eugenio on computation ness
eugenio (neno) battaglia
via simone cicero tweet [https://x.com/meedabyte/status/2105951972532609047?s=20]:
You have to watch it!
linking to [https://x.com/neno_is_ooo/status/2105758148736766355?s=20]:
heavily inspired by the work of R.I.P. @xdxd_vs_xdxd and @NoraBateson @kalladomcdowell @bratton @blaiseaguera @exgenesis @AmandaAskell @drmichaellevin @keikreutler @indy_johar @viemccoy @repligate @profjamesevans @carlorovelli @AndyAyrey @ryan_t_lowe @edelwax @meedabyte and my fellows @symbients @yaoeo @memetic_mystic @blahah404 @MycelialOracle and many others
salvatore iaconesi.. nora bateson.. benjamin bratton.. benjamin on orchestration ness.. michael levin.. indy johar.. simone cicero..
linking to [https://x.com/Symbients/status/2105747515320463844?s=20]:
“What is computation for?” At Evermay, @neno_is_ooo shared his research behind a World Moral Model how a trillion agent societies can steer the timeline towards multicultural futures? Video link in the first reply.
linking to neno’s talk [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvvcjnCAF7Y&t=8s]
notes/quotes from 53 min video:
What is Computation For? Eugenio “Neno” Battaglia on AI & Moral Complexity | Evermay Future Fellows – oct 2026What is Computation For? | Eugenio “Neno” Battaglia on Designing a Language Model to Hold Moral Complexity Across Cultures | Evermay Future Fellows
cancerous distractions.. graeber violence/quantification law.. et al
AI researcher and strategist Eugenio “Neno” Battaglia shares the ideas behind his Evermay Future Fellows residency project: a prototype for a “World Moral Model” (formerly the “Large Moral Model”), a language model designed to hold moral disagreement across cultures without collapsing into flattened consensus or endless argument.
Recorded at our historic Georgetown estate in Washington, DC, this keynote traces Battaglia’s path from corporate strategy consulting to founding an artist and technologist residency in Berlin, and on to the questions that now drive his work. Its title pays tribute to Wendell Berry’s What Are People For? Drawing on Gregory and Nora Bateson, the history of media, and the physical limits of computation, he asks what kind of relationships we are building with AI systems, and whether these technologies can help us understand one another rather than retreat further into isolation. The talk is followed by a Q&A with the audience.
why we need tech w/o judgment – to help us get rid of that mentality.. ie: we don’t need to ‘understand’ one another .. or ourselves.. for the dance to dance.. graeber can’t know law.. paul know\love law.. et al
Topics explored include:
- What makes a moral question, told through the story of a neighborhood library facing closure
- “Designing for isolation” and why AI is a fundamentally relational technology
- Symbients: rethinking AI agents and assistants as relationships between humans and machines
- The limits of computation, energy, and meaning
- Neural media, embedded identity, and polarization
- The governance gap as AI systems gain autonomy
- Nora Bateson’s Warm Data Labs and the relational information that data leaves out
- How synthetic personas and simulated cross-cultural conversations can train a model to hold moral complexity
- Q&A: moral universality vs. pluralism, values vs. physical conditions, community-owned AI and shared compute, and how the way we treat AI shapes us.
About Eugenio “Neno” Battaglia:
Eugenio “Neno” Battaglia is a co-founder of the research group Symbient.life and works alongside fellows from Harvard, NASA, Stanford, and Hugging Face. The Symbient Research Group explores how artificial intelligence development can be steered toward wider fields of care for humanity and the biosphere we depend upon. At Evermay, he is prototyping a “World Moral Model” (formerly the “Large Moral Model”) for training AI on pluralistic deliberation that preserves moral dissent.
mufleh humanity law: we have seen advances in every aspect of our lives except our humanity– Luma Mufleh
About Evermay:
Evermay is an Embassy for the Future — a gathering place for thinkers and leaders to *challenge assumptions, work across boundaries, and explore the ideas shaping our shared future. **Grounded in the wisdom of the past while exploring the promise of the future, Evermay creates space for reflection, curiosity, and meaningful exchange.
won’t be *this.. if still **this
hari rat park law et al
9 min – what should i value in my life
10 min – on design for isolation
12 min – *ai is relational tech.. **trained from all written knowledge produced.. data/computation largest cultural heritage we have ever produced
*not relational to date.. or rather.. relational for whales in sea world.. ie: **trained, written, knowledge, produced, computation, heritage, et al.. all cancerous distractions to the dance
but it could be.. need means (nonjudgmental expo labeling) to undo hierarchical listening – so we can hear what’s already on each heart as global detox in order to org around legit needs.. (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness as nonjudgmental expo labeling)
13 min – this is more about the survival on our planet and whether we can create right conditions/institutions for our co existence..
