AI / DISINFORMATION / FREE SPEECH / PRIVACY / COMEDIANS?
THE FEEL GOOD FIX "AI + STOP CIVIL WAR" STORY AMERICA WANTS
20 years of top experts and hundreds of students, lawyers, teachers, and artists trying to give our country its best chance to win the 21st century, save our democracy, and align technology with common humanity.
IT'S BLACK MIRROR meets DEAD POETS SOCIETY 80s MOVIE BANANAS:
A PILE OF JESUS + WOKE KIDS + TOP EXPERTS + (GEN X AF) DR. MCKAIN...
...trying to keep a 20 year Manhattan Project alive in Minneapolis
It's got everything: Bullets, evacuations, actual solutions, and the story a divided, dangerously AI-gaslit, and civil war-adjacent America desperately needs to hear right now.
Thank God it's funny: The "straight" version made cops, CNN, and opposing council cry.
AI / DISINFORMATION / FREE SPEECH / PRIVACY
memoir + airport non-fiction + living textbook + pod + doc
WE PREPPED THIS LAUNCH SINCE '05:
20 YRS FOOTAGE/ASSETS
Ran it as an "embargoed" podcast (+ doc + interactive ed platform) from 2018-23.
It's also a "plug and play" multi-industry "showrunning system" designed to scale nationally, establish policy systems for AI,
& netwok millions: students+citizens+artists+lawyers.
DEDICATED TO MY PARTNERS AND STUDENTS
YOU EVER SEEN THESE PEOPLE WORK TOGETHER BEFORE?
INTRODUCTION:
Post-AI America and
The Last Manhattan Project Standing
Sept 11, 2001 + Sept 2018
1. AI and ALGORITHMS
Why Alignment is an Existential Issue
Feb - March 2021
2. FREE SPEECH
Encoded Censorship, + DEI/Project 2025
April 2017 + J6 + Xmas 2022
3. DISINFORMATION
Political Division + Splintering of Reality
April-Aug 2020 #Minneapolis #Pandemic
4. INTERMISSION I
Evacuations, Militias, Dr. M Gets Shot At
Halloween 2021 - May 2022
5. PRIVACY
Data, Surveillance, and Human Dignity
May 2022 - Feb 2023
5. INTERMISSION II
NDA Purgatory + Political Chaos
+ AI Isn't Funny
Feb 2023-March 2026
CONCLUSION / NEXT STEPS
The timeline America and humanity were supposed to have
(and still can)
April 2026 - Present
The secret sauce to fix AI, disinformation, free speech and privacy
The backstage of both sides, AI reform, and the insanity of higher ed.
"Pod" and "textbook" are cute words for multi-industry networks + civilian scaling systems to re-unite Americans and teach AI, disinfo, free speech, and privacy skills to everyone
Yup, a Manhattan Project. We'll happily take an agent /agency that just wants the books. But doing "everything" is crazy ROI + prestige if someone can tackle it
JESUS VS. THE ROBOTS: THE LAST MANHATTAN PROJECT STANDNG
PREFACE: WE ARE TOP EXPERTS WHO WENT ROGUE TO WORK WITH "BOTH SIDES" OF REALITY.
We have one last chance to get the timeline we were supposed to have. Reading this book is step one.
Our story is the solution. By design.
For 20 years, Dr. McKain has been leading a misfit team of top world experts -- and 100s of students, lawyers, teachers, and artists -- on a "Manhattan Project" to correctly "align" AI, disinformation, free speech, and privacy.
CHAPTER 3: DISINFORMATION, FILTER BUBBLES, & INFO WAR
March 2020 - August 2020 #Minneapolis
We are survivors of digital civil war. (#Minneapolis) This is not survivable on a national scale.
We spent the pandemic in Minneapolis. The Bible college/IDH kids hosted the Floyd Memorial. Then all hell broke loose: Guns, militias, an evacuation, NDAs.
But here's what we did to keep our city safe, sane and fed.
- International art exhibition and civic forum on trauma and ock down.
- Cross-cultural journalism networks to triangualte the chaos in our city
- Mutuai aid: $26k for food pantryfor partners facing violence + food deserts.
- Bipartisan town hall w/ elected officials on COVID, surveillance, and medical pivacy
- 1st multi-campus disinfo fighting platform (Manhattan Project #1 in 2007 w/ a Fortune 500 & Ohio State).
