Venkatesh Rao 🔹

Registration open for the 3rd protocol symposium. open.substack.com/pub/protocol...

Starting in 3 minutes, our next SIGFPT session, continuing our summer-long exploration of stigmergy (insect intelligence) curated by Patrick Nast. This one on engineered stigmergic algorithms discord.gg/8FVSXsgVx?ev...

The Protocolized Jamverse Jam worldbuilding contest closes today protocolized.summerofprotocols.com/p/jamverse-j...

I can’t escape verification. They verified me on X too.

Deprotocolize till it hurts, reprotocolize till it works

contraptions.venkateshrao.com/p/monitoring...

www.carbon-direct.com/insights/a-n...

I’m doing a talk in 2 minutes on New Nature, the Protocol Institute research mission. It’s going to be pretty concept and information dense, and probably the best entry point into what we’re up to for a while. www.youtube.com/@protocol-in...

Less than a week left to propose a talk for the Protocol Symposium. If you’re looking for ideas, you can find some in the challenges program page this editorial talks about. protocolized.summerofprotocols.com/p/challenges...

Excited for our third annual protocol symposium in September, and the first under the aegis of the Protocol Institute. Talk and workshop abstracts due June 14th. protocolized.summerofprotocols.com/p/2026-proto...

Starting in 5 minutes on our discord — the third session in our series on stigmergy in the formal protocol theory interest group. We're discussing pebble automata this week. Mathematics of hansel-gretel breadcrumbs and the future of AI. discord.com/events/10824...

SIGFPT on stigmergy in protocols starting in 9 minutes. It’s turning into a significant lens for understanding how agentic ai protocols work (or don’t) SIGFPT is the formal protocol theory special interest group hosted by the Protocol Institute discord.com/events/10824...

Haven't been very active here lately, because Timber Stinson-Schroff, @tmbr.bsky.social and I have been busy launching the Protocol Institute. I wrote a post laying out our agenda. Reach out if you might be interested in supporting it. protocolized.summerofprotocols.com/p/inventing-...

Our just-launched Protocol Institute is launching this collaborative program with the Long Now foundation. 2 exciting protocol-themed grant opps — “book of time” and “epistemic cycles”. Apply by June 5.

Next SIGFPT on Protocolizing Agent Space: On the Protocolized discord in 5 minutes: Next SIGFPT on Protocolizing Agent Space: On the Protocolized discord in 5 minutes: discord.com/events/10824...

Starting in 3 minutes, next SIGFPT (Special Interest Group in Formal Protocol Theory). We’ll be discussing multiagent reinforcement learning and “autocurricula”. Readings: deepmind.google/blog/underst... and arxiv.org/pdf/1903.00742 Meeting will be in our Discord discord.com/events/10824...

The next SIGFPT (Special Interest Group in Formal Protocol Theory) call starts in 10 minutes on our Discord. This session, we will be workshopping homework problems for teaching protocol theory. discord.gg/ZG2YXQvG

Starting in 10 minutes — SIGFPT (Special Interest Group in Formal Protocol Theory) session on vibecoding protocols on our discord. discord.com/events/10824...

Double-slit time experiment. I don’t know what this means, but I’m going to assume parallel universe portal guns. thequantuminsider.com/2023/04/04/t...

I’m a Rube Goldberg but only because I haven’t yet found an idea that will move me to inventor. I enjoy burner/prepper quadrant esp art end, but I haven’t yet learned to enjoy true DIY. I only do it if hiring help would be too $$ or high friction. Interesting to apply this frame to Claude Code.

Finished my online book from my twitter archives. With a preface chapter chronicling my twitter journey. Heaviest lift vibe-coding project I’ve done so far. Next steps: turn this into epub and pdf versions. Book: venkateshrao.com/twitter-book Repo for the curious: github.com/vgururao/twi...

2026 kickoff of SIGFPT (Special Interest Group in Formal Protocol Theory) starts in 5 minutes on our discord discord.gg/qaPjFFp2H?ev... protocolized.summerofprotocols.com/p/theorizing...

Too long for a note, too casual for a post… so you get a screenshot essay on floors as workspaces

HNY!

New art series titled Birren Named for the Birren industrial safety color palette from the 1950s Birren #1

Art 2.2.1 We’re semantic versioning here now

Art 2.2

Thought: “Human” is now a compile target rather than superseded. Like assembly or JavaScript. Some proposition in the neighborhood of that is true. Where “human” is some mix of artisanal+bespoke+idiosyncratic. Started unpacking the thought in my latest contraptions.venkateshrao.com/p/revenge-of...

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Trained a model on my october/november paintings on titles.xyz and the results are absolutely astounding. Every test I ran produced better results than my own manual efforts. Essay and public access soon. My handmade training set is here venkateshrao.com/BucketArt/in...

Been too agentic today. Gonna practice my learned helplessness for a while now.

Newsletter back from hiatus. With 30% more AI and a fresh new lime fragrance. contraptions.venkateshrao.com/p/be-slightl...

Made a little gallery page for the art I've been posting recently. venkateshrao.com/BucketArt/in...

👀 🍿https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2021/12/16/david-graeber-digging-for-utopia/

🙃 #42 in my ongoing art series

This could backfire in an interesting way. I think prices have gone up by more than 2k for the average household due to tariffs and making a per capita dividend number legible is a sign of weakness. Dems should commision a credible estimate. www.cnn.com/2025/11/10/e...

When AI is used to address enshittification you get entoiletpaperfication