About
COSM 2024 will hail the New American Century: exploring a technological transformation and revival of our country and economy as redemptive and cosmic as its renewal of technology.
Science popularizer Carl Sagan used to proclaim the insignificance of humans in a universe with as many stars as there are grains of sand on all the world’s beaches. Topological theorist Jennifer Cano responds that there are as many electrons in a single grain of sand as stars in the universe. These electrons comprise a nanocosm, a quantum universe with plenty of room at the bottom for intelligence at the top.
On the way are a new planar and waferscale electronics beyond silicon and even beyond chips. Coming is a new age of 2D simplicities beyond baroque 3D tangles of overheated wires and switches in plastic packages. In our pockets will rest cool personal supercomputers that empower us rather than reduce us to appendages of giant centralized data centers. American influence can spread through the world in a new spatial web rooted in proof of knowledge of a new epoch rather than in mindless power propping up the past in the name of progress.
Emancipated from a blinding mirage of mandates and manacles, we will discover a real intelligence (RI) distributed as widely as human minds, rather than an AI concentrated in huge data mines. A new science of “topology” with five Nobel Prizes can even transform our political world, with cool new 2D materials led by the miracle of graphene redeemed from garbage, and with redemptive new monies at once as scarce and potentially infinite as time.
A New American Century can launch a new American economics. It will be gauged and expressed in the eternal verities of time-prices rather than the price controls, industrial policies, spurious statistics, and emergency socialist palliatives of decline.
Opening up to a raveled world is an economics of superabundance beyond planetary games of scarcity. A positive-sum economics that enables all to win rather than all to wither in a net-zero maze of regulations and conflicts. At the heart of the new American economy is the new horizon of nanocosmic space and time. Like the original American saga, it opens a new frontier and tames an old wilderness. We live in an age of superabundance rather than scarcity, creativity rather than chaos, and global topology rather than a local lather of illusions. Topology defines the difference between heat and light, between random energy and ordered luminosity, between ambient noise and the music of the spheres.
Our new American Century will transform randomness into the creative surprises of enterprise, redeeming at once our political crisis, our technological impasse, and our cultural unravelling.
On to the New American Century in Bellevue, October 31 and November 1.
Featured Speakers
Designed by famed technology futurist, George Gilder, COSM will feature an astounding array of speakers — from Amazon and Microsoft, Intel and Madrona Ventures, with keynotes and interviews with Lloyd Watts, Balaji Srinivasan, Swami Sivasubramanian, and Bob Metcalfe. Jonathan Medved and Gilad Garon will discuss Israel, and, of course, Kyoto Prize winner Carver Mead will crown our proceedings.

Lynne Robinson
Mayor, City of Bellevue, Washington

Carver Mead
Gordon and Betty Moore Professor Emeritus of Engineering and Applied Science at the California Institute of Technology

Larry Sanger
Wikipedia’s Co-Founder and President of the Knowledge Standards Foundation

George Gilder
Author, Futurist, Venture Capitalist, and Cofounder of Discovery Institute

Gilad Garon
CEO, ASOCS

Amy Kurzweil
Cartoonist and Memoirist

Jim Tour
T. T. and W. F. Chao Professor of Chemistry, Rice University

Swami Sivasubramanian
VP, Amazon Web Services (AI/Data)

Walt de Heer
Physicist and Nanoscience Researcher

Kirsten Lum
CTO & Lead Scientist, Storytellers.ai

Bill Dembski
Mathematician and Philosopher

Bob Metcalfe
Inventor of Ethernet and Turing Award Winner

Lloyd Watts
Founder and CEO, Neocortix

John Tamny
Forbes Editor and Author of Popular Economics

Gale Pooley
Author and Professor

Andrew Mayne
Founder, Interdimensional AI; Former Researcher, Prompt Engineer at Open AI

Jonathan Medved
CEO, Ourcrowd
Agenda
Thursday, October 31
7:30 | ![]() | Breakfast |
8AM | ![]() | Registration Opens |
9AM | ![]() | A Hallow’s Eve Welcome |
Steve Buri — President, Discovery Institute |

9:15 | ![]() | Beyond Chips, Silicon, and Data Centers |
Will We Be Spooked by the Coming Terahertz Waferscale Paradigm? | ||
George Gilder — Co-Founder and Senior Fellow, Discovery Institute | ||
Response: Bob Metcalfe — Inventor of Ethernet and Turing Award Winner |
10AM | Networking Break |

