We are welcoming Asim Hussain to talk about "Don't be an Idiot" at FFConf 2025.

We wanted to also thank Asim for taking the time to answer our questions so we can all get to know him a little bit more before 14th November.

About Asim and their talk

• Title: Don't be an Idiot
• About the talk: Open source isn't a Silicon Valley creation but an ancient tool for sharing power. The same forces behind Athenian democracy shape today’s open standards. As AI takes over tasks, our real challenge is rediscovering collective governance. This talk is about human agency - not doom, not salvation - and yes, psychedelics play a part.
• Asim's origin story: Dad bought a Sharp MZ-700 in the 1980s, got it cheap because Sharp had stopped manufacturing them. No games in stores, just a BASIC interpreter on tape, a programming manual, and one tape with 10 games. If I wanted more games, I had to learn to code them myself.

The warm up questions

If you could time-travel back to ancient Athens with a USB stick, what’s on it - and who are you trying to impress?

I'd bring back an Excel file and show Pythagoras - he was a wild dude - today he's be considered a psychedelic counter culture rebel, spent his youth travelling across the middle east with mystics called the magi, drinking potions, then came back and did some maths.

What did it feel like to use the Sharp MZ-700 compared to how you interact with your devices now?

The wait - having to watch the tape spin to load the app, ohh the anticipation.

About the work and the talk

Tech tends to glorify the role of 'builder', but you suggest we should be 'guardians' instead. What are the responsibilities we’ve neglected?

Living in harmony

You're blending AI, ancient democracy, and open source - was there a thread that helped you tie these seemingly distant ideas together?

There are two forces, a force that concentrates power (which is nor always bad) and a force which dilutes power (which is not always good). It's the dance between those forces that creates life. Democracy, Open Source and even AI are tools of the dancers.

You've said this isn’t another 'AI will save or doom us all' kind of talk. What sort of conversations do you wish we were having instead?

How do we change the world so it's better for everyone and everything.

You strike a balance between optimism and realism. How do you stay hopeful about tech when so much of it seems bent toward consolidation and control?

I'd rather live today with the technology we have today than the 80s, I like my phone, being connected and being able to write apps that don't take a year.

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Find out more about Asim online on their website or LinkedIn.

Join us in November to see Asim's talk: 2025.ffconf.org