Christopher Horrocks is a technologist at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Virtual Intelligence, an essay series on AI systems, accountability, and the exchange between people and machines, published on Substack since March 2026.
Selected Essays
- Virtual Intelligence and the Death of Authorship, Part 1
- Virtual Intelligence and the Death of Authorship, Part 2
- Virtual Intelligence and the High Cost of Artificial Companions, Part 1
- Virtual Intelligence and the High Cost of Artificial Companions, Part 2
- Virtual Intelligence and the High Cost of Artificial Companions: Addendum, July 2026
- Field Report: The Sampo in Action
- In Search of Other Bodies
- Virtual Intelligence and The Perfect Mate: Part I
- Virtual Intelligence and the Perfect Mate: Part II
- Virtual Intelligence and the Doom Industry
- Virtual Intelligence and the Kill Chain
- Virtual Intelligence and the Harms Race
- The Sampo: Virtual Intelligence as Amplifier
- In Search of Other Minds
- The Carwash Test — Virtual Intelligence in Action
Frameworks and tools
- Virtual Intelligence framework An interactive reference framework for Virtual Intelligence, the excluded middle between Weak AI and Strong AI.
- The Sampo framework A constitutive model of the human-VI exchange.
- Sampo Diagnostic Kit A free, open toolkit for measuring the health of human–AI exchange.
- The Carwash Test A longitudinal AI reasoning diagnostic.
- BrassLLM: Analytical Language Engine How an LLM works, from prompt to output, illustrated as a working brass machine.
- BrassLLM: Analytical Bard Engine An LLM of the Sonnets, in brass.
- ELIZA-66
Podcast
- Virtual Intelligence and the Death of Authorship, Part 1 Podcast (Substack, 2026)
- The Virtual Intelligence Summer Reading List Podcast (Substack, 2026)
- Virtual Intelligence and the Doom Industry Podcast (Substack, 2026)
- The Sampo — Virtual Intelligence as Amplifier Podcast (Substack, 2026)
- Virtual Intelligence and the Kill Chain Podcast (Substack, 2026)
- Virtual Intelligence and the Harms Race Podcast (Substack, 2026)
- Virtual Intelligence and the Accountability Chain Podcast (Substack, 2026)
- Virtual Intelligence and the Will to Survive Podcast (Substack, 2026)
- The Carwash Test — Virtual Intelligence in Action Podcast (Substack, 2026)
- Why “Virtual Intelligence”? Podcast (Substack, 2026)
- Virtual Intelligence and the Human Cost of Frictionless Machines Podcast (Substack, 2026)
Talks
- Virtual Intelligence: A Practical Framework for the AI Tools We're Deploying (Penn IT Staff Convention, Amy Gutmann Hall, May 20, 2026)
Research
- The Exchange Monitor (Zenodo, 2026)