We're thrilled to announce Impossible Object's first book, Conversations on AI. In the grand tradition of the philosophical dialogue, the book will comprise a set of conversations between six thinkers, and will cover plenty besides Artificial Intelligence. AI will be used as a jumping-off point to discuss xenofeminism, music, terraforming, neorationalism and much more.

The full crowdfund will be launched on Mirror in the coming days, but for now here's the TL;DR on the project.

Who's taking part?

Reza Negarestani, Benjamin Bratton, Mat Dryhurst, Holly Herndon, Helen Hester and Nick Srnicek.

These thinkers have previously dealt with AI from various angles: some have written work that treats AI directly (Reza Negarestani's Intelligence and Spirit and Nick Srnicek's work on the political economy of AI), some engage with AI as a collaborator (Holly Herndon, Mat Dryhurst and SPAWN), while some have developed the notion of artificiality in itself as a means out of conceptual deadlock (Helen Hester and Benjamin Bratton).

When will these conversations happen?

As soon as the crowdfund is over. Once they have all taken place, they'll be transcribed, edited and published on Mirror as an eBook.

That's when things really start to get interesting. Before the trade paperback is published, Impossible Object will seek responses to the dialogues from the readership. One to three of these will be chosen to be published alongside the main dialogues in the first print edition of the book.

Printing commentaries and objections alongside the main text has a long tradition, stretching back before Descartes' Meditations. But with Mirror's help we're giving things a web3 twist.

When is the crowdfund going to launch?

Soon. Very, very soon.

How can I back the crowdfund?

You will need an Ethereum wallet and some ether to participate. If you don’t have a wallet, Rainbow’s mobile app is a good option for iOS users. Alternatively, there's Metamask (iOS, Android and web).

Mirror crowdfunds are no ordinary crowdfunds. Backers receive ERC20 tokens in return for their ether; holders of these share in the future upside of the project, but they could also choose to resell their tokens on an exchange such as Uniswap.

The full launch post will contain comprehensive details of what backers of Conversations on AI will receive in return for their ether. For now, read about one of the earliest Mirror crowdfunds to learn about how the process works (or listen to this excellent episode of Mat and Holly's podcast Interdependence about it):