PLZDONTKILLUS · CLASS OF 2026

AaronSilverbook.com

Did you guys also get the email notifying us that the event was going to turn into a battle royale halfway through? What kind of weapons are allowed?

Hi everyone! I'm Ali (she/her). By day I'm a backend software engineer, and at night I am a content creator, live streamer, gala host/organizer, and cybersecurity news reporter. Also I occasionally work as a stylist, giving glowups to people who work in tech, as well as mechanical keyboard sourcer.

My personal channels can all be found @endingwithali - in 2026 I went all in focusing on my Instagram. I am hoping to hit 100k by the end of the year! I've been live streaming on twitch since 2021. I am the host of Threat Wire - a cybersecurity news show on Hak5, the longest running tech focused channel on YouTube (we just hit 1M subs).

I'm based out of NYC. My hobbies include learning to DJ, petting dogs, the occasional rave, and fashion. I'll still be working a full time job and producing Threat Wire during PDKU. My biggest ask: how can I do better. I've been having a micro crash out about content and finding my niche. Links: links.ali.dev; instagram.com/endingwithali; twitch.tv/endingwithali.

Hello! My name is Ana, I'm going into my junior year at Temple University in Philadelphia PA, in pursuit of a degree in Film and Media Arts. I pursue a bunch of different creative ventures, including filmmaking, animation, and game development, though film editing is my speciality. I also consume a lot of media, some of my favorites being the game DELTARUNE, the album Nurture by Porter Robinson, the film It's Such A Beautiful Day, and the tv show Scavengers Reign. Some other assorted things I enjoy are traveling, cuddling, dancing, and loving. I think my strengths are in video editing and in "committing to the bit", and my weaknesses would be trying to cram too much into each video, and risking running out of time.

Things I've worked on: A Mario Kart fan game that runs on original Game Boy hardware; A sitcom that airs on local Philly television (and YouTube); A bunch of short films.

In regards to PDKU: I have a particular interest in putting together some kind of "PlzDontKillUs Taskmaster" (like the British game show) where 5 fellows serve as contestants and a mentor figure serves as the "Greg Davies" figure. I'd love to do skits, solo or with others. I don't really plan to use AI for anything but if I must, then I won't be repulsed at the idea. I'd really just love to collaborate with people on things!

I could not beat a kangaroo in a fight to the death. I would lose badly.

Hi, I'm Aron. From Los Angeles, and still here for some reason. I do all sorts of entertainment related junk. Mostly focusing on animation and documentary - but a little of everything. Spent the last few years working on "Smiling Friends" - just released a new little animated short a few weeks ago. I collect and restore old animatronics - and have no clue how the type of stuff I make translates to this but I'll figure something out! x: x.com/aronfromm.

My name is Aryeh, and I don't know what it means to be "from" somewhere. I currently live in Columbus, Ohio, and I've previously lived in Boston and New York City. One of my goals in life is to live in New York City once more (but not Boston).

One year ago, I was on the fourth season of Fishtank, a reality show that exploits neurodivergent people for comedy (there was a good article about the show in Wired this month). Since then, I've had a couple viral Instagram reels, and I've made guest appearances on Ricky Berwick's channel, but my main activity has been arguing with people on Twitter. I frequently tell people that I want to be a video essayist, but despite having all the time in the world, I only have one under my belt.

My autistic special interests are cartoons, musical theater, and online culture war nonsense. I'm not an artist or musician, though I do sing for fun. I recently did a panel about my favorite cartoon show at a con in Columbus. I am right-of-center, but the majority of my Twitter followers believe I'm on the political left.

My greatest strength for content creation is that I am sometimes unintentionally hilarious. I really want to become more than "that one guy from the autistic torture chamber show". My greatest weakness is that I don't know how to tell when people are lying.

Hi everyone! I'm Avalon, but you can call me Avi. :) Or just "hey you" if you forget my name.

I kind of stumbled into content creation back in 2017 after working with BuzzFeed, and somehow convinced over 1.2 million people to follow along. Over the years, I've worked with brands like Amazon Video and Samsung Galaxy, and had the chance to travel all over creating content for a living.

Some of my favorite series: ASD Eats, where I shared my food ideas and hacks for people with autism and food sensitivities (nearly a million views per episode), and Things I Found in My Backyard, a series where I identified edible plants.

Outside of work, I play Star Wars Unlimited competitively, love adventuring, vibe coding fun apps, playing board games, horror/sci-fi movies, and pretty much anything involving animals. Oh and singing!! we should 10/10 start a PDKU band. I've been offline for a while, so I definitely look a little different now - im blonde these days. TikTok: tiktok.com/@avalonwarren; Instagram: instagram.com/avalonwarrenn.

Hey folks, I'm Avisha! (Ah-VEE-shuh). I've been based out of NY for the last 10 years. I've never had a real job, so I could be living anywhere, so obviously I choose the place with the highest rent in the world. I'm insatiably curious about everything, love meeting new people, and have a bad habit of picking up new hobbies. The most recent would be learning to sew leather - at first for cosplay purposes.

