Vita

Overview

Affiliations: University of Oxford | Reality Design Lab

Locations: Oxford, UK | Shanghai, China | New York City, USA

Email: botao.hu@cs.ox.ac.uk | amber@reality.design

Website: amber.botao.hu

Profiles: Google Scholar | LinkedIn | GitHub | X | Bluesky | ORCID

Bio

Botao 'Amber' Hu is a social computing researcher and experiential futures designer. He is a PhD candidate in the Human Centred Computing group at the University of Oxford's Department of Computer Science. As a researcher, his work focuses on Protocoling Distributed AI, involving Machine Behavior, Protocol Studies, Artificial Life, Collective Intelligence, Trust Systems, Science Fiction Science, Human-AI Symbiogenesis, and Mechanistic Interpretability.

As a designer, he creates experiential futures using Social Mixed Reality as his primary medium. He also serves as a visiting lecturer for Mixed Reality Design at the China Academy of Art while directing Reality Design Lab, an independent interdisciplinary research and design lab exploring Soma Design, Speculative Design, Spatial Computing, and Social Computing.

His work has appeared at SIGGRAPH, CHI, UbiComp, WWW, CSCW, FAccT, AIES, DRS, DIS, TEI, ISEA, IEEE VR, IEEE VIS, ISMAR, ALIFE, Ars Electronica, SXSW, and TEDx. He has received honors including SIGGRAPH Best in Show, CHI Best Interactivity, Webby, Red Dot, iF Design, Good Design, A' Design, Core77 Design Award recognition, and grants from the Ethereum Foundation.

Education

• University of Oxford (2025 - Present)

PhD in Computer Science for Human Centred Computing, Oxford, UK. Tentative thesis: Protocoling Distributed AI. Advisor: Max Van Kleek.

• Stanford University (2012 - 2014)

Master of Science in Computer Science concentrated in Artificial Intelligence, Palo Alto, US. Advisors: Andrew Ng, Jure Leskovec, Dan Boneh.

• Tsinghua University (2007 - 2012)

Bachelor in Computer Science and Technology, Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, Beijing, China. Advisor: Andrew Chi-Chih Yao. Enrolled in the Special Pilot Theoretical Computer Science Class, "Yao Class".

Research Focus

• Protocoling Distributed AI: protocol HCI, protocol futuring, protocol love, protocol commoning, protocol ethnography.
• Trustworthy Agentic Web: decentralized AI governance, reputation mechanisms, agent accountability, terrified AI.
• Artificial Life in the Wild: self-sovereign AI agents, open-environment evolution, parasitic agents.
• AI for Commoning: AI stewardship for commons, sovereign social systems, trustless autonomy.
• Experiential Futures: mixed reality, soma design, more-than-human experience, social mixed reality.

Research Residencies

• Decentralized Web Camp (2026) - AI Tent, Berlin, Germany. Leading workshop: AI for Commoning. Research question: Does commons need an AI steward to care for it?
• Cooperative AI (2026) - Cooperative AI Summer School, Toronto, Canada. Topic: Protocoling Collective Intelligence.
• Santa Fe Institute (2026) - Complex Systems Summer School, New Mexico, US. Projects: Evolution of Rules; Empathic Machine.
• Cambridge AI Existential Risk Alliance (ERA) Fellowship (2026) - Research Fellow, Cambridge, UK. Topic: Terrified AI. Research question: Should terror shape machine behavior? Advisor: Joel Lehman.
• Civilizational AI Camp (2026) - Co-hosting researcher, Chiangmai, Thailand. Research topic: Kami of the Commons. Hosting research workshop: AI for future commons. Co-host: Michel Bauwens from P2P Foundation.
• Somabotics, University of Nottingham (2025) - Visiting Scholar in Mixed Reality Laboratory, Nottingham, UK. Research topic: Improvisation and Open-Endedness. Advisor: Steve Benford.
• Impact Evaluator Research Retreat (2025) - Cohort Researcher, Reykjavik, Iceland. Research topic: Impact Evaluator. Advisor: Juan Benet.
• Royal College of Art (2025) - Summer School: Futures Through Design, London, UK. Advisors: Rob Phillips, Gem Barton, John Willshire.
• Summer of Protocols (2024) - Cohort Researcher, Remote | Singapore | Bangkok. Research topic: Protocoling Reality. Secured a $90K research grant from the Ethereum Foundation.
• Summer of Protocols (2023) - Research Collaboration, Remote. Research topic: Machine Sovereignty. Publications include Composable Life, EverForest, and Sovereign Agents.
• Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (2011) - Visiting Scholar for Machine Learning in Computer Science, Hong Kong. Advisor: Qiang Yang.

