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WHAT IS SIM-NYC ?
SIM-NYC is an in-person & virtual conference in New York City that convenes philosophers, technologists, researchers, designers, and critics to discuss questions ranging from consciousness and the simulation hypothesis to advanced artificial intelligence, graphical and generative engines, to the future of world-building and of human-facing interfaces.
We are meeting to ask:
What is reality? What is techne? What is consciousness?
What is the future?
Over four days, participants give talks, engage debates, demonstrate technologies, and critically examine the tools and ideas that increasingly shape perception, agency, reality, and power.
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If you're somewhere between iconoclastic and cutting-edge this is the philosophy-tech conference that you've been waiting for.
4 THEMES OF SIM-NYC
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AI
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WORLD-BUILDING
UX
CONSCIOUSNESS
At SIM-NYC, these and other themes are explored through talks, demonstrations, and hands-on engagement — highlighting how technological systems shape experience.
If you are involved in these fields either practically or theoretically, SIM-NYC is your platform to finally discuss matters that are normally too bizarre or controversial for the water cooler.
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WHAT TO EXPECT
Across three days, the event includes:
Talks, Panels & Debates
On simulation theory, consciousness, artificial intelligence, perception, interfaces, forecasting, ethics, power, and more
Technology Demonstrations
AI systems, graphics engines, and interfaces
Focused Discussions & Working Sessions
smaller groups engaging specific questions and activities
Extended Informal Conversation
lots of space for ideas to collide outside formal programming
The emphasis is on intellectual engagement, collective investigation, hands-on demonstration, and lots of socializing over your favorite boundary-busting philosophy and tech.
ADVISORY BOARD
Douglas Rushkoff
Among MIT's “world’s ten most influential intellectuals,” Rushkoff is an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. Author of twenty books, Rushkoff is a CUNY professor and leading American media theorist for over thirty years as well as an international lecturer, graphic novelist, and host of the Team Human podcast.
Rushkoff is a member of the Club of Rome, has served on the board of directors of the Media Ecology Association, The Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, and is a founding member of Technorealism, as well as of the advisory board of The National Association for Media Literacy Education, MeetUp.com, and HyperWords. He is the winner of the first Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity, given by the Media Ecology Association, in 2004.
Official Website
Amber Case
Known for her 2011 TedTalk We Are All Cyborgs Now, seen over 2 million times, Case studies the interactions between humans and technology, and how technology affects culture.
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Case is a design advocate, international speaker, and the author of four books, including Calm Technology and A Kids Book About Technology. She spent two years as a fellow at MIT’s Center for Civic Media and Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and was a 2021 Mozilla Fellow.
One of Inc. Magazine’s '30 under 30' and Fast Company’s 'Most Influential Women in Technology,' she was named a National Geographic 'Emerging Explorer' in 2012 and received the Claude Shannon Innovation Award from Bell Labs. She was the co-founder and CEO of Geoloqi, a location-based software company acquired by Esri.
Founder of The Calm Tech Institute, a foundation that exists to establish new standards for designing harmonious human-tech interactions that improve our lives. She works on design, governance, and AI through her position as a Research Director at the Metagovernance Project.
Keram Malicki-Sánchez
Malicki-Sánchez is an actor, musician, writer, filmmaker, interactive media and virtual reality developer, multimedia artist, and event producer.
Executive Director and Founder of Constant Change Media Group, Festival of International Virtual and Augmented Reality Stories (FIVARs), and VRTO Spatial Media World Conference & Expo. VRTO is Canada’s leading and longest-running event dedicated to XR and immersive technologies for 10 years.
LinkedIn
Thomas Campbell
Campbell worked as a physicist in technology development and complex-system risk analysis for both government and industry. After obtaining degrees in mathematics and physics, Tom specialized in nuclear physics during his Ph.D. work at the University of Virginia. His 37-year professional career includes 12 years in technical intelligence, 15 years at Missile Defense Agency, and 10 years as a consultant in the general area of large-systems risk and vulnerability analysis for various high-tech companies, including two years with NASA.
Campbell had a parallel career at Monroe Labs (now TMI) where he was a pioneer in drug-free research of altered states of consciousness. His first hand experiences in consciousness coupled with his training as a physicist led him to simulation theory as a strong candidate for a Theory of Everything.
He is the author of the My Big TOE Trilogy.
Founder of the Center for the Unification of Consciousness and Science.
Sebastian Castillo
Founder and Executive Director of Sexy Nerds and Brooklyn Comic Con. Sexy Nerds, a cosplay-themed pop-up party founded in New York City over a decade ago, has since hosted events in twenty-two cities, across three continents.
Brooklyn Comic Con had 5,000+ attendees in 2025 and will celebrate its fifth edition in 2026.
Bohic is a poet, data scientist and founder.
As first editor of RAISING AI, her 6th book, Katy has 3 collections of poetry, two edited volumes of poetry, and co-ran Tender Buttons Press from 2013-2020 with Lee Ann Brown. 30% of Tender Buttons Press authors have won Guggenheims for lifetime achievement in the arts.
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Bohinc is also an award-winning marketing data scientist, building Media Assembly’s backend data, ad ops, analytics and advanced analytics offerings from scratch to win 2018 Ad Agency of the Year. She has 15+ years as a marketing data scientist working on budgets from $22M to $1.5BN.
Dear Alain, her collection of poem-letters for philosopher Alain Badiou, was described as a book that should be banished by Slavoj Žižek
Mari Kussman
Mari Kussman is the founder of Mizuchi Studio, a Seattle-based design and innovation consultancy, and a founding partner at Gestalt Wine Company. She is fractional Creative Director at Newlab, a global innovation platform for critical technologies, where she shapes brand initiatives. Previously, she led product development for Fortune 500 clients as Chief Innovation Officer at Newlab, and held senior design roles at Sieo, Nanotronics, and Loomia.
Her documentary series Cycles—winner of Best Unscripted and Audience awards at SeriesFest—is now streaming on the Waterbear Network. Her work has been recognized at the V&A Museum, Tribeca Film Festival, Coachella, NY Fashion Week, and featured in Wired, Fast Company, Monocle, and more.
Dr. Rizwan Virk
Executive Director of MIT Play Labs, successful entrepreneur, venture capitalist, video game pioneer, bestselling author, and film producer. Author of The Simulation Hypothesis, The Simulated Multiverse, Zen Entrepreneur, and more. Dr. Virk’s video games have included the mobile free-to-play pioneer Tap Fish, which was downloaded more than 30 million. His PhD dissertation was titled The Metaverse and the Role of Science Fiction in Innovation.
Official Website
De Kai
Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at HKUST and Distinguished Research Scholar at Berkeley’s International Computer Science Institute. Invented the world’s first global-scale online language translator spawning Google Translate, Yahoo Translate, and Microsoft Bing Translator. Independent Director of AI ethics think tank The Future Society, and was one of eight inaugural members of Google’s AI ethics council. De Kai was honored by the Association for Computational Linguistics as one of only seventeen Founding Fellows and by Debrett’s as one of the 100 most influential figures of Hong Kong.
De Kai's new book, Raising AI, was on JPMorgan's summer 2025 reading list and was recognized as a "June 2025 Must-Read Book" by The Next Big Idea Club.