Fireside Chat | ||
10:30 | ![]() | AI and the Cloud |
Moderated by Bryan Mistele — CEO, INRIX Swami Sivasubramanian — VP (AI and Data), Amazon Web Services |
11AM | ![]() | The Wild West of Energy |
Moderated discussion by Cole Smead, Smead Capital Management | ||
Mark Mills — Distinguished Senior Fellow, TPPF Jonathan Lesser — Senior Fellow, Discovery Institute Kent Walter — Director, Arizona Public Service |
NOON | Break |

![]() | Lunch | |
12:15 | ![]() | Accelerating the Endless Frontier |
Vannevar Bush’s New Architectures for Transforming R&D Spending and Discovering the Next CRISPR | ||
Thomas D. Lehrman — Managing Partner, Teamworthy Ventures |
Panel | ||
1PM | ![]() | Will We Be Haunted by a Non-Hallucinatory AI? |
Lloyd Watts — Founder and CEO, Neocortix Andrew Mayne — Founder, Interdimensional AI; Former Researcher, Prompt Engineer at Open AI |
1:45 | Break |

Panel | ||
2PM | ![]() | The New Web Paradigm: VERSES vs. OpenAI |
Moderated discussion by Bob Kelly — Strategic Advisor and Investor | ||
Gabriel Rene (via video conference) – CEO, VERSES Response: Lucius Gregory Meredith – President and CEO, F1r3fly.io and George Gilder |
Panel | ||
3PM | ![]() | It’s Just an Apparition: Unmasking AI Hype |
Moderated discussion by Walter Myers – Senior Fellow and Board Member, Discovery Institute | ||
Robert J. Marks – Director, Walter Bradley Center for Natural & Artificial Intelligence William Dembski – Mathematician and Philosopher George Gilder – Discovery Institute |

4PM | ![]() | Agentic AI — Models are NOT All You Need |
Matt McIlwain – Managing Director, Madrona Venture Group |
4:30 | Break |

6PM | ![]() | Hosted Reception |
![]() | Panel and Plated Dinner | |
7PM | ![]() | The Israel Test and Global Technology Leadership |
Moderated by Bruce Chapman – Founder, Discovery Institute | ||
Jonathan Medved – CEO, OurCrowd Jim Tour – Professor and Entrepreneur, Rice University Gilad Garon – CEO, ASOCS George Gilder – Discovery Institute |
Friday, Nov 1
7:30- | ![]() | Friday Breakfast (Provided) |

8:30 | ![]() | The Bellevue Miracle: How Our Host City Became a Center of Innovation |
Moderated discussion by Steve Buri | ||
Hon. Lynne Robinson — Mayor, City of Bellevue |

Panel Discussion | ||
9AM | ![]() | The Graphene Moment |
Moderated discussion by George Gilder | ||
James Tour — T. T. and W. F. Chao Professor of Chemistry Walt de Heer — Physicist and Nanoscience Researcher Michael Walshe — CEO MTM Critical Metals |

10AM | ![]() | Artificial: Cartooning the Past and the Future |
Amy Kurzweil (via videoconference) — Cartoonist and Illustrator |

10:30 | ![]() | The Increasingly Pressing Matter of Preserving Our Knowledge |
Larry Sanger — Ex-Founder of Wikipedia, President of Knowledge Standards Foundation |

11AM | ![]() | The Economy of Superabundance vs. The Network Economy |
Gale Pooley, Author and Professor |
11:30 | Networking Break |
![]() | Luncheon | |
NOON | ![]() | Inflation, Deficits, and Crashes: Three Views on the Economy |
Moderated discussion by Jerry Bowyer — Fellow, Center on Wealth & Poverty | ||
Mark Skousen — American Economist John Tamny — Forbes Editor and Author of Popular Economics Stephen Shipman — Investment Portfolio Manager and Securities Analyst |

1:30 | ![]() | What Happened to the ACES Revolution? |
How Autonomous, Connected, Electric, and Shared Vehicle Technologies Stalled | ||
Bryan Mistele — CEO, INRIX |

Panel | ||
2PM | ![]() | A Celebration of Carver Mead |
Introduction by George Gilder | ||
Chris Diorio — CEO, Impinj |
2:45 | ![]() | Closing Remarks, Conference Wrap-up |
Carver Mead — Kyoyo Prize Winner (2022) George Gilder |
3PM | Adjournment |