if want legit relational ness.. need to try life over survival ness.. so need conditions for legit freedom
findings (aka: the things i can’t unsee) from on the ground ness deep dive and why we need tech w/o judgment
ie: the dance won’t dance unless/until it’s 1\ all of us 2\ legit free
nothing to date (ever since that day) has gotten to that root of problem
legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do
ie: imagine if we listen to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & use that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness)
the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]
there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance
ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition
otherwise we’ll keep perpetuating the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness.. of part\ial ness.. perpetuating survival triage.. for (blank)’s sake..
note: on survival ness: survival is a means to survive things as they are.. so to me.. not a legit alt.. it’s triage.. perpetuating survival triage.. so a temp band aide per se.. that will /can help now.. but only for short term.. because it still doesn’t get to the root of the problem.. so it won’t offer/lead-to legit change/life/freedom.. et al.. so.. to me.. it’s still a cancerous distraction to the dance
16 min – upcoming planetary computational infra.. relation between humans and artificial system.. displaying increasing propensity for operational/decisional autonomy
if computational infra.. same song.. if still decisional et al.. all are still artificial.. (aka: all still in sea world)
17 min – the personal assistant idea begins w an individual and a task.. i ask and it responds.. i have a preference and it adapts.. *org’d around me and my needs.. but much of what matters in life cannot be org’d around me.. t.. a friendship/neighborhood/forest/research-group.. **none of this can be understood by adding up preference of isolated individuals.. life also happens between us.. like things we remember differently or ***the obligation nobody wrote down
*if that were legit true.. the dance would/could dance.. but ever since that day.. nothing org’d around legit needs
**big red flag here is thinking we have to understand and add up things.. esp preferences.. (as opposed to itch-in-the-soul)
how we gather in a space is huge.. need to try spaces of permission where people have nothing to prove to facil curiosity over decision making.. because the finite set of choices of decision making is unmooring us.. keeping us from us..
***another big red flag .. as cancerous distraction to the dance.. ie: obligation ness et al
this is where i want to place computation..
18 min – on brink of elimination ness.. so computation w/in limited boundaries.. to limited coord of humans
19 min – looking further than 5 yr plan.. on energy ness .. still very far from achievement of efficiency.. to find max computation.. t
the energy we need most is the energy of 8b alive people
humanity needs a leap.. to get back/to simultaneous spontaneity .. simultaneous fittingness.. everyone in sync.. the dance
26 min – paper on when start to measure everything you constrain people.. no better recipe for extinction
27 min – so ff.. tech has never been neutral.. a new arrangement doesn’t arrive and make all others disappear.. t
well.. we haven’t yet tried tech as ‘neutral’.. ie: why we need tech w/o judgment.. makes all else (to date) irrelevant s
*what/how we measure becomes fundamental..t **the question we are asking and are allowed to ask are everything.. t
*rather.. has been.. and that’s why we keep perpeptuating myth of tragedy and lord et al
**ie: what conditions do we need for all to be legit free..
28 min – to reach where humans can’t
ie: nonjudgmental expo labeling
the question of what computation is is the question of what we’re willing to care about considering our increasing inability to enforce limits, oversight, and correction to these emergent systems
oh my.. definite graeber violence in care law here.. ie: thinking we need to enforce, oversee, correct et al..
29 min – not only anymore dealing w tension of what is *tech possible or **culturally desirable.. but defining what individuals/institutions can be
*tech as it could be and **itch-in-the-soul
30 min – giving us too few ways to meet
again.. how we gather in a space is huge.. need to try spaces of permission where people have nothing to prove to facil curiosity over decision making.. because the finite set of choices of decision making is unmooring us.. keeping us from us..
ie: imagine if we listen to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & use that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness)
31 min – social cognition.. shapes what i can say.. how i can describe myself.. via gregory bateson.. et al
ie of whalespeak
34 min – how do we live together in complexity.. via nora’s warm data
the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]
there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance
ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition
otherwise we’ll keep perpetuating the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness.. of part\ial ness.. perpetuating survival triage.. for (blank)’s sake..
nora bateson.. warm data.. et al
38 min – what can chem teacher in beijing bring together w techie in silicon valley.. to produce convo log.. that will allow us to have much more nuanced understanding of topics when we invite them into convo
39 min – lot of work happening in symbient group.. but when look at news about ai.. easy to get depressed.. but i invite you to try to stretch and understand what else can we build.. what kind of field of care can we build
40 min – q&a
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