Hey friends... I’ve spent the whole summer pulling Futureproof Festival of AI together and not nearly enough time telling you why I want you there.
So here’s the thing... I use AI every day. I’m making things I couldn’t have made a couple of years ago. I also haven’t stopped asking whose work trained these systems, who gets paid, and what happens when we start handing over our judgment.
I call it both hands full. Critique in one hand. Curiosity in the other. Keep walking.
For too long, the conversation has sounded like a choice between acceleration and refusal.
Now more than a thousand people inside the leading AI labs, including Dario Amodei, have signed Pacing the Frontier, asking for international coordination to manage the pace of advanced AI development.
I’m glad those questions are getting louder. But I don’t think this conversation belongs to the labs.
That’s why we’re making Futureproof Festival of AI happen, October 28 to 30 at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre in Vancouver.
My invitation to you: 25% off your Festival Pass with FRIENDSOFKRUG through September 16.
Look at who said yes.
Brewster Kahle founded the Internet Archive. He’s spent decades building public memory. He’s coming to ask what a library owes people who haven’t been born yet. Think about that next to the rush to turn everything we’ve ever made into training data.
Amber Case wrote the book on calm technology. She’s opening with what AI should feel like when it’s built for people. Technology that respects your attention would be a refreshing change of pace.
Michael Running Wolf builds AI for Indigenous language reclamation. The possibility is real. So is the question of who owns the data and gets to decide how it’s used. Both hands full, in practice.
Ben Shneiderman wrote Human-Centered AI. He’s closing the festival with the case for systems that give people more control. I want that argument ringing in our ears when we leave.
Attention. Public memory. Language. Human control. These aren’t four unrelated talks. They’re different ways into the same question: what do we want this technology to make possible, and what are we not willing to hand over?
The rest of the roster is here, and it’s still growing.
We’re putting them in a gathering that grew out of our Vancouver AI meetups, with live performance and time to actually talk to each other.
The auditorium seats 217. We’re gathering at the Space Centre, not disappearing into a convention centre. One shared program, with time between talks to find someone over coffee and keep an argument going. That’s the scale I want for this conversation.
I want you to leave with better judgment about your own work, and people you can keep figuring it out with.
And yes, this is me asking you to buy a ticket.
Friends of Krüg: use FRIENDSOFKRUG for 25% off.
Your Festival Pass is CA$712.50, normally CA$950. That covers Wednesday opening night, both full program days, and the closing party. Offer ends Wednesday, September 16 at 11:59pm Pacific.
Bring the part of you that isn’t convinced. I want that part in the room too.
P.S. The draft schedule & program is up. Some pairings and times are still moving, but you can see what we’re building.
Kris Krüg
Founder & Curator, Futureproof Festival
Executive Director, BC + AI Ecosystem Association
PS. Inviting colleagues coming from another city? The travel page has the Sylvia Hotel room block. Bringing five or more from your team is a different conversation, just hit reply.