Professional Experience

• Decentralized Research Center (2026 - Present) - Fellow, Arlington, VA, US. Research interests: Self-Sovereign AI Agents.
• Human Centred Computing, University of Oxford (2025 - Present) - PhD Researcher in Social Computing, Oxford, UK. Thesis: Protocoling Distributed AI.
• Reality Design Lab (2024 - 2026) - Founder, Lead Researcher, Experiential Futures Designer, Remote. Research areas include more-than-human experience, edge of realities, augmenting somas, and meta futuring.
• China Academy of Art (2023 - 2025) - Visiting Lecturer, Hangzhou, China. Developed and taught Somaesthetic Realities, Speculative Realities, Latent Spaces and Permissionless Dreams, and Design New Realities.
• Holo Interactive (2018 - 2023) - Founder and CEO, New York City, NY. Secured $7.5M in fundraising, invented and developed the open-source stereoscopic mixed reality headset HoloKit, and scaled manufacturing from prototype to 10,000 units.
• Amber Garage (2014 - 2018) - Founder, New Media Artist, Software Engineer, Atherton, CA, US. Directed City VR, produced City of Sparkles, and invented Skywand.
• thatgamecompany (2016 - 2017) - Game Engineer, Santa Monica, CA, US. Built recommendation and backend systems for Sky: Children of the Light.
• DJI (2015) - Robotics Software Engineer, Shenzhen, China. Founding contributor to DJI Onboard SDK and the M100 industrial/research flight platform.
• Twitter (2014) - Software Development Engineer and Data Scientist, Social Discovery Team, San Francisco, US. Developed Whom To Follow and MagicRecs recommendation systems.
• Microsoft Research Asia (2010 - 2011) - Research Intern, Machine Learning Group, Beijing, China. Developed SIGMA and ClickBoost for large-scale machine learning and click models.

Publications

Exhibitions

Patents

• [P.1] Local multi-device fast spatial anchor point synchronization method for mixed reality and system. US20240154711A1.
• [P.2] System, method, and smart device for authentication of products and interaction with a virtual environment. US12131338B2.
• [P.3] Controller. USD902927S1.
• [P.4] Headset. USD889462S1.
• [P.5] Headset. USD890170S1.
• [P.6] Imaging method for modular mixed reality device. US11709360B2.
• [P.7] Headset. USD889463S1.
• [P.8] Planning a flight path by identifying key frames. US9947230B2.
• [P.9] System, method, and smart device for authentication of products and interaction with a virtual environment. US9928649B2.

Talks

Honors and Awards

• AUREA Award (2025) - Nocturnal Fugue, Creative Award.
• SIGGRAPH 2024 Immersive Pavilion (2024) - MOFA, Best in Show.
• UbiComp/ISWC 2024 (2024) - HoloKit X, Best Demo Award.
• Good Design Awards (2024) - HoloKit X, Good Design Award in Hardware.
• Core77 Design Awards (2024) - Composable Life, Notable in Speculative Design.
• Design Intelligence Award (2024) - HoloKit X, Honorable Mention.
• A' Design Award (2024) - HoloKit X, Silver in Wearable Technologies Design.
• iF Design Award (2024) - HoloKit X, Winner in Product/Gaming Hardware/VR/AR.
• CHI 2023 Interactivity (2023) - MOFA, Jury's Best Demo Recognition.
• ISMAR 2023 Demonstration (2023) - HoloField, Honorable Mention.
• Red Dot Design Award (2023) - HoloKit X, Winner of Product Design.
• Core77 Design Award (2023) - HoloKit X, Notable in Consumer Technology and Runner-up in Emerging Technology.
• Webby Awards (2023) - HoloKit X, Nominee in Technical Achievement / Metaverse, Immersive & Virtual.
• SXSW Innovation Award (2023) - HoloKit X, Nominee in Innovative Design.

Teaching

• Design for Extended Realities (Spring 2025) - Advisor, Stanford University.
• Extended Reality Somaesthetic Design (Spring 2025) - Co-taught with Tongzhou Yu and Rem Rungu Lin, China Academy of Art.
• Speculative Spatial Computing Design (Fall 2024) - Solo teaching, China Academy of Art.
• PlayShop: Latent Spaces & Permissionless Dreams (Summer 2024) - Co-taught with Egor Kraft, China Academy of Art.
• Designing New Realities (Fall 2023) - Co-taught with Tongzhou Yu, China Academy of Art.

Service

• Reviewer for FDG 2026, DIS 2026, SIGGRAPH 2026, CHI 2026, SIGGRAPH Asia 2025, SIGGRAPH 2025, IMX 2025, NIME 2025, ALIFE 2025, and Interacting with Computers.
• Jury for MIT Reality Hack 2025.
• Advisor for Stanford Design for Extended Reality Course 2025.

Skills

• Programming: Rust, C#, C++, Swift, Haskell, TypeScript, Python.
• Hardware entrepreneurship: scaled mixed reality headset development from concept to production, from 1 to 10,000 units.
• Technical art: shaders and visual effects in Unity, WebXR, WebGL, WebGPU.
• Specialized areas: mixed reality design, speculative design, protocol design.
• Methods: Mathematica, NVivo, Research Through Design, research in the wild, ethnographic experiential futures.

Additional Information

• Languages: Mandarin (native), English (master's degree from a US university and 10 years of US residency).
• Interests: Climbing, contemporary art.