The Whole Earth Codec is an autoregressive, multi-modal foundation model that allows the planet to observe itself. This proposal radically expands the scope of foundation models, moving beyond anthropocentric language data towards the wealth of ecological information immanent to the planet. Moving from raw sense data to high-dimensional embedding in latent space, the observatory folds in on itself, thus revealing a form of computational reason that transcends sense perception alone: a sight beyond sight. Guided by planetary-scale sensing rather than myopic anthropocentrism, the Whole Earth Codec opens up a future of ambivalent possibility through cross-modal meta-observation, perhaps generating a form of planetary sapience.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Studio Researchers: Connor Cook, Christina Lu, Dalena Tran
Program Director: Benjamin Bratton
Studio Director: Nicolay Boyadjiev
Associate Director: Stephanie Sherman
Senior Program Manager: Emily Knapp
Network Operatives: Dasha Silkina, Andrew Karabanov
Art Direction: Case Miller
Sound Design: Błażej Kotowski
Graphic Design: Callum Dean
Voiceover Engineer: Sam Horn
Editor: Guy Mackinnon-Little
Thanks to The Berggruen Institute and One Project for their support for the inaugural year of Antikythera.
Special thanks to Nicolas Berggruen, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, Justin Rosenstein, and Raphael Arar for their visionary support and participation