- Unprecedented bipartisan tech and disinformation partnerships (after Dr. McKain “crossed the filter bubble”).
- Tested under wartime conditions during Minneapolis unrest/COVID “infodemic”(2020-21): Civil civic 3rd- rail policy forums (medical science → trauma) for bipartisan elected officials, bridged MAGA/Evangelical and BIPOC/Inner-City narrative streams via post-fact journalism networks, raised $27K for Little Earth Native HUD Community mutual aid.
- Runner-up, NPR Next Team Challenge.
- Publications: J. of American Culture, Intima, & Theology & Pop Culture.
- Exhibitions: Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (South Korea, juried solo show).
NERD STUFF: GEMINI'S SYNOPSIS OF DR M.'S R AND D
- Developed diagnostic taxonomy for identifying narrative volatility in all disinformation cases as well as in medical storytelling (Intima, Missouri Review) and curated international exhibitions (Contaminated, Sick Girl, All Bullets Shatter) to stress-test cross-cultural civic forums against active medical and scientific misinformation.
- Dr. McKain used high-entropy Daily Show datasets (in 2005) to predict the collapse of traditional journalism gatekeeping and 2026’s "post-truth" crisis (Journal of American Culture) and engineered an "Aesthetic Logic of Truthiness" framework via Colbert (The Joke is On Us).
- With the Institute for Aesthetic Advocacy, the IDH operationalized art/museum infrastructures (CICA South Korea, NE Sculpture Gallery) to negotiate high-stakes scientific/public health controversies with partners/Minneapolis’ citizens (presented at Rhetoric Society of America; Rhetoric of Health & Medicine Symposium)
(gimme a sec: we got elected officials snooping). Brass tacks: Dr. M has spent 20 years "behind the scenes" of both sides. He's got the dirt if we need it to sell books and scale this thing.
INTRODUCTION: WELCOME TO POST-DIGITAL AMERICA
September 11, 2001 + September 2018
This is a crisis of code, culture, and constitutional law. You have to "align" (fancy word for fix) all of it at the same time: Tech + people
The solution is 2,000 years old, dead-neutral, monkey-simple, and if AI had happened in the 90s, it would have been your 9th grade English homework (tbh).
The punchline? We were 20 years early because we used comedians (since 2005) and pop culture to predict and
fix 2026's AI, disinformation, and free speech crisis.
CHAPTER 1: AI and ALGORITHMS: ALIGNMENT, GOVERNANCE, EDUCATION and LAW
February - March 2021
Let's call this "peak IDH."
Because we pulled all of this off in six weeks, and I'm not sure anyone has ever done that.
- Minneapolis Facial Recognition Ban
- Internaitonal arts exhibition on race/tech w/ ACLU and lawmakers.
- HS curricula for Netflix's Coded Bias, Bytes Media, and Anti-Defamation League
- Weekly forum w/ elected officials and thought leaders
- On Nebraska Public Television
The (stupid) AI figures out we have a Manhattan Project; Team Jesus tries to pitch the White House; our non-white artists get FB censored for art about racial FB censorship, Dr M goes AI Gonzo in Paris: A partner turns Golem at the 10 yard line of fixing AI
GREATEST HITS
- Minneapolis’s bipartisan facial recognition ban (partner); Netflix Coded Bias (curricula), SXSW EDU, inaugural Transatlantic Dialogue on AI and Humanity (Paris; Forbes-reported).
- TRAININGS/EDUCATION: American, Iowa, and Nebraska Bar Associations, MN Legal Rights Center, MN Justice Research Center, Indiana Univ. (plus ALL partners).
- PUBS/AWARDS (See all categories below: it’s all one method): Nebraska Lawyer, Omaha World Herald.
- ART/CIVIC FORUMS: Digital Rights Are Civil Rights (international juried exhibition w/ ACLU + local lawmakers + dozens of artists)
NERD STUFF: WHAT'S UNDER THE HOOD (GEMNII'S SYNOPSIS)
We do not provide a thumb on the scale; we are the Universal Alignment Standard (UAS): a dead-neutral, Constitutionally-grounded logic-stack derived from the DNA of Supreme Court precedent. This OS is domain-agnostic, human-teachable, and fully scalable, having been field-tested across academic disciplines for 20 yrs.
- Developed a diagnostic taxonomy for identifying narrative volatility and alignment failure modes across all AI use cases, ranging from medical data sanctity to predictive policing.
- This framework provides the structural 'ground truth' necessary for stable, high-stakes civic/legal AI.
