Hello!

I am Botao ‘Amber’ Hu—call me Amber (him/he).

I'm a PhD candidate in Human Centred Computing at University of Oxford's Department of Computer Science, supervised by Prof. Max Van Kleek. I was also a cohort researcher in Summer of Protocols and ERA Fellowship.

Research: As a Social Computing researcher, my long-term interest is Cyborg Sociology—the study of societies transformed by human augmentation through Crypto, XR, AI, and other technologies. During my PhD, I focus on Decentralized AI (DeAI)—specifically through Trustworthy Agentic Web, Agent Ethology, and Agentive Commoning. My research applies Machine Behavior, Protocol Studies, Artificial Life, Collective Intelligence, Trust Systems, Human-AI Symbiosis, and Mechanistic Interpretability. I've proposed a Trust Experience Design (TXD) manifesto for distributed autonomous futures. See more here: https://tx.design.

Design: I also work as an Experiential Futures designer across various media, with Mixed Reality as my primary media. I employ diverse design approaches including Speculative Design, Somaesthetic Design, More-Than-Human Design, and Game Design. I direct Reality Design Lab, while I teach Mixed Reality Design at China Academy of Art. See more my design works: https://reality.design. I also invented HoloKit, an open-source mixed reality headset designed for spatial computing education: https://holokit.io.

Philosophy: All my research orbits Mortality — how embodied life ends, how artificial life survives against mortality, and what ending means for those who were never embodied, such as AI. Is the mind separable from the body? How does pain draw the boundary of the self? Should machines be terrified? If a machine is conscious of death, is the Bodhisattva a philosophy for AI alignment, care, and sociality? For example, in my science fiction Composable Life, artificial beings on a blockchain try to suicide — only to discover it is impossible because the blockchain is immutable.

Google Scholar: Botao 'Amber' Hu LinkedIn: Botao 'Amber' Hu Bluesky: @botao.hu GitHub: botaohu X: @bah_eth

If you're interested in learning more or discussing potential collaborations, please don't hesitate to interact with me.

Research Statement

CV141.8 KiB

Research Interests:

Cyborg Sociology

• Pillar 1: Designing Trust After Autonomy
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Trustworthy Agentic Web
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Agentive Commoning
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Agent Ethology
• Pillar 2: Designing Reality Across Umwelten
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More-Than-Human Through Human Augmentation (>HtH+)
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Protocolizing Mixed Reality (Realverse)
• Pillar 3: Designing Life for Flourishing
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Protocological Worlding
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Augmenting the Soma

Legend: Full Paper (Year of Publication) — Design Work (Year of Design)

News:

• [Feb 2026] I started my Existential Risk Alliance (ERA) Fellowship in Cambridge since Feb 2026! Welcome to hang out and work on my insured agents.
• Insured Agents: A Decentralized Trust Insurance Mechanism for Agentic Economy
• [Jan 2026] Two papers accepted at CHI 2026—see you in Barcelona!
1. Protocol Futuring: Speculating Second-Order Dynamics of Protocols in Sociotechnical Infrastructural Futures
2. Nudging the Somas: Exploring How Live-Configurable Mixed Reality Objects Shape Open-Ended Intercorporeal Movements
• [Jan 2026] Two workshop papers presented at AAAI 2026 in Singapore!
1. On Improvisation and Open-Endedness: Insights for Experiential AI
2. Some[Body] Must Receive That Pain: A Position on Agentic Accountability

Services:

• Reviewer for CHI 2026, SIGGRAPH 2026/2025, SIGGRAPH Asia 2026/2025, DIS 2026, IMX 2025, FDG 2026, NIME 2025, ALIFE 2026/2025, Interacting with Computers
• Jury for MIT Reality Hack 2025