we going to move down the layers? Um uh you know I work in uh government business development so we always name we always sort of put one little name uh uh against each one of our steps. So this one is uh integrate coordinate embed inherit um and basically it’s uh as we have new nature we have uh AI plus protocols. Um I I’ve sort of talked at length about how the profit motive that Clayton Christensen piece is bringing is going to bring um at least AI already down to the um infrastructure level. again um we’re seeing uh you know just as sort of a proof point around where um you know where we’re talking about uh infrastructure being sort of the the least good layer in that value chain is that we’re seeing that is where we’re seeing so many uh billions and trillions of dollars in investment in data centers and everything right now and that I believe that this is going to drag a lot of the um a lot of the current um business models and you know just so much of the of the of our daily lives and hours spent scrolling and other things you know in that in that sort of that top the fashion and commerce layers and sort of bring it down because AI will be able to abstract uh so much of what so much of that to be able to make it easier and we could still scroll if we want to but a lot of the um you know but a lot of the the drama that comes from always trying to remember where your files are or trying to you know uh you use Windows at work but then you use that Mac at home you know so many of these things are going to be able to be you know have some of the drama taken out of them so then we’re going to see uh protocols I believe are already sort of doing a good job of existing at the infrastructure and governance le level so we’re going to be able to see um the sort of this coordination that is to say the AI and uh protocols sort of coming together at that at that um you know at that level and the sign that it happened is that um we’re beginning to see permissions and commitments uh are being made without necessarily any one person deciding. Then we have embed we’re going from governance to culture. You know we’re going to start seeing um people’s habits change. people are going to start to, you know, um, uh, basically, you know, a part of everyday culture, uh, you’re just going to see people planning around it. And that even if rules change, culture changes, you know, um regimes change, other things change, we could still see that, you know, because it’s um uh because is it is built itself into the sort of the culture layer, uh you know, people are still going to be using it without necessarily um you know, changing although it you know maybe it can still change. And then inherent uh this is u very early very early signs um about moving from culture to nature and that is there you know um there really is no owner at that point and then people start to be start to even forget that it’s there and then um uh and then you know more multiple layers are then being built on top of it. Um yeah, and then uh this and I I think I’ve I’ve I’ve talked a little bit about uh a little bit about this already, but these are sort of um as you know, moving from left to right.
19:58 Uh you know, it’s have we kind of you know, what happens if we don’t make it all the way down to uh the pace that that nature pace layer, you know. Um it could be that uh and I don’t think that this is nec I see I think the odds of this are pretty low but limited adoption um I don’t I don’t necessarily see that happening but that’s where this this AI uh sort of stays at the fashion and uh fashion and um commerce layers but don’t doesn’t really take off. I don’t I don’t see that happening. Uh coordination needs work. That’s where uh you know we don’t necessarily see AI and protocols sort of come together in the way that we would like. Um adaptation takes work.
