Civilizations run on protocols — including shared norms for how we keep time, store knowledge, and make decisions together.
Lab Series 001 is a collaboration between Long Now and the Protocol Institute. It pairs our practice of long-term thinking with the Protocol Institute’s expertise in protocol design to investigate three aspects of civilizational durability that are being radically reshaped by frontier technologies.
This Long Now Lab invites you to submit a concept for a new way of marking, experiencing, or making sense of time. This Lab is open to everyone, from precocious kindergarteners to prestigious watchmakers, from engineers to essayists to experimental artists. Reviewed by leading artists, philosophers, and technologists, the top 25 most compelling concepts will be included in a Long Now print book and digital anthology, added to the permanent collection of The Long Now Foundation library and archive. We will additionally select the top three concepts for follow-on investment and development into a working prototype.
Deadline
Jun 5, 02026
This Long Now Lab seeks an individual or team to investigate historical epistemic cycles — patterns of technological disruption that result in the breakdown of a society's shared ability to discern truth. Through a series of events and convenings, along with content development and publishing, this Lab will analyze analogous historical ruptures (from papyrus to the printing press, from medieval court rituals to social media) to provide insight for navigating the current epistemic crisis brought on by synthetic intelligence and generative media content.
Deadline
Jun 5, 02026
This Long Now Lab explores the protocols needed to support interspecies ecologies — the interactions between humans, nature, and synthetic intelligences. Whales have a phonetic alphabet. Rivers hold legal rights. AI agents negotiate on behalf of humans they‘ve never met. Synthetic biology blurs the lines between species. The 21st century‘s defining governance challenge isn‘t any one of these developments — it‘s how all of these constituencies are increasingly asserting themselves, and we have few agreed-upon protocols for how to build the world together. This Lab — which will likely take the form of a course launching early 02027 — will convene frontier systems thinkers working on the technologies, communication norms, governance frameworks, and philosophies this transition necessitates.