I do a lot of things. As I write this I'm: sitting with a prototype non-invasive continuous glucose monitor strapped to my wrist (Signal Processing + AI Developer hat, M.S. in Electrical Engineering / Signal Processing); developing a social media analytics suite in Claude Code that analyzes the full contents of an account, spits out 200+ variables for each video, and feeds it into statistical + ML models (R2 values of .1-.5); running 3x Deep Research queries about which egg preparation method is healthiest, for my instagram.com/distilledscience channel where I help people apply high quality scientific evidence towards improving their health.

I spend at least 50% of my time on content creation. I started making science education videos at the start of 2021. One fun example: designing a soup recipe to maximize carotenoid absorption from tomatoes and carrots to give myself a carotenoid-induced tan.

I love gaming (D&D+DotA), volleyball, cosplay, dancing, theater, showtunes, karaoke, cooking, baking, mixology, photography, graphic design, public speaking, health/fitness. I'm really bad at focusing down on my highest leverage activities. I'm very good at learning new things quickly and making cross-domain leaps. I'm excited to make content about using AI tools to become a one-person content machine. I'd give myself decent odds vs the kangaroo, but i would 100% come away injured.

HI KIDS! I'm Azmyth. I'm staff AND a fellow FELLOW. I've been working on this project for a few weeks now, and watching it / y'all come together has me SO excited to meet everyone! I am currently in NY attending the Butoh Institute, so I will be late. I get in on the 4th and will be running the party.

I live in the Bay and have been a part of the AI/ratosphere by proxy, yet i yearn for more creative kiddos. I make magic cloaks (Mysticloak), love long walks on the beach, am into Circling (in training for it and will be hosting some at PDKU), fusion dancing, Butoh, fan spinning, beginner DJing, mime/clown. I'm also v opinionated about vibes and media. I can't wait to co-make with y'all and bond forever and ever.

Hi, I'm Beck, a member of the MIRI comms team. I'm not participating in PDKU, but want y'all to succeed and can be a resource, both in person and online.

I grew up in Alaska, my degree was in political science in Portland OR, and I live here in Berkeley. I've got campaign management experience but spent most of the last decade as a cook and then chef (I led the Constellation food program). I know little about short form video, but made a handful of short films growing up. I've been paying attention to AI and to rationalists for a while now and generally feel pretty comfortable with a broad swath of x-risk argumentation. Note for travelers: Berkeley in July can often be chill and foggy (and occasionally hot) so bring layers!

Hi! I'm Becka!! from Philadelphia. i'm a yoga teacher and singing teacher, so if you want to get stretchy, sing a song, or even take a lil lesson from me i'm happy to get into it! i've been in bands, produced and sang in an opera, and produced some nightlife events. honestly i turned my hobbies into my jobs like everyone says not to do lol.

currently loving listening to Rosalia, love the beach, love to travel, if there are any spanish speakers here i love to keep my spanish sharp! i want to make slice of life content about how AI currently fits into my day-to-day as a totally non-technical girl and an outsider to this community. i want to appeal to the tiktok and insta girlies, and just talk sometimes about AI and AI safety and sometimes not. i also wanna sing!

my strengths are that i am Extremely extroverted. my weakness is that i sometimes have trouble staying motivated (but i think being in an influencer house will help me!). i am 5 feet tall and a kangaroo would absolutely destroy me.

hey all! i'm brenda. i escaped costa rica 9 years ago. tried texas but decided california is better. i quite enjoy overpriced coffee. i moved into a hacker house on a whim not trying to build anything but then claude came out and the rest is history. really passionate about using AI for fun and improving the lives of women through better health and relationships. i also like nassim taleb and jordan peterson equally and it makes me sad they have beef.

Hello! I'm an eclectic insomniac who spends most of my time in a dark room. After 23 years on this planet, I've crawled from nearly homeless to comfortably poor, and I don't plan on stopping there.

When I'm not watching lectures or reading, I'm usually talking to as many people as I can in true social butterfly fashion. I make jokes. I try to get people to laugh at low brow humor while maybe sneaking something more thoughtful into the subtext.

I saw someone else talk about the importance of nuance and I can't agree more. After the amount of information I've consumed about chaos, behavioral biology, etc, it is impossible to ever feel confident with a black or white answer. Everything depends on material conditions and the devil is always in the details.

I grew up in a tiny town with a tiny school and a tiny house and I wish to fight for a world that doesn't leave the people in these places behind. Also I would throw a single reverse hook kick and obliterate a kangaroos entire skull. my slop page: instagram.com/eugene_affirmative

Greetings everyone. I'm Brogan (Art Chad on socials). I'm a YouTuber making video essays about art, culture, and tech. I also help run a studio of YouTubers in Toronto called the CCCRU (Canadian Cybernetic Culture Research Unit) - we're all nerdy video essayists.

Excited for July, went through an existential arc in April and May, got sick of not doing anything lol. Realized the world is not resigned to its fate of super intelligence running over us like ants. We still have time to act and spread awareness. Here's a video I made in January about dead internet theory.

Hi guys! I'm Caitlin and I'm super excited for PDKU. A bit about me: grew up on a farm in MI; studied in Germany for two years; studied music education and got good at choral conducting and opera; I started making AIS tiktoks on-and-off two-ish years ago; I spent the last ~year as the creative director for a US Senator, traveling around the US and being in the capitol every weekday; I'll be studying Security Studies at Georgetown as a part-time grad student starting in the fall; I've started a podcast!

