Project summary
We are running an intimate one-day summit bringing together faith leaders and those building AI for focused discussions on individual and collective meaning-making in the AI age.

The summit takes place Tuesday, July 7, 2026, 10am–6pm, at St Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church, Potrero Hill, San Francisco. It brings together community leaders and technology builders for talks, debate, and conversation, with some sessions recorded and most off the record. The central questions: What does it look like to live a meaningful life in a world with AI? And what does it look like for a community to do the same?

What are this project's goals and how will you achieve them?
Our aim is to shape the conversation around this topic (particularly within Silicon Valley and the AI-sphere), to include aspects of meaning-making often left out (like the transcendent and the numinous) of typical tech "human flourishing" conversations, and open the possibility of rehabilitating currently declining traditions who are struggling to adapt in the current world. I imagine that if this is very successful, in the long term the better sense-making by key groups around meaning-making it and future events generate help Western society navigate the transition to a world full of AI more smoothly, more peacefully, and while leaving fewer people out.

We achieve this through a focused single-day format:

  - 10–11am: Short talks from multiple perspectives
  - 11am–1pm: Moderated debate  
  - 1–3pm: Long lunch
  - 3–5pm: Structured small-group conversations
- 5–6pm: Cocktail hour and closing

We expect 30–50 guests: some frontier lab employees, other AI startup employees, and spiritual and religious leaders engaging with questions around AI. Confirmed attendees include Paul VanderKlay, Nadia Asparouhova, Toby Shorin, Mat Honan, Kanjun Qiu, Michael Nielsen, Emmett Shear, Yatharth Agarwal, Michael Smith, Vie McCoy, Cassandra McCoy, Kati Devaney, Jeff Alstott, The Rev. Peter Levenstrong, Ted Peters, April Lawson, Malcolm Ocean, and Jessica Ocean.

How much money do you need?
 We are asking for $3–5K to cover two budget items:
  - Catering (in particular, to encourage our guests to share a communal lunch together)
  - Videography (to capture some choice sections of the event to put online, both to start conversation and to build credibility with this project over time).

  Our event has the opportunity to be absurdly low budget:

  - Organisers are working pro bono
  - The venue (including the work of a site monitor) has been generously offered pro bono by St Gregory's church
  - No marketing is required as all attendees are being invited personally
  - A close nonprofit, the Bramble Center for Informal Research, has offered to accept donations on our behalf.

Catering and video are in fact our only line items, which is why we are seeking to cover the costs with sponsorship rather than by charging a ticket price (which risks making it harder to attract some of the people who we hope to have attending).

What is your team's track record on similar projects?
The summit is convened by the Open Immanence Society in partnership with St Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church. Jessica Ocean serves as founder, and the organisers are working pro bono. The Bramble Center for Informal Research is acting as our fiscal sponsor, accepting donations on our behalf.

How could this project be unsuccessful?
Because the venue and organising labour are donated and attendees are invited personally, the event will go ahead regardless. The main risk is to quality rather than existence: without funding for catering, guests would not share the communal lunch that we think is central to the day, and without videography we would lose the chance to bring the conversation to a wider audience online and build credibility for the project over time.

How much money have you raised in the last 12 months, and from where?
This is a new project.