20:42 This is where um you know we have uh we start to see at the governance and infrastructure layers a lot of push back and that um that for some reason this push back becomes um you know uh that it doesn’t that that becomes a sort of a a boundary uh and then control stays concentrated platform completion this is essentially the ocification piece that I talked about earlier where um is still uh it’s still captured in a way uh so that it’s um so that it it sort of serves individual interests and doesn’t necessarily become the commons over the very long period that we think is going to be able to enable the livveness that we would like to that we would like to see and then um the AI and then the one on the right is sort of where it’s gone all the way gone all the way across so um I’ve now talked about how uh AI I uh plus protocols new nature kind of works its way down the pace layers now um in sort I have a couple of these green slides here where u sort of some of my favorite um some of my favorite idea side quests that I’ve been working on um out you know as part of the book club and with the theories of history and and ontology theories um but basically how we um can again this is one of those how do we know, how do we know when we’re there kind of thing and the first one I want to talk about is Hans Bloomberg’s uh umbets and I’m sure that’s terrible German, but it’s uh basically it’s translated as reoccupation and that his theory of history is that you see uh permanent questions but that the answers change from era to era. So um if you look at the uh what what is nature what is the ground we cannot change and uh basically if you think about it as sort of a a chair you know that there’s one chair for the what is nature chair and that in the medieval times is it was God’s creation sat in that chair but then that answer uh to sort of an eternal question became no longer adequate or people didn’t like that anymore or there was it was time for the world to move on. And so basically that becomes vacant and then it gets reo reoccupation. It gets reoccupied by a new by a new answer. And that new answer in this case is Humbult’s cosmos, his his version of nature. Sort of one integrated lawful system, a web of life measured, mapped, but also to some extent even though it’s made up of even though the romantic ideal of nature um you know is a is sort of a beautiful um again web of life. uh at the same time you’re also seeing uh the scientific revolution come along and um uh and they they sort of work together uh but you also sort of have uh this um and I’m going to get to what’s called naturalism on the next on the next slide but you also have this idea of nature as stuff atoms things are just made out of things are just made out of stuff um and that stuff is when um when I say dumb I’m not trying to put it It’s just that it’s it’s there as sort of a stock of things that can be that can be used. So it’s it’s beautiful in how it all connects together, but then it but then it’s also sort of made out of atoms. And now again, how do you know um that it’s time for a new answer uh to this uh to this um to this sort of perennial question?
24:26 And that that becomes sort of the new our new nature answer is a you know AI plus protocols entangled at planetary scales. And we’re moving sort of uh we have the opportunity to move away from dumb stuff to intelligence in in everything. So smart stuff. Uh and then uh you know we have uh you know this pervading intelligence that happens to be in you know in you know potentially in everything I suppose uh you know and you might see that as a kind of livveness that’s going to really take off over the next um over the next uh 400 years as the divergence machine and then the livveness machines sort of take over. And now um as I talked about stuff um smarter otherwise uh another one of my favorite ideas and this is again sort of like we’ve talked about like once we get to once we get to new nature what are some of the implications of uh of how we might want to do some changes in our thinking and um basically uh I’m going to also be doing uh I’m also going to be sharing another part of the world machines after I talk about after I talk about this um on the website is that Philippe Descolah uh one of my favorite books that I’ve come across it’s called beyond nature and culture it’s part of um the ontological uh the ontological turn in anthropology I found out about it from Ukulele uh one of his essays um the about the ontological turn in anthropology and it has the four different what he calls four different ontologies and the way he is um it’s a really terrific book and he goes in for a 100 pages to talk about his his theory and his talking to justify this but basically just to kind of give a a a quick sense is that every culture answers two questions about other beings is that do they have an inner life like me and and what are they made of. So um as you know naturalism is uh the one that we are here um in our culture right now which is everybody’s insides are sort of um different and interesting uh but that what we’re made of dumb stuff is sort of um is sort of the same physics. So we have different insides but the same outside. Animism has um is exactly the opposite is that it’s the same inside but different outsides and then totemism same same inside and outside and then analogism is the one um in this 2 by 2 that is sort of the somewhat the hardest to um to to wrap one’s head around but it’s different insides and different outsides. So um basically uh as uh we begin to see more robots, more beings, more AI uh plus um protocols, more new nature, more livveness pervade um pervade u you know uh pervade the world. Um we’re going to see potentially a move from naturalism uh where uh you know we see everything is you know uh where we have um you know uh uh where where we’re at today uh towards more of an analogistic um an analogistic framework and uh let me see if I can um but uh because I I I messed up sharing before uh just assume that I typed in Escola Chimera into the world machine site and I could say I could share that at the at the mo uh uh if we have any any time here at the end. Uh but it it comes up with a with a with a good answer off the wiki. Uh the chime a thing of mismatched parts. And basically um this idea of a of a chimera of a thing of mismatched parts that sort of sits in this sort of analogism u space is sort of um is sort of a chat surface. how we deal with um uh you know how we deal with uh with machines you know with chat GPT or claude now and potentially how we’re going to be able to deal with um more livveness bearing robots and other things in the future.