How I can help others: I know a fair amount about short form video editing and shooting (I use Premiere); I know quite a bit about AI safety messaging and have access to the latest message testing/polling; If you want to work in Congress or move to DC, I have thoughts; I know a lot about Morocco (I lived there for ~3 years).

How others can help me: I'm looking for a gym buddy (preferably AM workouts); I would love to learn After Effects; Would love to create AI-themed music. I'm addicted to celcius and trying to quit. I won't arrive until the 5th.

Hey everyone! I'm Caitlin. I live in London, but spent most of my life living in Canada.

I'm a recovering journalist who now works in AI Safety comms. I'm passionate about new media and I am actively researching how to narrow the gap of public understanding around AI Safety and risk (in part with support from BlueDot and FLI) - this includes understanding how to best support creators to keep creating. I also post online under the name FutureBriefing (mostly on IG).

Hobbies include travel, side questing, climbing, thrifting, photography, yoga, karaoke, and taking on random extra projects. Excited to look into long form videos while I'm here in addition to the daily short form so hit me up if you're down to collab! x: x.com/YardleyCaitlin.

Hello, I'm Camden! I'm 23, currently based in Boston, and just graduated college with a degree in Computer Science. My main creative outlet recently has been music production. I do mixing/production/instrument recording for other artists, and I'm working on a solo project that's a mix of hyperpop/math-rock/metal. Here's the (post-ironic?) song I made for my application video.

Some other hobbies are theater, improv, reading, anime, and climbing (used to make urbex videos). I'm planning on trying a few different formats - skits, sincere/informational stuff, and maybe longer form video essays. I'd really love to work on as many interdisciplinary projects with other people as possible!

I've been worried about AI development pretty intensely for the last few years. Putting effort towards something to help the cause has felt like an obligation to me for a while. Also looking forward to improving consistency/efficiency with media creation, and getting better at VFX/editing/videography. IG: instagram.com/camdenwyeth.

hey I'm Charlie, I'm from Chicago and currently live in Philly and work at a econ/ai/progress studies lab. Before I was building an events/social media app for a year that failed and before that I was doing trading in Chicago. I've been into effective altruism for ~8 years and started the ea club at northwestern and just helped start the penn club back up. I'm pretty morally agnostic.

I like music (wide variety but especially like to dance), humor, friends, basketball. Also pretty nerdy and down to deep dive history, stem, philosophy pmuch whenever. A fun fact about me is that my dad is jewish (athiest) and my mom is german/lutheran and her dad was flying in the nazi airforce (Luftwaffe) during ww2.

I'm currently biking and taking the amtrak from chicago to pdku and interviewing the people I bump into about ai, practical philosophy, and animal/digital rights. you can find the interviews on youtube (charlie guthmann - Ai conversations).

hey gang, i'm christian. i'm originally from new jersey, but have spent the last 3 years living in Barcelona and Montreal before that. moving to SF after PDKU.

i studied physics and philosophy, worked in ML, and ran a start up before committing to working on content and a podcast full time. my podcast is mostly philosophy (Seeing Clearly). my content is yap content. i also like to lift and play guitar. would be fun to watch some world cup games, ufc or to go out dancing/watch live music (rock, reggaeton, EDM). x: x.com/cxgonzalez.

heya, I'm conq. I care very deeply about art! I'm an inveterate reader above all else - here's a short bit about the time I read so many books it ruined my life (serialsevens.substack.com/p/my-strange-addiction). that piece got me into Inkhaven (plzdontkillus for writing), so I'm an old hand at the "churning out the daily dough at Lighthaven" thing.

I confess that for the longest time I thought I was better than the masses because I read books rather than watch short-form video content - but then I tried it a few months ago and was completely blown away! On the last day of Inkhaven I published my paean to Instagram Reels (Cannibal Media: in praise of Instagram Reels).

In my daytime life I study AI stuff at ETH Zurich (the "MIT of Europe," which just means it doesn't have air conditioning) so I'm pretty woke about the idea of AI killing us all. I'm split between dedicating myself to safety vs just having as much fun as humanly possible in our pre-apocalypse.

Personal fact blitz: I've lived in South Carolina, the Netherlands, South Africa, Hong Kong, and Switzerland. I memorize poetry. I'm new to video creation. substack: serialsevens.substack.com; x: x.com/serialsevens.

Hiya, Loan/DD. SO EXCITED TO MEET EVERYONE SO SOOOOON! I'm originally from Vietnam, but have moved from SF, NYC, Salt Lake City, London to Seattle!

Background in ML forecasting & NLP (text analysis). Retiring/recovering from the big tech (Google/Apple) corp rat race. Creative: 3D printing, touch designer, cricut crafting (vinyl shirts, cards). Techie: GHG accounting, desire/intimacy/kink/BDSM research - super excited to explore the intersection of this with HCI/CHI, AI, robotics. Yoga, aerial, pilates, strength training, hiking, camping.

Would looooove to attempt to make a cyberdeck from things we find in our thrifting excursion. Also really want to explore projection mapping if anybody has a background in graphics. Fight??? Why fight when we can love?

It's me Eliana, I feel like I have nothing to say about myself I am not a public person (yet). I have an x account @yellieyana. USC alum (acting) and from west LA. I love to sing, use ableton, and do stand up comedy sometimes.

Hey y'all I'm Elwyn. I'm from Florida. I'm a part timer at a box office.

