When we hear “the singularity is near” let us remember: the Plurality is (already) here. - Audrey Tang
Abstract
Poetic Technologies UG is a fantastic collective enterprise whose mission is to liberate the technical imagination from bureaucratic technologies. Poetic Technologies' core offerings include research and development in zero knowledge cryptography, monetary innovation and software supply-chain security via reproducible builds. In this website, we highlight each of our core offerings, the values underpinning them and the social and technical implications of our work.
Table Of Contents
About Us
According to the late David Graeber1, poetic technologies are “the use of rational and technical means to bring wild fantasies into reality”. Poetic Technologies in that sense are “as old as civilisation”: from the ancient pyramids build in Egypt and Mesoamerica to the moonshot races between the USA and the Soviet Union in the 20th century.
Poetic Technologies UG is a fantastic collective enterprise whose mission is to liberate the technical imagination from bureaucratic technologies.
Our values are about
- cultivating ecosystems of trust and confidentiality, rooted in informed consent and cooperation
- dismantling barriers imposed by the weight of bureaucracy, especially in software development
Our Work
Technology
We see technology as a fundamental framework supporting societal structures, economies, and various social institutions. In the words of Murray Bookchin, “an organic mode of life deprived of its technological component would be as nonfunctional as a human being deprived of their skeleton”.
However, our current use of technology has resulted in significant ecological harm. It’s as if the skeleton has outgrown the body. Technology, particularly information technologies, resemble a monoculture where we use one type of technological substrate in order to do many things in life: leisure, work, sex, communication, money, etc. This has led to bureaucratisation of software and the enclosure and fragmentation of attention.
In order to reverse this trend and have an ecological use of technology that is structured for human scale, the poetic technologies we envision, are based on the principles of decentralisation, federation, self-sustainability and democracy.
- Our core offerings are:
- Zero Knowledge Cryptography
- Monetary Design Innovation
- Reproducible Builds for Software Supply-chain Security and Bootstrap-ability.
- We are also open for collaborations in these areas:
- Tooling and Support for Privacy Preserving Software We partner on commissioned R&D initiatives for privacy-preserving applications that include zero knowledge proof systems and confidential computation.
- Reproducible Builds: The functional deployment model is a best practice in software development. It ensures the same source code produces the same binary output every time it is built, regardless of who runs it. This simplifies the process of deploying updates and drastically reduces the sys-admin overhead cost for software companies.Reproducible Builds are interesting for: 1. Blockchains looking to reduce the cost of running validator nodes and pushing updates. 2. Science research findings looking for consistent reproducibility in their results. 3. Financial Institutions like banks and insurance companies running critical software. We can guarantee the integrity and security of a variety of software stacks, reducing the risk of vulnerabilities and ensuring consistent performance while keeping homogenous interface across all types of deployment & development environments. This translates to increased efficiency and lower maintenance costs for your project.
Interested?
Write to us at hello@poeticte.ch with your needs and specific technical requirements.
Poetry (Applied Research)
Our research is dedicated to exploring and enhancing the resilience and equity of algorithms, confidential computation, and decentralized networks.
Our poetic research projects focus on translating complex theoretical concepts into practical applications that have a meaningful societal impact.
- Our applied research directions are:
- Autonomous Build Network : reproducible & bootstrap-able confidential computation for projects and security critical applications including build systems for TEEs.
- Multi-lateral Trade Credit Setoff (MTCS) and Decentralized On-Demand Liquidity Protocol: zk-cycle detection, credit offsets and distributed lending for B2B networks.2
- AI-Safety: zk-Proof of Personhood and Universal Basic Income (UBI).
- Circles Entropy: An Anonymous Trust and Credit System3
Publications
Here are links to some of our published works.
Our People
The Poets
The Poetic Technologies crew unites a dynamic mix of talents from science, arts, technology, and finance backgrounds, each bringing a wealth of experience and skills to the table. Meet our team:
- Julio Linares - CEO
- Ela Kagel - Strategy
- Junkicide - Software Engineering
- Davie Dashyan - Software Engineering
- Bee - Technical Development
- Damla Ozcelik - Communications
- Katharina Brünner - Finance & Administration
The Fellow Poets
The Poetic Fellowship is designed to bring together creative minds and technical innovators to work towards our common goals. Our aim is to leverage the unique perspectives of Fellow Poets from diverse backgrounds to enhance our mission.
Current Fellow Poets
- Sylvain Bellemare - Research Engineer @ IC3 / Cornell / UIUC. Currently working with Andrew Miller’s group at the Decentralized Systems Lab (UIUC), on Multi-Party Computation and Trusted Hardware (Intel SGX).
The Conspirators
We collaborate with several other awesome organisations and individuals, here are a few:
Contact
Write to us at hello@poeticte.ch
Visit our X/Twitter page here.
Here are our Imprint and Privacy Policy pages.
Footnotes
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Graeber, D. (2017, May 10). Of flying cars and the declining rate of profit. The Baffler. https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declining-rate-of-profit ↩︎
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Fleischman, T., Dini, P., & Littera, G. (2020). Liquidity-Saving through Obligation-Clearing and Mutual Credit: An Effective Monetary Innovation for SMEs in Times of Crisis. Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 13(12), 295. https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm13120295 ↩︎
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Dashyan, D., Kulkarni, A., Linares, J., & Srikanth, K. (2023). Circles Entropy – Weaving Privacy into Trust Networks. https://entropy.circles.coop/ ↩︎
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Poetic Technologies (2024). Poetic Intents: Seeding the next generation of TEEs. https://poeticte.ch/posts/poetic-intents.html. ↩︎
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Poetic Technologies (2024). Autonomous TEEs Manifesto. https://poeticte.ch/posts/autonomous-TEEs-manifesto.html. ↩︎