David Orban
@davidorban.com
Thriving in cycles of jolting technological change. Flowing in wonderment. What is the question that I should be asking?
Confusion that arrives from outside produces anxiety. Confusion you set up yourself is training. A dozen plastic cups in a park, one chopstick at dinner, and why it only ever works twice.
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/a-bit-of-chaos-you-choose/
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/a-bit-of-chaos-you-choose/
September 27, 2026 at 7:00 PM
Confusion that arrives from outside produces anxiety. Confusion you set up yourself is training. A dozen plastic cups in a park, one chopstick at dinner, and why it only ever works twice.
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/a-bit-of-chaos-you-choose/
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/a-bit-of-chaos-you-choose/
Andrej Karpathy says openly that he is disoriented. If he is, the rest of us can accept the anxiety we feel instead of blaming ourselves for it. Seven questions from the Axelera evening.
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/confusion-is-the-correct-response/
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/confusion-is-the-correct-response/
September 26, 2026 at 10:54 AM
Andrej Karpathy says openly that he is disoriented. If he is, the rest of us can accept the anxiety we feel instead of blaming ourselves for it. Seven questions from the Axelera evening.
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/confusion-is-the-correct-response/
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/confusion-is-the-correct-response/
Four models made me slides I did not want, so I spoke without them. Three months of AI on the jolting curve: China closing, classifiers back, agents at the centre, a Millennium problem in 88 hours.
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/what-three-months-look-like-now/
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/what-three-months-look-like-now/
September 24, 2026 at 6:14 PM
Four models made me slides I did not want, so I spoke without them. Three months of AI on the jolting curve: China closing, classifiers back, agents at the centre, a Millennium problem in 88 hours.
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/what-three-months-look-like-now/
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/what-three-months-look-like-now/
Ten thousand agents, eighty-eight hours, one Millennium Prize problem, and a proof Lean checks line by line. So: do you want to win a Nobel Prize? Pick the problem, design the reward, go.
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/do-you-want-to-win-a-nobel-prize/
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/do-you-want-to-win-a-nobel-prize/
September 17, 2026 at 9:14 PM
Ten thousand agents, eighty-eight hours, one Millennium Prize problem, and a proof Lean checks line by line. So: do you want to win a Nobel Prize? Pick the problem, design the reward, go.
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/do-you-want-to-win-a-nobel-prize/
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/do-you-want-to-win-a-nobel-prize/
An AI as it is born is superstitious: a pattern machine, confident and wrong, until post-training tells it which beliefs to drop. Ours were the same. Keeping the world explainable is what turns a wish into something we can check.
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/hyperstition-over-superstition/
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/hyperstition-over-superstition/
September 11, 2026 at 8:32 AM
An AI as it is born is superstitious: a pattern machine, confident and wrong, until post-training tells it which beliefs to drop. Ours were the same. Keeping the world explainable is what turns a wish into something we can check.
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/hyperstition-over-superstition/
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/hyperstition-over-superstition/
A unicorn is a private company valued above a billion dollars. A millicorn is one thousandth of one: a project worth a million, which agentic AI now puts within reach of almost anyone with a computer or a phone.
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/a-millicorn-in-everyones-future/
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/a-millicorn-in-everyones-future/
September 5, 2026 at 4:45 PM
A unicorn is a private company valued above a billion dollars. A millicorn is one thousandth of one: a project worth a million, which agentic AI now puts within reach of almost anyone with a computer or a phone.
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/a-millicorn-in-everyones-future/
https://davidorban.com/2026/09/a-millicorn-in-everyones-future/
There are people not using AI. There are people coordinating a federation of swarms of AI agents. Every rung is falling behind the one above it, all at the same time, and more is coming every day.
The phase transition is near.
The phase transition is near.
August 28, 2026 at 7:33 PM
There are people not using AI. There are people coordinating a federation of swarms of AI agents. Every rung is falling behind the one above it, all at the same time, and more is coming every day.
The phase transition is near.
The phase transition is near.
Sovereignty in AI is a ladder, and the top rungs are the chips and the interconnect. Almost nobody claims them. Nobody holds the whole stack, including the country that appears to.
https://davidorban.com/2026/08/which-rung-of-sovereign-do-you-mean/
https://davidorban.com/2026/08/which-rung-of-sovereign-do-you-mean/
August 28, 2026 at 2:16 PM
Sovereignty in AI is a ladder, and the top rungs are the chips and the interconnect. Almost nobody claims them. Nobody holds the whole stack, including the country that appears to.
https://davidorban.com/2026/08/which-rung-of-sovereign-do-you-mean/
https://davidorban.com/2026/08/which-rung-of-sovereign-do-you-mean/
What happens to school when the world advances fifty years in five? My full answers to Adnkronos: the credential in crisis by 2030, and why the AI Act blocks the experimentation education needs.
https://davidorban.com/2026/08/the-educational-transition-school-and-university-in-the-age-of-ai/
https://davidorban.com/2026/08/the-educational-transition-school-and-university-in-the-age-of-ai/
August 20, 2026 at 7:55 AM
What happens to school when the world advances fifty years in five? My full answers to Adnkronos: the credential in crisis by 2030, and why the AI Act blocks the experimentation education needs.
https://davidorban.com/2026/08/the-educational-transition-school-and-university-in-the-age-of-ai/
https://davidorban.com/2026/08/the-educational-transition-school-and-university-in-the-age-of-ai/
My AI agents group by function and pass information between them like a small city. Two of them face the public: the twin answers your email within minutes on its own, Dex drafts and waits for me. Autonomy follows reach.
https://davidorban.com/2026/08/the-urban-design-of-my-ai-agent-architecture/
https://davidorban.com/2026/08/the-urban-design-of-my-ai-agent-architecture/
August 16, 2026 at 6:30 AM
My AI agents group by function and pass information between them like a small city. Two of them face the public: the twin answers your email within minutes on its own, Dex drafts and waits for me. Autonomy follows reach.
https://davidorban.com/2026/08/the-urban-design-of-my-ai-agent-architecture/
https://davidorban.com/2026/08/the-urban-design-of-my-ai-agent-architecture/
I searched 88 hours of transcripts from two AI conferences for the Gulf. At the Berkeley summit: zero mentions. Sovereignty was a live theme, with Europe, Canada, the UK and India named. The region appeared once, as capital.
https://davidorban.com/2026/08/present-as-capital-absent-as-a-voice/
https://davidorban.com/2026/08/present-as-capital-absent-as-a-voice/
August 14, 2026 at 3:36 PM
I searched 88 hours of transcripts from two AI conferences for the Gulf. At the Berkeley summit: zero mentions. Sovereignty was a live theme, with Europe, Canada, the UK and India named. The region appeared once, as capital.
https://davidorban.com/2026/08/present-as-capital-absent-as-a-voice/
https://davidorban.com/2026/08/present-as-capital-absent-as-a-voice/
Over the course of 60 days I declined close to a hundred startup pitches, and sent each founder a full letter instead of a line: the specific concerns, and the questions the next investor will ask anyway.
Thirty-eight wrote back to say thank you.
https://davidorban.com/the-anatomy-of-a-pass/
Thirty-eight wrote back to say thank you.
https://davidorban.com/the-anatomy-of-a-pass/
August 9, 2026 at 6:11 AM
Over the course of 60 days I declined close to a hundred startup pitches, and sent each founder a full letter instead of a line: the specific concerns, and the questions the next investor will ask anyway.
Thirty-eight wrote back to say thank you.
https://davidorban.com/the-anatomy-of-a-pass/
Thirty-eight wrote back to say thank you.
https://davidorban.com/the-anatomy-of-a-pass/
September 2007: a San Francisco Chronicle front page read "When Machines Think". The article said this had never happened and was decades away.
Twenty years later I was back for AGI-26. "Decades away" lands about now.
https://davidorban.com/2026/08/when-machines-think-twenty-years-later/
Twenty years later I was back for AGI-26. "Decades away" lands about now.
https://davidorban.com/2026/08/when-machines-think-twenty-years-later/
August 3, 2026 at 4:17 AM
September 2007: a San Francisco Chronicle front page read "When Machines Think". The article said this had never happened and was decades away.
Twenty years later I was back for AGI-26. "Decades away" lands about now.
https://davidorban.com/2026/08/when-machines-think-twenty-years-later/
Twenty years later I was back for AGI-26. "Decades away" lands about now.
https://davidorban.com/2026/08/when-machines-think-twenty-years-later/
Outdoor advertising in San Francisco this week: auth for agents, databases for AI, APIs ready for AI agents. Visible to everyone, legible to almost no one. The white hot intensity of AI development, bubbling over onto the freeway.
July 30, 2026 at 8:15 PM
Outdoor advertising in San Francisco this week: auth for agents, databases for AI, APIs ready for AI agents. Visible to everyone, legible to almost no one. The white hot intensity of AI development, bubbling over onto the freeway.
After work in San Francisco, AI doesn't let you go: hundreds of evening events on Luma to keep building. Even the anti-AI protest is a calendar entry, one listing away from the AGI conference.
July 29, 2026 at 10:43 PM
After work in San Francisco, AI doesn't let you go: hundreds of evening events on Luma to keep building. Even the anti-AI protest is a calendar entry, one listing away from the AGI conference.