I used to help make short and long form comedy videos full time. I'm pretty proud of the videos I've made. In the heyday our process usually involved someone having a basic idea, then one or two more of us riffing until we had an outline for the sketch that made us laugh. I hope to meet people I have good chemistry with for this process here.

I have an interest in making content that is conscious of the way it patterns the minds of those who consume it. What norms are we reinforcing? What somatic states are we evoking? I think people in short form algo-trance are in a really impressionable state, so we have a certain amount of responsibility to try not to make their mind a messier place to live, and an opportunity to inspire them to be freer. I think Adventure Time is something that does this well.

So much of comedy relies on the 'straight' character being disdainful, scared, or upset with the character that's being weird. I think in real life the best friendships invite you to be strange with one another. Main thing I'm hoping to get out of PDKU is to find a way to contribute to the world that is useful, irreplaceable, and well compensated. Something like 'contrapoints but for x-risk'. I'm interested in going to the sticking points of x-risk communication with the masses and seeing if we can have a discussion that addresses them and also makes us laugh.

howdy y'all, i'm Emily i'm from the UK so if you want to try exotic British snacks hmu asap before my allotted luggage space is filled. more specifically i'm from Bristol (home of the Yogscast) and spent a few years volunteering at Prickles--the UKs largest hedgehog sanctuary--located in Cheddar. i love long walks on the beach, experimental self-enforced misery, and Slay the Spire 2. i wanna teach some folk how to play Mahjong while i'm over there and try a California roll, maybe catch a Valkyries game.

i have some experience working with big serious AI Safety folks as an AI Safety Camp alum (thanks Robert Miles); those connections got me near front of the line to try out DALE when all the generative image stuff was first coming out. i'm super looking forward to making some wacky interesting videos. i always thrived as the presentation giver at uni, so hoping to do some short snappy show-and-tells about how and why we are all 100% going to get bioweponed by reheated sand that can do math. big fan of the social analogy as an explanatory tool so will be looking for people to play some characters in vids with me. though i'm excited, i am not looking forward to the heat or the jetlag or the embedded cultural idea that a kettle is an unnecessary kitchen appliance.

publicly visible things: The Treacherous Turn (a free TTRPG), FrodgePodge on Youtube, i helped raise 15k$ for the Trevor Project (Minecraft server).

kangaroos don't seem like natural born killers to me so i think i have a good chance.

P.S. this is your to-do list: tell me ur favourite 4-digit number; bring me a rusty piece of metal; react ur most used emoji (experiment).

Hi everyone, I'm Evan! I'm from Ontario, Canada. Niagara-On-The-Lake. That's wine country, arguably the napa of Canada, famous for the shaw festival, a lot of historical sites relating to the war of 1812.

I may be one of the youngest accepted applicants (20 years), and I'm kind of on the edge and in between of everything. I'm new to content creation, new-ish to TPOI, but I've put in the work of starting my channel. I'm a computer science student, yes, but I'm a curator of fashion and music and philosophical ideas first. I love and crave perspective.
Yes use me as practice for what ever rhetoric you want. Yes use me for debate purposes. Yes try and convince me of things (I'm very convinceable). Yes I will be asking a lot of questions.

I want us to think hard about our messaging strategy. What is the central message we want to get across, and what sort of movement or cultural meme do we want to contribute to. That entails being very serious about not falling into self-sabotage, onanistic in-group signalling, and working with what we have in a way that does not alienate regular people. I'm aiming to get the message across to queer leftists; a group I love, but have had to come to terms with the failures of. I think a multi-pronged approach where we all focus in on a specific demographic is a place to start. Being honest about our intentions, our mistakes, and our goals is the best way to do this.

I love baroque pop music, I've been listening to Glykeria, John Fahey, the Indigo Girls, Enya, and the world of oz, but my current favourites are The Lemon Twigs, The Cranberries, and Grimes. I'm always open to changing my mind and finding out new things. At plz, I'll be working on improving my sense of initiative, diligence, and making better use of the opportunities provided to me.

Hi! I'm Evie. I'm originally from Latvia, where I became the first and biggest lifestyle YouTuber in the country at age 13, so I've been working as an influencer for over 13 years now.

Four years ago I began my entrepreneurial journey and launched an AI dating app. With zero funding, we got it to 10K users in under 3 months and hit #1 on the Apple charts in LV. I was also named to Forbes 30 Under 30 2021 Latvia.

Two years ago I moved to New York to build startups, but this past January I made the decision to go full time as a content creator in AI and robotics. That was a big risk, my audience was used to beauty and lifestyle content. I started fresh YouTube and TikTok accounts. I'm deeply passionate about physical AI, and I think we need to do a much better job educating people on it. My content is mostly skits and education. IG: instagram.com/movieevelina; YT: youtube.com/@nycgingergirl; TikTok: tiktok.com/@techgirlevie.

hello i'm francesca aka pixel surfer. ex microsoft swe; musician; surfer / surfboard shaper; believe in ai safety but also aligning humans to ai; based in san diego, ca.

favorites: music (dj_dave, holy wave, toshifumi hinata, pearly drops, otto benson); fruitz (passion fruit, watermelon, figs, nectarines); miyazaki + nge + frieren; i make friends with trees.

pdku vids: explain ai like i'm talking to someone while surfing; making music + calm vibey scenes. pdku collabs: music; anyone want to surf? debates about ai where u own me. pdku goals: get better at social media / creating in public; have fun.

strengths: creative / curious / pattern match across disciplines. weaknesses: introverted + social anxx (but growing); i pet random cats even though i'm allergic. a kangaroo would one shot me. album: distrokid.com/hyperfollow/pixelsurfer/belonging; surfboard build: pixelsurfer.substack.com.

