Ep99 The Midjourney Archeology Dept

Aaron and Chris take the mic for a two-person edition of Net Society, opening with Seedphrase’s seven-trait CryptoPunk sale and a debate over rarity, taste, and NFT financing. They unpack the case for a crypto recovery, from clearer regulation to stablecoins and real-world assets finding practical uses. From there, Anthropic’s culture and a controversial AI pain experiment spark a debate over consciousness, anthropomorphism, and whether AI safety could become a justification for mass surveillance. They explore AI systems rediscovering physics and ask whether agent-run organizations could deliver on the original promise of DAOs. A detour into Göbekli Tepe, the Lion Man, and lost civilizations becomes a case for putting AI to work on archaeology, followed by a discussion of university expansion and immersive learning. The conversation then turns to realistic AI avatars, video Turing tests, and the visual cues people need to trust a machine. They wrap with Marfa, plotters, and how AI coding tools could bring makerspaces back, alongside a critique of generative art’s attachment to signature styles.

Mentioned in the episode

Seedphrase sells the only seven-trait CryptoPunk through GONDI [https://x.com/gondixyz/status/2105705149515899044]

San Francisco Fed research on stablecoins and demand for US Treasuries [https://www.frbsf.org/research-and-insights/publications/economic-letter/2026/09/stablecoin-issuers-growing-appetite-for-treasury-securities/]

Daniela Amodei and Holden Karnofsky’s stuffed-animal advisory council [https://nypost.com/2026/09/30/business/anthropic-co-founder-daniela-amodei-and-husband-used-stuffed-animal-advisory-council-for-workplace-conflicts-report/]

The AI “torture chamber” debate [https://x.com/AISafetyMemes/status/2101183174659490199]

AI-Newton: research matching the discussion of AI rediscovering physics [https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.01538]

Göbekli Tepe and early monumental architecture [https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1572/]

The Lion Man: a 40,000-year-old Ice Age sculpture [https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/lion-man-ice-age-masterpiece

Tavus Griffin: likely source for the video Turing test discussed [https://www.tavus.io/griffin]

Art Blocks Marfa Weekend 2026 [https://luma.com/abmw2026]

Show & Hosts