The First Fork: You → AI → Everything Else
AI is becoming an increasingly powerful interface to the digital world. Search, news, research, shopping, public records, communities, and even decision-making can increasingly be reached through a single personalized intermediary.
That convenience creates a deeper question: if AI becomes our primary interface to everything else, what must humans still be able to access, understand, and do directly?
This opening workshop in the Meta-Layer Initiative’s A Fork in the Web series begins with a rapid, participatory review of the Pro-Human AI Declaration. Together, we will consider whether and how we endorse its core commitments, including human control, agency, accountability, and protection of the human experience.
Then we move to the second fork. Participants will compare AI-mediated and direct-human paths through the Web and identify what each preserves or obscures. What happens to shared places, original sources, community context, provenance, dissent, and human encounter when intelligence increasingly stands between us and the world?
You will leave with a concrete Human Presence Requirement that can inform the Desirable Properties Challenge.
This is an interactive workshop, not a presentation. No prior knowledge of the Meta-Layer or Desirable Properties is required.
Series note
All four workshops are organized by the Meta-Layer Initiative and connected to the Desirable Properties Challenge. Each session stands alone, so people can join at any point. Participants who attend all four sessions and complete the learning or contribution requirements will be eligible for the series badge, with a Pearl Contributor upgrade pathway for those who develop a substantive DP patch, socialize it, receive feedback, revise or explain, and reflect on what they learned.
Pre-Read (7 mins)
https://desirableproperties.org/series/fork-in-the-web-workshops/session/1