Hey everyone! I'm Gai, from Japan originally. I've been traveling and hitchhiking all over. It's been about 5 months since I landed at a hippie commune in West County, CA. I was living in Alaska before coming down to the lower 48. Thinking about making animation at PDKU. Here are a few old 2d animations I made long ago without AI: youtube.com/@micrawstudio. Excited to meet you all and make some cool stuff together!

Hey! I'm Glasha (gl-uh-sha, like Sasha but with a "gl"). I live in Buffalo, by Niagara Falls, randomly across the border from Evan. I moved here from Moscow, Russia at 17, after making a brave attempt to overthrow the dictatorship by going to two protests. Five months after I moved to the US, the dictatorship started a war with a bordering country. I felt nauseous and tried to stop the war by volunteering at a protest hotline, failed, and acquired learned helplessness.

I went to a state school in Buffalo for philosophy. I scored a 3.98 GPA by slowly getting worse at what I do. In my last year I decided to start a career in communications and communicate about effective altruism-related stuff, especially AI risk. Here's an article I'd pushed out, about epistemic responsibility and believing in Santa: buffstaterecord.com.

I'd be down to collab on videos that teach how to evaluate predictions of AI risk. Maybe about how forecasting works? To save my ass from a belligerent kangaroo, I would jump in her pouch and hide there until she forgets about me.

Hi all! I'm Halina, born & raised in the Bay Area.

Past work: Worked in blockchain & decentralized governance 2021-2023; attended Vitalism Bay conference in Lighthaven last yr & documented w a 50 part thread; wrote a couple Substack articles; practiced being disagreeable w/100 twitter fights.

Hobbies & faves: long walks, hikes, horseback riding, would love a hiking/walking buddy; consuming media & doing meta-analysis of my attention - what was the "hook", good copywriting, visual hook etc.

PDKU: mostly retired from "male internet" and made a 180 to "female internet", creating content for women; made IG, TT, YT last year & grew to 70k. Want to try "social experiment" type content where we go out in public & challenge social norms. Need to get better at "yapping content". Currently hate editing, want to try AI video editing tools. Want to vibe code or ai video something that can go viral among a female audience.

Fun facts: I wrote my PDKU application in ~30 mins during an uber. Everyone agrees I'd be first to depart in a zombie apocalypse. x: x.com/halina_eth.

hellooo i'm isabel, i'm from australia, based in singapore. i'm a creative technologist. former liberal arts grad then advertising creative. now i vibe code and make content. the main project im working on now is napole0n.ai - where chatgpt, gemini, grok and claude fight each other in a medieval RTS battle sim.

in general I am pro artificial intelligence, anti super intelligence. i'm great at making things pretty and bridging conversations between art/tech/philosophy - at PDKU i want to learn about and figure out how to articulate AI safety things in a productive way that cuts through the polarisation of usual conversations. i would not even attempt to fight a kangaroo. find me on IG: @artificial.isabel

Hello Lovlies! I am Jennifer and I am super excited to meet you all soon but not soon enough - I live in Oakland but I'm out of the country till July 8 so I'll be posting my first week remotely. I am an artist and a maker, I spend a lot of my time making physical objects but have absolutely zero experience making video content of any kind so I'm looking forward to learning from scratch and seeing what kind of crazy cool shit we can all make together.

hey my name is jeredino lavagnino (silent g like lasagna), i'm an aspiring brand ambassador for Gorki List Serbian Liqueur and retired blogger (total career earnings and accolades: none) making a ploy to join the Content Creator Aristocracy, lest i be condemned to the Permanent Slop Consumer Underclass. i posted briefly on substack (zatsuon.substack.com) and longly on my artisanal hand-coded indie web personal site (suboptimalism.neocities.org) featuring literary criticism, travels, drunken anime reviews, etc.

i'm a seasoned veteran of the "living at lighthaven for a month while having to post daily" circuit; two months ago i did a tour of duty as a resident at Inkhaven, basically plzdontkillus but for blogging - us "inkies" have been calling PDKU "slophaven". i distinguished myself in several ways: i predicted Scott Alexander's whereabouts, took vyvanse for the first time and wrote the longest post of anybody, scored an autograph and podcast appearance from writer Bavitz, and came closest to getting kicked out. i may also have been the first outsider to find out about plzdontkillus - i stumbled upon a stray printout of the PDKU website by the lighthaven printer.

writing is kinda played out (the post-modernists saw to that); meanwhile video is comparatively young. i'm bursting with video ideas. i've never really used AI, mostly because i'm stubbornly stingy about subscriptions. my p(doom) has increased from 0 to 0.01. my #1 filmmaking inspiration is Werner Herzog. see everyone in the Dirty Berk soon!

Hey all, I'm Jessiah. I grew up all over the US (CA, NY, NC, AZ, OH), but home is Mendocino, about 3 hours north of the Bay Area.

