This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Spencer Kaplan can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2025/07/technics-in-the-dust/. About the post: Each year, thousands of Bay-Area tech workers attend Burning Man: an annual art festival in the Nevada desert. In this article, an ethnographer of AI development joins his interlocutors at the event and reflects on its resonances with the AI industry he studies. He argues that Burning Man’s unique environment and otherworldly experiences can help us think about the AI industry’s aspirations for civilizational transformation.