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Guest Talk with Mike Masnick | The Role of Protocols in Decentralization

Talk Mike Masnick

Mike Masnick, founder of Techdirt and the Copia Institute, discusses his evolving thinking on the relationship between protocols and decentralization, drawing on 25 years of observing technology cycles from Web 1.0 through Web3. He presents frameworks for understanding how protocols function in decentralized systems and invites critical feedback to stress-test his current conceptual models.

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Guest Talk with Jesse Walden | Contract Theory and Protocol Design

Jesse Walden, founder of Variant and former creator of Mediachain, discusses contract theory and its application to protocol design. Drawing on his experience bridging music, technology, and crypto, Walden explores how smart contracts and tokens enable novel organizational and governance structures distinct from traditional legal contracts and corporate forms.

digital-asset-frameworks guest-talks organizational-design

Jesse Walden

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Guest Talk with Daniel Bashir | A Survey of AI for the Protocol-Minded

Daniel Bashir, a machine learning engineer at AWS and host of the Gradient podcast, surveys the intersection of AI and protocols across multiple levels—from funding to ML engineering to research to regulation. He aims to introduce key technologies, conversations, and debates in AI while identifying current protocols that can be understood through a protocol-mindset lens.

ai-regulation guest-talks information-theory

Daniel Bashir

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Guest Talk with Renee DiResta | A Troll's Guide to the Internet

Renee DiResta discusses human behavior in the digital built environment, arguing that the internet is no longer a wild space but rather a constructed ecosystem where users adapt their behaviors—similar to how animals adapt to urban environments. DiResta draws on her decade-plus of research studying digital manipulation tactics, algorithmic amplification, and coordinated networks (exemplified by her work on anti-vaccine movements) to frame online phenomena as products of designed systems rather than natural behavior.

algorithmic-feeds coordinated-networks digital-built-environment

Renee DiResta