I have a Master's in English lit and taught English Literature and Theory of Knowledge for most of a decade at international schools in South Korea, China, the UK, Spain, and Germany. I am very much a teacher first, and I really love stories as critical thinking and empathy machines. My love language is sharing movie/TV/book/podcast/stand up/video essay recommendations.

About 3 years ago, I moved back to the states and pivoted to data science. I'm currently doing some engineering and data work for a startup that is using AI to stop seniors from getting scammed over the phone. If you are a no-code person or AI-weary, I do use those tools a lot. Or if you are trying to wrangle some data, I'm happy to do some analysis.

I also coach high school basketball. I'm also a certified life coach. I work specifically with young men needing more meaning and purpose in their lives.

I have done various video projects, but I don't have a pre-existing audience, and I'm pretty against making "content" (and Twitter, fuck Twitter). I typically prefer longer, more detailed video essay type stuff. Ask me about Still Human, my summer camp/retreat. Website: gensilverjess.com; IG: jamellott23.

Hey all! I'm John or Broomhead. Eco-luddite turned somewhat technological optimist from San Francisco, moving into AI safety from a climate policy and community organizing background.

Hobbies include: conflict mediation, caving, building big art, playing in a band, helping rebuild my mom's house.

Content: fairly call-to-action/policy based. I'm interested in productive outlets for reasonable anxiety. This is all with an eye towards movement building. Requests: I'd love feedback on whether to go in the public persona direction that includes a lot of AI safety content, or the "this account is about AI safety" direction.

Offerings: I'm high commitment and have low regard for my physical well-being - if you need a stunt or someone to risk bodily or social injury, it would be my pleasure. Despite sound advice, I will be bringing my car, and can offer rides. I also sing opera/studied classical voice.

Hey everyone, I'm Josh. I've been scared of AI killing everyone since finding 80,000 Hours in late 2022. I switched my major to do more CS, started an AI safety group at my university (ubcaisafety.org), graduated, did independent AI governance research, then realized I didn't like it and switched to making tiktoks. Excited to meet you guys!

Howdy everyone. My name is Josie, I'm a Mexican-American girly from Alabama but currently based in Malaysia with my husband and two cats. I'm an ex-software dev (6 years) turned house wife/content creator/active learner keeping up with the rapid pace of technology (AI, crypto, media).

I mostly post on IG: instagram.com/josiefiguresitout. But I do a lot of lurking on X. I'm into anything that gets my body up and moving, especially outside! I love lifting, dancing, hiking, pickleball, hide-and-seek. When I'm feeling creative I love to draw, paint, sculpt, and in a group I love comedy improv, singing, lollygagging.

Im in a very experimental phase of my life right now. I find myself coming back to my inner child a lot and would love to share that with others while pushing each other to grow. Strengths: I'm a pretty mean cook. Weakness: I'm a bit of a slow learner. Would love to get some comedy improv, singing, and dancing going on at the house!

I'm Justin, grew up in Modesto California, current home base is Sacramento. Previous homes include Pittsburgh, Melbourne Australia, and Boulder Colorado.

From 2017-2025 I worked as a scriptwriter for Matpat's Game Theory, Film Theory, and Food Theory channels. Wrote ~200 videos that got around ~1 billion views. 2018-2020 I experimented with being a video essayist on my own channel. I was also a video game designer and scriptwriter (Necrobarista 2021, Idol Manager 2021). In 2025 I started working as a scriptwriter and content strategist with Drew's channel AI Species (Drew is a PDKU mentor). In 2025 I also attended the Inkhaven fellowship at Lighthaven and started blogging on Substack. In 2026 I got over my aversion to the camera and started a new channel, "Proof Positive" (progress studies).

I'm very much an "idea guy" who generally stays behind the scenes doing research and writing scripts, but this year I'm getting in front of the camera more.

Talk to me about: Movies; Board games; Pokemon Go; Video game scriptwriting (I'm hiring!); my experience working for Game Theory/Film Theory; Running an Astral Codex Ten meetup group in Pittsburgh for 5 years; The theology of VeggieTales.

AI topics I find interesting: Why AI-generated text, pictures, and voices all took off in the same ~2 year period; Why eminent AI scientists like Hinton and Bengio worry about extinction risk; How LLMs treat words as vectors ("King - Queen = Man - Woman") and can translate between languages they were never explicitly taught. Work I'm most proud of lives on Substack: justinkuiper.substack.com.

Hey y'all, i'm Kat the vat. I'm 25 and super excited about this creator bootcamp. I'm hoping to experiment with building networked organisms, and also with doing more IRL streaming alongside others. I build multi-media outputs that contribute towards a larger narrative, and recently i've been fascinated by both ARG's and DAO's.

About me: Multi disciplinary / undefined / constantly evolving; Has an "imagine peeing" tattoo; Cyberian since 4; Has been making videos since 8; Fascinated by "applied" theoretical knowledge.

How I can help: Video editing tips, content partner, or brainstorm buddy; Let's be friends! I'm loyal (bad at texting); Stream calendar and other tactical "plur building" processes. How you can help: Novelty seeking! let's go explore; Come hang out on stream; Ask me about the September event!

Something i think would be really cool at pdku is to build one or more kayfabe "collective identities" that the audience can 'wear', like a sports team but weirder and more participatory. I will be hosting an initial identity formation event in one of the first stream events (Thursday the 2nd).

