We were Meant To Be: KotlinConf 2026 Keynote Resources
This Friday, May 22, I am presenting a keynote at KotlinConf in Munich. It’s titled "We Were Meant to Be" and was a labor of love that involved lots of reading and research.
In this post, you’ll find the books, poems, and other sources I mentioned.
The talk will be shared on YouTube, I will update here once it’s live.
Books, Poems, and Other Recommendations
Reading material and poetry referenced in my keynote.
The TESCREAL bundle: Eugenics and the promise of utopia through artificial general intelligence by Timnit Gebru and Émile P. Torres.
Read here.404 Media.
View here.Technik als Trost: Verheißungen Künstlicher Intelligenz by Stefan Selke.
Read more about this book on GoodReads.Other by R.S. Thomas
Read a passage from the poem here.Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards.
Read more about this book on GoodReads.This Spring by James A. Pearson.
Read the full poem here.Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba.
Read more about this book on GoodReads.The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain by Annie Murphy Paul.
Read more about this book on GoodReads.The Body Digital: A Brief History of Humans and Machines from Cuckoo Clocks to ChatGPT by Vanessa Chang.
Read more about this book on GoodReads.How to AI: Cut Through the Hype. Master the Basics. Transform Your Work by Christopher Mims.
Read more about this book on GoodReads.Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence by Kate Crawford.
Read more about this book on GoodReads.Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We're in without Going Crazy by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone
Read more about this book on GoodReads
Sources
For statistics, references, and other media mentioned in my keynote.
Census III of Free and Open Source Software
Download their report here.Facebook and Genocide: How Facebook contributed to genocide in Myanmar and why it will not be held accountable by Daniel Zaleznik.
Read the paper here.OpenAI Used Kenyan Workers on Less Than $2 Per Hour to Make ChatGPT Less Toxic by Billy Perrigo.
Read the article hereThe DRC Mining Industry: Child Labor and Formalization of Small-Scale Mining by Michele Fabiola Lawson.
Read the article here.OpenAI Backs Bill That Would Limit Liability for AI-Enabled Mass Deaths or Financial Disasters by Maxwell Zeff.
Read the article here.OpenAI’s Sam Altman: Global AI regulation ‘urgently’ needed.
Watch the video here.Layoffs.fyi (Data from a startup founder who’s been tracking tech layoffs since 2020.)
An (understandably angry) post from Robert Pike (Co-author of Golang) on BlueSky.
Read it here.Why the Web Won’t Be Nirvana by Clifford Stoll
Read the article here.Elon Musk shares 4 bold predictions for the future of work: Robot surgeons in 3 years, immortality, and no need for retirement savings by Orianna Rosa Royle.
Read the article here.A tweet included toward the end of the keynote.
Read it here.
While writing the keynote, I shared my personal notes and other resources compiled along the way. If you’re curious how this talk came about and want to see more interesting content about the topic, I invite you to read my working log.
Check out “The Making of: a Keynote on Tech, Humanity, Crisis, And The Future” by clicking the button below.
As always,
Lena
