Can We Build More-Human Technology?: Alex Komoroske Live with Tim O’Reilly
Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Resonant computing, open systems, and charting a course toward a better future
A year ago at our second AI Codecon, Alex Komoroske shared a warning: “We're sleepwalking into the wrong future for AI. But we don't have to accept that default future. We can change it.” The risk Alex was calling out was that AI gets centralized under a few big providers, who then maximize profits over utility—the process Cory Doctorow calls “enshittification.” That’s still one possible future, but as Alex was trying to make us see, we can imagine a new path for technology “that helps us become the person we want to be.”
Alex was a key contributor to the Resonant Computing Manifesto (of which Tim O’Reilly was an early signer), and he cofounded the public benefit corporation Common Fabric to build a medium for software that reflects those principles, by revolving around people, not apps. Resonance, the manifesto’s authors argue, is “the experience of encountering something that speaks to our deeper values.” Tim asked Alex to join him to unpack what that means, and explain how Common Fabric is creating a “resonant” alternative to the architectures and business models, such as hyperscale growth, that have forestalled technology’s promise of human connection and potential.
Alex and Tim will talk through the five principles of the Resonant Computing Manifesto and how this perspective should inform the future of open systems, as well as the roles that open models and protocols might play. They’ll also chat about why Alex thinks of platforms as “complex adaptive systems” and why that means we should be gardeners rather than builders as we tend to them. If there’s time, Alex may share some of the latest “over-engineered, always-halfway-done open source projects” he’s been working on for fun.
As always, the conversation will be guided by your questions and comments. We hope you’ll join us.
Recommended prep or follow-up:
- Watch Why Centralized AI Is Not Our Inevitable Future (conference video)
Schedule
The time frames are only estimates and may vary according to how the class is progressing.
Tuesday, October 20, 2026, at 8:00am PT / 11:00am ET
- Interactive discussion and Q&A (60 minutes)
Your Hosts and Guests
Tim O'Reilly
Tim O’Reilly is the founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, Inc. His original business plan was simply "interesting work for interesting people," and that's worked out pretty well. He publishes books, runs online conferences, invests in early-stage startups, urges companies to create more value than they capture, and tries to change the world by spreading and amplifying the knowledge of innovators. He’s perhaps best known for his role in shaping big ideas like open source software, unconferences (Foo Camp), Web 2.0, and government as a platform. His 2017 book WTF? What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us explored the role of human agency in shaping the future in the face of the coming AI wave. These days, he’s focused on mechanism design for the human-AI economy. Mechanism design is sometimes described as “reverse game theory”, whereby you start with the outcome you want and then figure out what rules of the game will produce that outcome. He explores these ideas at the non-profit AI Disclosures Project, which he co-founded with Ilan Strauss. He writes frequently on Substack at the O’Reilly Radar, the AI Disclosures Project’s Asimov’s Addendum, and his own Conversations with AI.
Alex Komoroske
Alex Komoroske, CEO of Common Fabric, has been a product manager or director of product management for platforms that most of us use every day: Chrome, Google Maps, Google Earth, and others. While at Google, Alex wrote an internal how-to called “Practical PM Stuff” that many Google PMs referred to as the Product Manager’s Bible. It covered everything from basics such as how to answer an email to esoterica like the difference between complexity and ambiguity or how Schelling points form in organizations. He’s known for his “Gardening Platforms” approach, which encourages guiding ecosystems toward greatness instead of controlling them. At Common Fabric, he’s building a medium for software that revolves around people, not apps.