Protocolized is running a contest calling for protocol-fiction stories imagining futures where distributed AI systems communicate through various protocols—from experimental systems like MCP and A2A to blockchain and speculative new protocols. The contest guidelines emphasize creating narratives set in digitally haunted futures populated by multiple ghostly machine intelligences, drawing inspiration from works like Banks' Culture novels and Liu's 'Good Hunting.'
What's in a word? Each story in this anthology uncovers a possible world hidden behind everyday jargon — tales of hyperstition where terminology shapes reality.
Summer of Protocols
A Summer of Protocols fiction anthology exploring librarians and archivists as protocol designers — curators who shape what knowledge is preserved, findable, and forgotten.
Summer of Protocols
Tay develops a phenomenological approach to understanding protocols as human-built systems, arguing that current protocols fail to nurture human flourishing because they were designed without centering human capacity for self-making, character cultivation, and wisdom. She contends that truly human-centered protocols must be reconstructed to be hospitable to human development rather than extractive of human attention and agency.
Janna Tay