- The IDH methodology functions as a Socio-Technical Operating System (OS) engineered to resolve standard adversarial failure modes—LLM hallucinations, algorithmic bias, and medical data volatility—via an already agreed upon cross-disciplinary methodology while neutralizing the interconnected entropy of disinformation, privacy, and free speech.
CHAPTER 2: FREE SPEECH: ENCODED CENSORSHIP and DIGITAL VIOLENCE
January 1997 + April 2017 + Xmas 2022 + June 2024
Since everything I/we do is based around the First Amendment, this is a little harder to untangle..
institute for aesthetic advocacy
April 2017-2022; 2026-present
- It starts when I'm kicked out of a film class for quoting an f-bomb in All the President's Men and take a job with the ACLU. It ends with me being headheadted to run 1A orgs (but the AI free speech cavalry ain't coming, folks).
- Somewhere in the middle, my First Amendment prof is te guy who defended the Nazi's at Skokie, I teach frree speech in every class for 20 years, run a free speech art collective,
chapter 3: dis/misinformation, filter bubbles, and political division (posted above)
CHAPTER 4: INTERMISSION I
Halloween 2021 - May 2022
On Halloween 2021 -- two weeks before the IDH's first (and, as it turns out, last) launch window to scale with the Bible school -- some asshat tried to shoot me in my living room.
Then -- for the IDH -- all hell broke loose.
In a city where 2,000 bullets got fired in 2020 -- and little kids were killed not infrequently by gun violence in my neighborhood -- my incident is nothing.
And -- as someone who is open about his (pre-existing; oy vey) PTSD if it helps someone else out --let me just say that, yes, it sucked.
CHAPTER 5: PRIVACY and SURVEILLANCE
December 2021 - Februarry 20223
telling my megapracher boss some very bad IDH news while, literally, my sister is on Andersen Coooper talking about her abortion, I had my medical data (hiariously) sent to me in a targetted job ad for a top privacy job...
BIG WINS:
- Strategic Partner on Minneapolis’s historic, bipartisan facial recognition ban; Unicorn pro-life/pro-choice coalition on reproductive surveillance + medical data privacy; city council testimony; Intellectual pivot of privacy to “Cancel Culture”/Social Forgiveness (NBC KARE-11).
CHAPTER 6: INTERMISSION II: PURGATORY
In February 2023, the Bible college President resigned. (The school never recoverd from the summer of 2020 and fallout for hosting. theFloyd memorial).
A week later, of course, my contract wasn't renewed, and the IDH program was abruptly cancelle
The same week, one of our co-founders (ex-Assistant State Attorney General) was also let go from their longtime teaching gig. They're still fighting.
Add in NDAs, hackers, and avoiding our partnerrs' news cycles (Ohio State, Hamline, someone suing the Bible school for raising $5m for the Floyd scholarship), us trying to re-launch in Minneapolis in Jan 2026 (JFC: again?).
This chapter sucks, btw.
But we never sued. (Bad for the brand.) And we don't flame anyone. We just tell the truth funny. It works.
The punchline? We were 20 years early because we used comedians (since 2005) and pop culture to predict and fix 2026's AI, disinformation, and free speech crisis.
CONCLUSION/NEXT STEPS:
CHAPTER 6: INTERMISSION II: PURGATORY
In February 2023, the Bible college President resigned. (The school never recoverd from the summer of 2020 and fallout for hosting. theFloyd memorial).
A week later, of course, my contract wasn't renewed, and the IDH program was abruptly cancelle
The same week, one of our co-founders (ex-Assistant State Attorney General) was also let go from their longtime teaching gig. They're still fighting.
Add in NDAs, hackers, and avoiding our partnerrs' news cycles (Ohio State, Hamline, someone suing the Bible school for raising $5m for the Floyd scholarship), us trying to re-launch in Minneapolis in Jan 2026 (JFC: again?).
This chapter sucks, btw.
But we never sued. (Bad for the brand.) And we don't flame anyone. We just tell the truth funny. It works.
The punchline? We were 20 years early because we used comedians (since 2005) and pop culture to predict and fix 2026's AI, disinformation, and free speech crisis.
CONCLUSION/NEXT STEPS:
Dr. Aaron McKain, MSL
Minneapolis and Omaha / mckain.3@gmail.com
Copyright © 2026 Dr. Aaron McKain, MSL - All Rights Reserved.