AI Socratic Chapters Guidelines

AI Socratic exists to advance human flourishing by democratizing AI through:

• • Community: events, workshops, sharing knowledge
• • Open Source: sharing code, models
• • Decentralization: global chapters

We believe AI should not be shaped by a small number of institutions. Its future must emerge from a diverse, global community of thinkers, builders, and practitioners.

Socratic Methodology

All interactions are guided by the Socratic method, favoring dialogues over debates, collaboration over competition, and collective curiosity over individual status. Everyone contributes.

AI Socratic membership is exclusive. Our members are required to have an advanced understanding of AI at the fundamental level, and they need to be involved in AI development in at least one area: engineering, research, or anything adjacent to AI. An example of non-engineers members who bring value: lawyers working on AI regulations, philosophers discussing AI ethics, investors focused on AI, etc. Our members must have the following:

• • intellect, excellence, curiosity, and honesty
• • agency > intelligence

To keep the quality of the community and our events high, we're very selective, and review every application. To join we ask these questions:

1. 1. Which AI projects have you been contributing to and in which role (founder, researcher, engineer, other)?
2. 2. What are some recent reads that capture your attention (papers, research, blog posts)?
3. 3. What AI tools do you regularly use?

A Chapter is a local, autonomous node of the AI Socratic network. Currently we have chapters in New York, Milan, Madrid, and Indonesia, but we're planning to open more chapters.

The goal of the chapter is to share AI knowledge within the local community and the global community, enabling local communities to advance their understanding of AI and with it job opportunities, as well to align the future towards human flourishing.

What Chapters Do

• • Organize local gatherings, dialogues, and workshops, using our shared blogs: aisocratic.org/blog
• • Are independent, so they can experiment with formats and ideas, design and so on. We offer guidance, but each ambassador is an artist with individual character, as such is expected to run it independently.
• • Serve as cultural and intellectual hubs within their geography.

Chapters operate independently but align with global guidelines and values.

Chapter Principles

• • Joining the common mission
• • Autonomy with accountability
• • Local experimentation encouraged
• • Global knowledge sharing expected
• • Each chapter must have at least one Ambassador. Ideally multiple, to assure a chapter longevity and reliability.

Ambassadors are stewards of the mission and culture. They are responsible for:

• • Organizing and moderating events
• • Upholding Socratic principles
• • Maintaining community standards
• • Acting as the link between local chapters and the global network

Expectations

Ambassadors commit to:

• • Upholding the code of conduct
• • Organizing or supporting at least one AI Socratic event per month — the community provides a monthly blog post to guide the conversations. Ambassadors are invited to contribute by writing this blog post.
• • Sharing learnings, outcomes, and wins with the global community

Rewards

Ambassadors and community members are encouraged to participate in the events and to bring value to the community. Value gets rewarded in credits. See the Credits section below.

Once a month, chapters host gatherings in various formats (symposiums, dinners, salons).

History

In 2024 Gen AI was a hot topic. We started going to AI meetups in NYC, but we soon got bored, because they all turned out to be networking events — fun but not much advanced alpha and learning from it. We felt the need to discuss research papers, new models, and AI projects. So 7 of us got together in Brooklyn over dinner and spent 4 hours jamming about AI. We met again a month later. Then decided to post an event on Luma and since then we grew into a 50 people a month regular event, that is a staple in the NYC AI community.

Because of its origin our core elements remain the same:

• • Food and drinks as social glue
• • Laid back, high-energy atmosphere
• • Intellectual playfulness, memes and funzies

AI Socratic Events Agenda

The AI Socratic events are structured to provide a smooth flow of creativity while keeping everyone on a single topic at a time.

General Agenda:

• • Welcome — the event moderator introduces the event, tells what the AI Socratic mission is and the agenda for the event. The moderator reminds that during the Socratic conversation to speak Louder, Faster, and Funnier!
• • Round of intro — everyone around the room introduces themselves in 15 seconds, telling name and what they're working on.
• • Socratic Dialogues — moderated discussion around AI research and development, guided by our blog posts: aisocratic.org/blog.
• • Presentations & Demos — short, curated. No sales pitches. Clear selection criteria and time limits.
• • Networking — intentional but unstructured. Encourage cross-disciplinary connections.

Here's an example of an event on Luma with its agenda: lu.ma/ai-dinner-jan-2026.

Blog Posts

Each month we publish a blog post to guide the Socratic dialogue. Socratic dialogues moderators can use these as the foundation for their events. Blog posts are organized with these sections:

• • Top AI updates from the last month
• • Videos and podcasts
• • Philosophy and AGI
• • Full Source List — this section has the full list of all the news and updates, often in the order of 200-400 updates. We generally skip this in the event.

Example: AI Socratic March 2025

Vibes

• • Each event we try to bring a cyberpunk / solarpunk style, we use colored sunset lamps to make some atmosphere.
• • Our first event was a laid back dinner, the soul of that event still lives with the community. Our events are easy and laid back, keep the conversation light and fun.
• • Education and excellence — while we're laid back, we strive for excellence and strive to talk only to add value, high signal, and avoid adding noise to the conversations.

Event Planning and Coordination

We use Luma to coordinate events. To write the event description, take inspiration from our past events. Make sure you add the AI Socratic logo at the top or bottom with a link to aisocratic.org.

Download logos from the Brand page.

Examples: lu.ma/ai-dinner-jan-2026, lu.ma/txk0jlq1

As members, we:

• • Act in good faith
• • Welcome different perspectives
• • Treat everyone with respect
• • Leave ego at the door
• • Have fun and learn