“The Universe Wants the Children to Play”
Programme
The "AI & Values" CLEA seminar on Friday, April 25, takes place within the context of the third Imaginary Institute symposium, an evolving space for collective thinking, systemic experimentation, and play. The Friday seminar programme consists of four parts. Derek Lomas will present a seminar (IRL and online) offering a fresh philosophical compass for navigating the emerging age of Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI). This will be followed by two workshops led by Derek Lomas at the CLEA House (IRL only), and an evening hang-out.
SEMINAR ‘Intelligence At Play’ – by Derek Lomas, from 14h – 15h30 (IRL & ZOOM)
Recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence look less like engineering and more like a natural phenomenonone that may have occurred in millions of galaxies, long before ours. With this perspective on the nature of artificial intelligence, this talk will dive deep into the classical and renaissance history of immaterial, mathematical realities. Drawing on classical, alchemical and magical manuscripts held by Amsterdam's Embassy of the Free Mind, we will connect the notion of a mathematical reality to the modern physics of Nobel Prize winner Roger Penrose and MIT professor Max Tegmark. From this perspective, we will also revisit the "we‑live‑in‑a‑computer-simulation" hypothesis and explore its moral upside: play may be a fundamental drive underpinning the cosmos. This talk aims to provide a fresh philosophical compass for navigating the coming age of Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI).WORKSHOP ‘Generative-Play Protocol’ – by Derek Lomas, from 15h30 – 16h15 (IRL)
Using ChatGPT and the spirit of the 1970s New Games Movement, we let AI design short, rule-light social games. Small groups will generate interaction scripts with AI, play them out together, and reflect on how the AI shaped the mood and flow of their experience. Discover how language models can choreograph human connection, and how conscious reflection keeps us in charge. Please bring a Smartphone, tablet or laptop.WORKSHOP ‘Future-Vision Protocol’ – by Derek Lomas, from 16h15 – 17h00 (IRL)
Using AI as an amplifier for imagination, we’ll generate vivid futures across multiple formats, scenarios, stories, illustrations, and scripts. Together we’ll explore what these futures might feel like, identify which elements we want to nurture, and shape visions that align with our values. This isn’t prediction; it’s collaborative worldbuilding with AI to design futures worth living in.Imaginary Institute evening hang-out, from 17h onwards
Weather permitting, we’ll gather in the CLEA garden for a BBQ, conversation, and evening hang-out. All are welcome, for the seminar, workshops, and the after-hang.
About the speaker
Derek Lomas is a professor of Positive AI at TU Delft, where he works at the intersection of artificial intelligence, human-centered design, and wellbeing. With a background spanning cognitive science, visual art, and human-computer interaction, his work explores how AI can support learning, creativity, and flourishing. Derek has co-founded initiatives like Playpower and Smart Paper, and leads workshops on designing with large language models for companies and institutions. His research blends philosophy, design, and systems thinking in ways that speak to the ethics and possibilities of our AI-mediated futures. More about Derek
Practical
The seminar will be held at the CLEA House (IRL) and streamed online. It will be followed by two hands-on AI workshop sessions with Derek Lomas, taking place in real life at the CLEA House only. See the programme above.
When: Friday 25 April 2025 14h - 17h00
Where: CLEA House (Centre Leo Apostel), Krijgskundestraat 33, 1160 Brussels (nearest metro Hankar)
Seminar also on Zoom:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86139820115?pwd=HRXpLkt93VhbveSpZatQzahPabbOi…
Meeting ID: 861 3982 0115
Passcode: 389537
About the Imaginary Institute
The seminar takes place within the frame of the Imaginary Institute, an evolving space for collective thinking, systemic experimentation, and play. At the heart of this initiative is a hunch: that imagination is not an escape from reality, but a generative force within itone that allows new worlds to become thinkable, feelable, and eventually inhabitable. Derek Lomas’ work offers a striking resonance with this orientation. By treating artificial intelligence not as a purely technical tool but as a medium for co-imagining futures, his approach invites us to reframe intelligence itselfnot as something possessed, but as something enacted between agents, across systems, in acts of play. These sessions offer not only tools, but also new metaphors and felt experiences that help us re-attune to a playful cosmos in which intelligence is always relational, and always becoming.
The Imaginary Institute (ii) is a freethinking laboratory for emergent complexity, collective imagination, play, and collaboration. It is a new initiative of the CLEA ArtScience group at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, formed by imaginationfor imagination. From January to July 2025, CLEA ArtScience is running a pilot series of monthly 2-day symposia in Brussels to collectively imagine what the Imaginary Institute could become. This series explores protocols for collective intelligence, systems thinking, play, theatre, and the kinds of practices that allow something new to emerge. This seminar is part of the Imaginary Institute symposia series. You are warmly invited to join us again for:
