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Speaker Invitation

Speak at This Is AGI.

We are seeking researchers, thinkers, and practitioners who have discovered fundamental problems with the current path to AGI — or who are building an alternative grounded in science. All presentations must address one of our nine statements.

What We're Looking For
01

Science-backed research only.

All presentations must be grounded in a recognized natural science — physics, biology, chemistry, neuroscience, or a related empirical discipline. Mathematics alone is not science. Theory must connect to observable, testable phenomena.

02

Conceptual, not technical.

This is not a technical conference. Presentations are delivered at the conceptual level, in plain English. Your audience includes investors, executives, policymakers, and researchers across disciplines. No slides full of equations. No code walkthroughs. You do not need a technical AI background to present.

03

No LLM-related research.

At this time, we are not accepting presentations focused on large language models, transformer architectures, or the current mainstream AI stack. We are interested in what comes after — or what should have come before.

04

Support or oppose one of the nine statements.

Every speaker presentation is tied to one of the statements presented at the event. You may provide further evidence for why a statement is right, or present an opposing view on why it is wrong — and what the alternative path forward looks like. The goal is not about who is right or wrong. It is to show the audience that behind the LLM hype, there is real, science-backed research on intelligence.

05

A speaking sample is required.

Provide a URL to a video of you speaking — a talk, a lecture, a panel, a podcast appearance. We need to see how you communicate ideas to a live or recorded audience.

06

No free passes.

Every presenter — including guest speakers — is subject to the same audience challenge as the event hosts. If your position can't withstand scrutiny, this isn't the right stage. Come ready to defend your work.

This Is AGI. Prove Us Wrong.

We present nine provocative statements about AGI. We do not expect guest speakers or the audience to blindly agree, but we will make a case for each.

Guest speakers are invited to either provide further evidence for why these statements are right or present an opposing view on why they are wrong — and what the alternative path forward looks like.

Science used to be about rigorous challenge. The polite presentations with friendly Q&A that dominate today have largely replaced the intellectual rigor that was the norm a hundred years ago. We hope to bring that back.

The goal is not about who is right or wrong. It is to show the audience that behind the LLM hype, there is real, science-backed research on intelligence that is not based on a guessing game.

Independent research on intelligence, AGI, and what comes after.

The Global Economic Alliance (GEA) is an independent, nonpartisan research organization. We investigate the nature of intelligence, the path to AGI, and how AGI will affect economics, law, and governance.

GEA was established in early 2020 after direct experience with a Department of Defense AGI program convinced us that AGI requires independent scientific oversight. We are a small team with people in a handful of countries between the US and Europe.

We don't build AI products. We take on research engagements only when they are directly aligned with our mission. We do not take money from special interest groups of any kind.

gearesearch.org

Apply to Speak

Link to a video of you speaking — a talk, lecture, panel, or podcast.

Which of the statements does your presentation address?

Mathematics alone is not science. We are looking for connections to physics, biology, neuroscience, or other empirical disciplines.

THE STATEMENTS

Science
01
AGI research is scienceless.
Every engineering field is built on a science — nature's blueprint for how to build. AI has none.
02
Intelligence is fundamental physics, not emergence.
The AI field believes intelligence emerges from complexity. It doesn't. Intelligence is as fundamental to the universe as gravity.
06
AGI will never have free will or consciousness.
Physics tells us the universe supports free will — just not inside a computer. Within any computational system, free will and consciousness are theoretically impossible. They cannot be built. They cannot emerge.
03
Comprehension, not reasoning, is the key to AGI.
Every AI system reasons. None of them comprehend. Reasoning follows rules. Comprehension understands why the rules exist and what happens when you use them. Without it, AI has no awareness of the consequences of its actions — on the environment, on others, or on itself.
Engineering
04
AGI requires a single algorithm.
But not the Master Algorithm as popularized by Pedro Domingos. A single algorithm can only come from a scientific understanding of intelligence.
05
AGI cannot be pretrained.
Name a biological lifeform born with pretrained knowledge of its environment. The scaling hypothesis has no precedent in nature.
Economics
07
ASI will break one of the fundamentals of capitalism — because capitalism is tied to physics.
Capitalism isn't just an economic theory. It's bound to the physical laws of the universe. ASI will sever one of those bonds. The system cannot survive it.
Governance
08
Democracy is structurally incompatible with ASI.
Democracy was invented to overturn tyranny. It was never structurally designed for long-term thinking beyond — in today's terms — 2, 4, and 6 year reelection cycles. ASI brings long-term visibility that no democratic system in the past 2,500 years has been able to fully embrace.
Geopolitics
09
AGI is a top priority for intelligence agencies.
Nick Bostrom in Superintelligence and Leopold Aschenbrenner in Situational Awareness assume intelligence agencies aren't paying attention to AGI because it's too far into the future. That is demonstrably false.