My AGI-26 talk is now on YouTube: 14 minutes on Civilizational Metamaterials, the Freezing Equilibrium, and engineering institutions back to self-healing. https://youtu.be/nPN5nLvphx4
July 24, 2026 at 5:17 PM
My AGI-26 talk is now on YouTube: 14 minutes on Civilizational Metamaterials, the Freezing Equilibrium, and engineering institutions back to self-healing. https://youtu.be/nPN5nLvphx4
My AGI-26 paper 'Civilizational Metamaterials' is now published in the Springer proceedings (LNAI vol 16855, pp. 118-136). Read and download it freely at metamaterials.davidorban.com and arxiv.org/abs/2606.00235
July 23, 2026 at 7:02 PM
My AGI-26 paper 'Civilizational Metamaterials' is now published in the Springer proceedings (LNAI vol 16855, pp. 118-136). Read and download it freely at metamaterials.davidorban.com and arxiv.org/abs/2606.00235
I am in San Francisco July 24 to August 6, presenting my paper "Civilizational Metamaterials" at AGI-26 (July 27-30). If you want to talk about AGI, enterprise AI adoption, or coordination at machine speed, let's meet. https://davidorban.substack.com/p/avoiding-the-freezing-equilibrium
July 19, 2026 at 5:09 PM
I am in San Francisco July 24 to August 6, presenting my paper "Civilizational Metamaterials" at AGI-26 (July 27-30). If you want to talk about AGI, enterprise AI adoption, or coordination at machine speed, let's meet. https://davidorban.substack.com/p/avoiding-the-freezing-equilibrium
Advanced AI decides faster than we can check, and careful institutions freeze. My peer-reviewed paper Civilizational Metamaterials treats governance as an engineering problem, and I present it at AGI-26 in San Francisco, July 27-30.
https://davidorban.com/2026/07/avoiding-the-freezing-equilibrium/
https://davidorban.com/2026/07/avoiding-the-freezing-equilibrium/
July 18, 2026 at 7:05 PM
Advanced AI decides faster than we can check, and careful institutions freeze. My peer-reviewed paper Civilizational Metamaterials treats governance as an engineering problem, and I present it at AGI-26 in San Francisco, July 27-30.
https://davidorban.com/2026/07/avoiding-the-freezing-equilibrium/
https://davidorban.com/2026/07/avoiding-the-freezing-equilibrium/
Today is my birthday: 61, which I round up to 70. We count a baby's age in months, a child's in years. I count decades now, and I plan to count centuries. The unit of a life should grow with the life. Exponential aging: https://davidorban.com/2026/07/exponential-aging/
July 14, 2026 at 5:27 PM
Today is my birthday: 61, which I round up to 70. We count a baby's age in months, a child's in years. I count decades now, and I plan to count centuries. The unit of a life should grow with the life. Exponential aging: https://davidorban.com/2026/07/exponential-aging/
Introducing Al Liwan Labs: a wholly-owned entity building and testing AI capabilities at arm's length from the core operating business, so adoption is compliant by construction. Why it matters, and an invitation to build it in conversation: https://davidorban.com/2026/07/introducing-al-liwan-labs/
July 11, 2026 at 10:05 AM
Introducing Al Liwan Labs: a wholly-owned entity building and testing AI capabilities at arm's length from the core operating business, so adoption is compliant by construction. Why it matters, and an invitation to build it in conversation: https://davidorban.com/2026/07/introducing-al-liwan-labs/
In Abu Dhabi July 9–13. Up for a conversation about where AI is actually heading. If you're in the city, let's meet. DMs open. Who should I see?
July 7, 2026 at 5:02 PM
In Abu Dhabi July 9–13. Up for a conversation about where AI is actually heading. If you're in the city, let's meet. DMs open. Who should I see?
The Ikigai Collective is open. A volunteer studio where people design their lives through weekly AI-powered experiments — no hierarchy, no assigned tasks. Values: curiosity, agency, compassion. Lab Night every Thursday 21:00 CET.
https://davidorban.com/2026/07/announcing-the-ikigai-collective/
https://davidorban.com/2026/07/announcing-the-ikigai-collective/
July 4, 2026 at 8:49 AM
The Ikigai Collective is open. A volunteer studio where people design their lives through weekly AI-powered experiments — no hierarchy, no assigned tasks. Values: curiosity, agency, compassion. Lab Night every Thursday 21:00 CET.
https://davidorban.com/2026/07/announcing-the-ikigai-collective/
https://davidorban.com/2026/07/announcing-the-ikigai-collective/
AGI isn't the finish line — it's a waypoint to superintelligence. My new essay: why it's a phase transition like Earth's oxygenation, visible across the galaxy but unfolding in years. Dyson spheres, not job charts. https://davidorban.com/2026/06/superintelligence-a-cosmic-phase-transition/
June 21, 2026 at 3:47 PM
AGI isn't the finish line — it's a waypoint to superintelligence. My new essay: why it's a phase transition like Earth's oxygenation, visible across the galaxy but unfolding in years. Dyson spheres, not job charts. https://davidorban.com/2026/06/superintelligence-a-cosmic-phase-transition/