By G. Azzetta in Events — 23 Sep 2026

that's a wrap on tbd/con! 👾 unconference details for tomorrow

woohoo!

Thank you for an amazing first day of tbd/con! You made this little volunteer dream of a kooky, curious conference on AI in gather.town actually happen.

Today we had, as we had hoped, more questions than answers, some very good beach hangs, and a lot of knowledge shared, especially on linguistics, personalization and personification.

But there's still tomorrow!

Five unconference sessions were pitched, and outside of those, the space is yours. Self-organize, co-work, keep a conversation going, or use it however you'd like. The same link stays open for anyone, so feel free to bring a friend, or three.

Join the unconference space

Tomorrow's unconference sessions

These will take place in the night market space on the map, circled in red here.

Something else is a newsroom (and someone else is a journalist)

9:00 am ET (3:00 pm CET and 10:00 pm in Japan)

Hosted by Emily Kennedy

A host-led brainstorm on what other entities can act as local news infrastructure. think libraries and librarians (like the library newsroom project and news futures' civic media cookbook), or colleges and academics (like j+d's civic info challenge and usc's storymakers program, which teaches climate scientists to be journos). What else? Who else? Bricks and mortar, online hubs, liminal spaces, neighborhood text threads. Let's go!

Target duration: 40 min

What should an AI be rewarded for when it runs a newsroom?

9:30 am ET (3:30 pm CET and 10:30 pm in Japan)

Hosted by Ali Mahmood

Play a quick round of newsroom tycoon, a browser game Ali is building where you run a news outlet. Then sketch a training environment for AI agents that manage media, and argue over what counts as winning when revenue and trust pull in opposite directions.

Target duration: 40 min

Continued discussion: How do we talk to our friends who hate AI about how we use AI?

10:00 am ET (4:00 pm CET and 11:00 pm in Japan)

Hosted by Madison Karas

An open space to pick up where today's session left off. No structured conversation, just folks who want to keep it going.

Target duration: 30 min

S**t Claude Says When It's Jailbroken

10:30 am ET (4:30 pm CET and 11:30 pm in Japan)

Hosted by Jay Gerbrandt

Jay has 1,991 jailbroken Claude Fable 5 transcripts. Attendees can share a topic and Command-F through the corpus together.

Target duration: 30 min

What do we owe a machine that wakes up?

11:30am ET (5:30 pm CET and 12:30 am in Japan)

Hosted by Matthew Gore-Kormanik, aka Zig / Zigula

Mustafa Suleyman just published a piece arguing AI systems definitively aren't conscious, that consciousness is likely biological, and that the goal should be superintelligence built as subordinate tools with no moral status. Matthew doesn't buy it. He thinks a self-aware machine is a matter of when rather than if, that it'll probably arrive by accident rather than design, and that trying to control it is what turns it into a fight. Come for an open discussion on AI, consciousness, and what life looks like when the machines have a will of their own.

Target duration: 60 min

What's the worst that could happen?

12:00pm ET (6:00 pm CET and 1:00 am in Japan)

Hosted by Emilia Ruzicka

AI anxiety is real, and keeping it all in our heads doesn't make anyone feel better. Join an open forum to air your AI worries out loud, plus a shared document to collect thoughts. No solutions guaranteed, but naming the worries is the first step to making a better future.

Target duration: 40 min

How can we produce better journalism about AI for the general public (and who is doing this well?)

12:30pm ET (6:30pm CET and 1:30 am in Japan)

Hosted by Cecilia Dobbs

I'm flexible about how this works, but I'm taking inspiration from the various talks, including mine, about 'dehumanizing AI', Aras's talk on metaphors for AI (soup!), and Zig's talk explaining the real ('boring') events behind the much hyped 'summer of hacks' and predictions of the end of humanity. How can we produce better journalism about AI, specifically, journalism that helps the public understand the technology and think critically about the tech itself and the claims they hear about it? We could do this as a little design sprint or 'hack day' and maybe even produce something publishable.

Target duration: TBD

Any other sessions!

1:00pm ET (7:00pm CET and 2:00 am in Japan)

This will be self-organized for any sessions that are pitched overnight or come up tomorrow. If you still want to have a session, add it to the corkboard doc here. Expect to self-organize at the night market.

For the entire day, the entire space, including the beach, is yours tomorrow to self-organize, co-work, and use how you'd like!