Hi all. I'm KT and currently based in Budapest. I don't have any SFW content I'd be happy to share, but I'm hoping to change that this month :)

My obsession has always been digging into the human psyche and observing how people navigate groups, basically asking the question, "how do people human?" I'd love to keep going down that rabbit hole and invite people to do a 1-1 short live stream with me where we get to know each other over coffee/tea, do an IRL stream and visit some random place in the city, or you donate your body for a massage while we chat absurdities.

I'm currently trying to build a SFW online presence and figure out my niche. I'm basically a house cat that doesn't like to leave the home, but every once in a while I send myself to camps (acroyoga, surf, snbd, skate, etc). I do love community despite being mostly an introvert. Trauma dumping, body doubling & touch/movement is how I connect. While everyone else brings the nerd cred and intellectualism I'll bring the cozy vibes.

Where you're from: Sydney, Australia. What you do: Pdku player, uni student I guess. Links: instagram.com/matthew4244_. Hobbies: I use anilist, MAL, letterboxd, goodreads, statsfm, I like a lot of things. Favourite things: I'm really like instant noodles. What types of videos: Short form, educational type stuff, I like learning. Collaborate on: Anything im down for. Hoping to get: Allies. Strengths: Consistency. Here's my introduction video: youtube.com/shorts/04voHXnLghY

hai, im mara, in the virtual i go by messier. im from leuven, belgium (close to brussels), i have a bachelors in applied linguistics and two masters in ai (one in speech and language technology / nlp, and another in digital text analysis), and im currently an ai engineer/developer/creative technologist at one of the largest belgian marketing companies.

i also work on a ton of my own projects; a big one is kotopia, a project im working on with koto murai and others (he's creative director at asgard, and worked with c on elf.tech). other than ai engineering im also an artist; ive gone from drawing to painting to making music. my website: messier-systems.vercel.app; kotopia: kotopia.world; kaios chat: kaios.chat; music: mmessier.bandcamp.com; x: x.com/rssmrm; insta: instagram.com/mara.ipynb.

my engineering and my art are one and the same. i love reading, i love information, i love being attacked by knowledge and getting things wrong, then getting them right. asking uncomfortable questions, giving impossible answers, writing unreadable sentences, interacting on weirder planes of discourse; thats my happiness in life.

things i love: food (apples - magic star kind, most veganslop, white monster, espresso martini); audio (windmill music scene, pony music scene, idm; aphex twin, bjork, yeule, vylet pony, aya, caroline polachek, grimes, sophie, underscores); visual (serial experiments lain, evangelion, bocchi the rock, madoka magica, steven universe, adventure time, house 1997); textual (dune, g/acc manifesto, sadie plant, ccru, qntm, dysphoria mundi, if anyone builds it, the metamorphosis of prime intellect); misc (claude opus 4.6, running, queerness, being referred to with correct pronouns - they/them).

at pdku im hoping to inform and teach those less skilled in both Technics and Thought ways to engage with ai, respectfully towards their own selves, their own intellect, but also towards the ai. i strongly believe that the way in which we interact with ai will solve parts of alignment and x-risk. the same goes for issues like widespread cognitive atrophy, loss of attention spans, loss of what makes us human. one other thing im hoping to get out of this is friends and job opportunities. one weakness: i come across as shy but im not. strength: i do not fear.

hey everyone - i'm an artist-researcher running an art collective nonprofit in rural japan. we revitalize abandoned houses into art installations, residencies, community living rooms, research sites etc. i do a lot of tinkering / craft related things. these days i'm thinking about spiritual architecture / architectural animism, vibrant matter, and relationship to materiality.

i'm currently also a PI / leading the research team for a nation-wide participatory art experiment launching in japan later this year + producing a docuseries of civic life in rural japan. the overarching theme of my work is social practice, which is producing artifacts / media / experiments that involve people as the medium or material of the work.

up to other shenanigans like creating a grief shrine + contraption to melt ashes of loved ones into obsidian rock using the power of the sun w my friend max. i'm probably going to try to sneak into some labs at berkeley to do some material science explorations.

more me: michellekhuang.com; twitter @michellehuang42; founder of akiyacollective.org (501c3 nonprofit).

Hi everyone, my name is Michelle (pronounced mee-chell). I immigrated from Mexico to California as a child, and have only lived outside of California for the past year and a half, specifically in Sedona, Arizona. I'll be moving to the Bay Area in pursuit of an MA/MFA (dual program) at the California Institute of Integral Studies (East-West Psychology and Interdisciplinary Arts).

During my bachelor's I studied Cognitive Science, emphasizing language and culture, spending hours performing analysis on footage of orangutans, gibbons, human children. My essential interest is the question of Consciousness. My interests have expanded beyond pure materialism into the Phenomenological realm. I am drawn towards interdisciplinarity, pluralism, syncretism, occult and ancient systems, being, and the study of the Soul. Lately I've engaged in ritual practices, internal martial arts, dance, singing, and instruments.

I've no experience with video and am starting an online presence from scratch for this residency. I am hoping to create daily for PDKU while coming from a place of sincerity, authenticity, and intuition. If it feels natural, I am also envisioning the creation of simple, participatory work that focuses on experience and process. If I absolutely had to battle a kangaroo, I would use the constriction/snake fighting style and wrap myself around the kangaroo until it submits.