28:56 Uh but in the middle uh we see um sort of ma it is more machine-like where we have sort of maintenance and and pract uh practice is that it’s uh and then but at the bottom layer uh sort of um what we call physics of compute is that at the it’s just plain physics and that uh material processes energy um so it’s still so because um because you sort of have different um And these can also these can also this chimeic aspects can also potentially change as time goes on. So because it’s it’s very difficult to um say oh this um this machine is just like this uh robot uh this livveness bearing robot you I don’t it may take a while for us to say oh it’s like me uh because of how we’re sort of you know how how humans uh can uh sort of see ourselves but at the same time uh analogism essentially means that we could see correspondences you know um and that uh basically uh as we see begin to see more correspondences. It’s also possible that over the long you know the long duray of uh these of these machines uh that you know sort of uh the basic ontologies of how we share our world may shift. It may not shift for humans but it may shift broadly and that there are other kinds of things that may um uh that may that may come out of that. So, and then I’m going to just very quickly share um share the website. Oh, yeah. This is um this is what uh if you um the Descalok uh Chimera.
30:43 Um yes. And that’s basically uh I think with only a couple minutes left, I’m not going to go into the uh uh I guess I’ll very briefly touch on the one prophecy uh that I came up with and that this is u within our lifetime a court will find um uh um it it will not really think of a company or a person as responsible for as a potential bad outcome of an AI plus protocol system, but it will treat uh something uh but it will treat that more uh more like a um that you can’t sue it but you can ensure against it. It’ll it’s going to treat uh it’s going to treat uh something that’s going to happen as a as as an act of God. So um force majour and so uh so again very uh uh very uh potentially interesting and this is something that you can also put into um you know some of our systems and be able to ask ask questions about it uh like the oracle on the world machine site. Um yeah, so uh as u as we talked about uh it’s very fun to not only be part of the book club uh to but to be able to uh pursue um interest tangential uh to it through side quests and other kinds of interesting ideas and then to be able to bring that all together at the World Machine site. uh to be able to contribute to it and then also to be able to use the tools to um uh you know work on uh to you know to continue to do one’s work and to work with the group generally.
32:23 So um I believe I’ll stop sharing there and uh I think we have um we’re basically at time to start on the discussion piece. Um uh so over to over to whoever is going to kick off the discussion.
Simone Cicero of Boundaryless presents O2A (Open Organisation Alliance), a proposed open standard for making organizations 'composable' by replacing implicit coordination mechanisms like hierarchy and meetings with an explicit, machine-readable contract graph of units, offerings, and relationships. He argues the protocol's compact grammar—three economic primitives (purchase, revenue split, investment) plus composition mechanisms—can represent bespoke institutional arrangements like Haier's Rendanheyi model or joint ventures as 'sentences' in a common organizational language, becoming essential as AI agents enter firms and transaction costs collapse.
Amber Case presents the Calm Technology Institute's 81-point certification framework, arguing that human attention operates like a law of nature—distinguishing prefrontal-cortex-demanding 'center' attention from pass-through 'peripheral' attention—and that products (from car buttons to AI interfaces) should be designed and governed accordingly. She traces the framework's lineage to Mark Weiser's 1995 calm technology principles and discusses the legitimacy problem of building certification authority without statutory power, comparing CTI to Underwriter Laboratories and the Good Housekeeping Seal. The session closes with audience discussion, including Venkatesh Rao connecting the talk to Kairos/Chronos time and AI's 'staircase' temporality.
Daniel Kronovet presents 'Chores as Complex Coordination,' introducing 'regenerative labor' as a concept distinct from maintenance or care work, and detailing Chore Wheel, a Slack-based protocol suite (chores, hearts, things) built on Elinor Ostrom's commons-governance principles plus four digital-era additions: no privileged roles, simple inputs, humans-for-sensing/machines-for-bookkeeping, and continuous asynchronous participation. Drawing on his Los Angeles co-living house Sage House as a real-world case study, he argues that separating task definition from task performance (akin to double-entry bookkeeping) allows a fixed, continuously-replenished point economy to turn dish-washing and trash duty into a system of social computation that generates social capital alongside physical upkeep.