Creative AI at Mars College 2026
Feel the AGI at Mars
For the past few years, we’ve organized a creative AI study at Mars College. It has included classes, workshops, and group activities aimed at helping people learn how to use AI tools for their own art, research, and personal projects. This year marks the fourth year of the program and we’re more excited about it than ever.
Martian Academics
Mars College isn’t a webinar or virtual class. It’s a solar-powered off-grid campus built from the ground up each winter in a dry lakebed in the California desert. Martians assemble their own living spaces, kitchens and labs, then roll a curriculum that merges hands‑on homesteading with self‑guided research. At the end of the semester, campus is disassembled and disbanded, to reconvene at the same time next year. This rugged lifestyle isn’t for everyone; it’s harsh, dusty, and tests your ingenuity and resilience. But it forges a tight-knit community of learners and refuge from the hamster wheel of urban professional life.
Mars College extends the self‑reliance ethos of desert communities to the technology domain; rather than fall for the nature vs technology dichotomy, we think AI is the secret superpower and enabler of the 21st century vagabond, enabling intrepid individuals to acquire new skills and knowledge quickly and cheaply, from even the most remote locations on Earth, no internet link required!
Academics at Mars are a mixture of a structured curriculum that aims to level up everyone’s literacy around contemporary AI tools, plus an unconference-style open calendar where participants propose and host their own sessions on diverse topics ranging from permaculture to creative writing to singing sea shanties.
AI at Mars College 2022-2025
The Creative AI major at Mars College was first formed in 2022 and focused on early image generation and chatbots.
As generative video and agents evolved, so too did our program. In the wake of the AI explosion of the last few years, the program grew in attendance and scope. Last year we began a serious study of AI agents, highlighted by several dozen experimental chatbots we placed in our private Discord server, each with a Martian creator learning on the fly how to make their agent represent their values.
Mars Research Curriculum
Mars College is gearing up for a new season, and one of the new camps this year is called Mars Research. Mars Research is dedicated to the study of AI, and this upcoming academic program will focus on generative AI. Let’s explore the tracks and courses that will shape the program.
In early 2023, leading up to the Bombay Beach Biennale, despite the then-lack of commercially available AI video models, we collectively produced our first ever AI film festival. As AI video models rapidly progressed, the AI film academy formed and made the film festival a tradition. We are planning the 2026 film festival and will be guiding aspiring Martian creators learn how to produce the kinds of films that just a few years ago would have cost tens of millions of dollars to produce.
Past editions of AI program at Mars College
The 2026 program
Announcing Mars College 2026
Mars College is coming back for another semester in the desert, and we’d love for you to join us.
Now going into its 5th edition, the creative AI program is expanding into new frontiers, including a planned game development track. Even as we delve into abstract and heady topics like world models, the purpose remains deeply practical. By studying how to build and manipulate such AIs, participants learn how to assemble personal systems that assist them in everything from learning home‑grown solar arrays to making money online to support their itinerant lifestyle.
Our aim is to help every participant build a personal AI: a bespoke agent that augments their learning, helps with creative projects and makes life on Mars more interesting. We give students free compute on Eden.art and teach them how to wield these models.