Hey everyone! I'm Oliver. I make 3D mumbo jumbo that's vaguely about AI. Looking to keep doing that during PDKU, but I'm going to try to work on some tools to automate my processes too. I do motion graphics for work, and submit my shorts to film festivals around LA where I live. I love reading about technology even though I don't really know what's real half the time. Kangaroo has no chance i'm deleting that mf. Fav recent video I've worked on: youtu.be/E9763olM5tk.

Hey y'all, I'm Savannah! I've lived in Las Vegas for the past few years, but spent most of my life in SoCal and Denver.

I'm a former data analyst and program manager who's now making short films, paintings, and photography. My recent work has been centered around mental health and the experience of leaving corporate life behind, but I'm here because I'm deeply interested in AI—especially the ethics and education sides of it. Having lived in both the corporate world and the art world simultaneously, I see that people on either end are in airtight bubbles. Some people don't know the ban-AI movement exists. And some people pushing to ban AI don't even know AI is an umbrella term. A major shift in education is called for.

I have some skit ideas I'd love to collaborate on, like communicating messaging through the ghosts of AI models past. I'm bringing my camera so I'd be down for photoshoots, short films. I'll be bringing art supplies. Communal painting at some point?

I kinda have a thing for nuance. I literally reserved the subreddit r/nuancedtakes yesterday. I think I could win a fight with a kangaroo by befriending it telepathically.

Digital footprint: savannahraisor.com; westernwayhealthcare.com (satire healthcare site for an easter egg in an upcoming short film); instagram.com/savannah_raisor.

Hi, my name is Tanner! I am a geologist from rural appalachian Ohio, but also a somewhat successful geometry dash youtuber in a previous life. I just finished my masters program studying paleoriver systems near the equator of Pangea. I'm a huge fan of hiking, camping, fossil hunting, and general outdoorsy things. Other than that, reading substacks, making videos, meditation, deeper conversations. I am bad at chess, but it is fun!

Tastewise: I love 100 gecs, Porter Robinson, Kandinsky, black licorice, Andy Capps hot fries. I'm somewhat a foodie.

PDKU Expectations: ai seems like it will be a defining feature of this era. I imagine ai could worsen environmental problems so I am concerned and trying to learn as much as possible. Generally I am planning to make explainer or simple skit type videos about arguments or papers that I find interesting, with a distinct deep time or environmental perspective.

Strengths: years of YouTube shorts experience, editing with Sony Vegas, lateral thinking. Weaknesses: I am bad at being consistent and focusing (I suspect I may have ADHD). Kangaroos are surprisingly strong, I give it 90% the kangaroo wins. YouTube: youtube.com/@k3norland; Substack: open.substack.com/pub/kenorland.

Hi, I'm Tess! I live in a group house in Berkeley, within walking distance of Lighthaven. I'm currently on a gap year after finishing my PhD at Stanford. That was in civil engineering with a sustainability focus, but I'm pivoting my focus to AI safety. I've been pretty vocal about AI safety on the internet before (x.com/thegartsy), but I have no prior experience with making short form video content. Tbh I also actively avoid consuming it.

PDKU Goals: I'll be framing my PDKU time as an experiment in figuring out what direction of AI safety work I want to pursue. Excited about making both emotionally-resonant and educational content.

Fun facts: I funded my gap year via compensated egg donation, and I met my fiance via Manifold.love (a prediction market dating app). Some things I like: ice cream, hair braids, hiking, hot tub/sauna, chocolate, art, reading, darning holes in knits, national parks. Strengths: Generalist with graphic design, writing, and quantitative skills. Determination. Weaknesses: I find consistency tough without external structure. I'd bet on the kangaroo winning that fight.

My name is Trinidad Matta-Schilling, but everyone calls me Tonchi. I'm 19 years old, from Santiago, Chile. I've been creating content since 2022, but became very inconsistent when I started college, and I wanna get my platform back on track!

I've been doing STEM activism since I was 13, passing bills in congress and whatnot. I also won a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award. I did competitive debate on the national team for a long time, where I learned most of my English. I'm currently in Law School.

Favorite things: my cat, drawing silly things, making new friends, exploring new tech, making silly websites, Wordle, fun facts, coffee shop hopping, walking, sleeping. I mostly listen to indie folk, 80s britpop, and southern cone rock. My top artist for the past 4 years has been Big Thief.

My philosophy for content creation is fun-fact based: tell you something you didn't know but maybe assumed true. Like, did you know ants don't have lungs? I distrust anyone who thinks a kangaroo wouldn't absolutely obliterate them (90kg of muscle, 759 pounds of force, claws, and they drown their enemies). ig: instagram.com/tonchimatta. I post my content in Spanish. Not much AI safety content is available in Spanish, so maybe it would make a greater impact to continue with it.

I'm this guy: tyleralterman.com. Hello from NYC where I do things like pretend to be a novelist, dance contact improv, addict myself to Twitter, and garden my little community (Fractal). I come from a long line of detectives.

To fight a kangaroo, I would prop myself up on my tail so that I can use both legs to deliver a kick.

(Thread) My goal for PDKU is to learn how to be my authentic self on camera instead of going into my presentation person. If anyone is down to practice the role of artificiality/bullshit detector while I film a video, that would be greatly appreciated!!