BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:researchseminars.org CALSCALE:GREGORIAN X-WR-CALNAME:researchseminars.org BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Gideon Lichfield\, Ruthanna Emrys\, Liz Barry\, Val Elefante (Meta gov) DTSTART:20260422T160000Z DTEND:20260422T170000Z DTSTAMP:20260509T134029Z UID:Metagov/285 DESCRIPTION:Title: Protopian Prize Fiction Contest Launch\nby Gideon Lichfield\, Ruthan na Emrys\, Liz Barry\, Val Elefante (Metagov) as part of Metagovernance Se minar\n\n\nAbstract\nThis will be the official launch of the The Protopian Prize Fiction Contest!\n\n​The Protopian Prize is a fiction contest inv iting writers\, storytellers\, and dreamers to share their vision of peopl e working toward liberatory futures\, meeting obstacles\, and making real change. “Protopian”—a word coined by Kevin Kelly\, one of our contes t's judges—means an achievable\, optimistic future characterized by cont inuous\, incremental progress rather than revolutionary leaps or a static\ , perfect state. Protopian stories imagine a future that is neither flawle ss nor catastrophic\, but instead workably better than today. It’s about plausible progress rather than perfection or collapse.\n\nIn 2026\, our i naugural year\, we will present prizes in two categories: 1) Public AI Pri ze and 2) Democratic Futures Prize.\n\n• Public AI Prize is a call for w riters to submit their original short fiction that helps imagine a positiv e future for humanity that foregrounds the potential of Public AI—and ac tionable steps to get us there. We're looking for stories that explore que stions like: How can we restructure AI development and deployment to serve rather than exploit human creativity? How can AI systems support human ad aptability and climate resilience rather than enabling surveillance and co ntrol? What laws\, institutions\, or incentives are needed to ensure AI is used to augment human capabilities instead of taking away human jobs?\n\n \n• Democratic Futures Prize is a call for writers to submit their origi nal short fiction that helps imagine a positive future for humanity that f oregrounds the potential of collective self-governance —and actionable s teps to get us there. We're looking for stories that explore questions lik e: How can new technologies enable greater collective participation in gov ernance? What needs to happen to give society as a whole\, rather than a f ew powerful players\, the deciding voice on what kinds of new technologies get developed and how they’re used? What new rights do we need to artic ulate and protect in the face of new surveillance and control tools?\n\n ​On this seminar\, we will be introducing the contest and hearing from s tewards including Ruthanna Emrys (sci fi writer)\, Gideon Lichfield (journ alist)\, and Liz Barry (democracy technologist) as well as potential guest speakers from a prestigious science fiction and fantasy literary awards a nd magazine! We hope you'll join us.\n LOCATION:https://researchseminars.org/talk/Metagov/285/ END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR