Futurology

The Quantum Path to Consciousness (with Hartmut Neven & Grant Slater)

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 13:37:00 -0000

Quantum computing can transform technology. Can it also reshape consciousness itself? | Subscribe to Futurology! https://linkin.bio/futurology/

Can quantum computing unlock the secrets of consciousness and hasten the arrival of artificial super intelligence? Hartmut Neven, the visionary founder of Google’s Quantum AI Lab, has spent decades pushing the boundaries of what machines can do. Now he’s betting on quantum computing to clear the path for the next era of possibilities.

In this episode, Neven takes us from early adversarial machine learning at DARPA to building the world’s most advanced quantum processors at Google. He makes a case for why the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is our most likely vision of reality and reveals his experimental program to test whether quantum superposition is where consciousness is born.

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Apple Podcasts

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Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk?si=XB2qyyGjT2ONMTd5XUKJAg&nd=1&dlsi=ac8cda6751834298

Mentioned in this Episode:

The Fabric of Reality — David Deutsch (book, 1997)

Intriguing Properties of Neural Networks — Christian Szegedy, Wojciech Zaremba, Ilya Sutskever, Joan Bruna, Dumitru Erhan, Ian Goodfellow and Rob Fergus (paper, 2013)

Mécanique quantique. Tome 1, 2 — Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Bernard Diu and Franck Laloë (textbook, French edition)

The Emperor’s New Mind — Roger Penrose (book, 1989)

Where to Find Hartmut Neven:

Google Research Profile Google Quantum AI Lab

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Credits

Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch

Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos

Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney

Theme Music: Marcus Bagala

Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott Wilson

Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

The Backlash Against the “Best and Brightest” (with Michael Sandel and Nathan Gardels)

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 09:00:00 -0000

Moral debate has been replaced by outrage — political philosopher Michael Sandel makes the case for a different kind of public life. | Subscribe to Futurology! https://linkin.bio/futurology/

We built a society around the idea that the “best” should rise to the top. If you work hard and win the race, you deserve your success. Michael Sandel – the Harvard philosopher and 2025 Berggruen Prize Laureate – argues that this faith has warped public life, turning economic inequality into moral judgment and teaching millions to hear the same message behind every setback: if you didn’t make it, it’s your fault.

In this episode, Sandel says the rise of MAGA is the predictable result of treating markets as the measure of value and credentials as the measure of worth. Repair, he suggests, means rebuilding the public sphere by redesigning the system, not just swapping out one elite for another. To do so, we must redesign our politics before advanced technology locks grievance in place.

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Catch up on the Futurology conversation with full episodes on YouTube.

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Apple Podcasts

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Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk?si=XB2qyyGjT2ONMTd5XUKJAg&nd=1&dlsi=ac8cda6751834298

Mentioned in this Episode:

Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? — Michael J. Sandel (Book, 2009)

What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets — Michael J. Sandel (Book, 2012)

The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? — Michael J. Sandel (Book, 2020)

Liberalism and the Limits of Justice — Michael J. Sandel (Book, 1982)

Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy — Michael J. Sandel (Book, 1996)

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century — Thomas L. Friedman (Book, 2005)
Where to find Michael Sandel:

Official website

Harvard Law School profile

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Credits

Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch

Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos

Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney

Theme Music: Marcus Bagala

Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott Wilson

Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

Augmenting Reality, Both Online and Off (with Evan Spiegel and Dawn Nakagawa)

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 09:00:00 -0000

Was “open and transparent” social media ever a good idea? Evan Spiegel explains why he built Snapchat differently. | Subscribe to Futurology! https://linkin.bio/futurology/

Are some of tech’s best innovations born from subtraction? Evan Spiegel built Snapchat around design choices that undid industry norms: no likes, no public comments, no permanent posts.

In this conversation with Dawn Nakagawa, the Snap CEO explains why giving teenagers a tool to measure social capital in real time was never a good idea and where today’s tech revolution could take us next, beyond the smartphone. From deliberative democracy to the interconnectedness of all life, Spiegel ponders the big ideas that will help us design our future, not just react to it.

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Catch up on the Futurology conversation with full episodes on YouTube.

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Apple Podcasts

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Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk?si=XB2qyyGjT2ONMTd5XUKJAg&nd=1&dlsi=ac8cda6751834298

Mentioned in this Episode:

America in One Room — Deliberative Democracy Lab at Stanford

Department of Angels — Official site

Altagether — Official site

Team Palisades — Official site

Where to find Evan Spiegel:

Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/@evan

Snap Inc. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@snapinc

Snap Spectacles: www.instagram.com/spectacles/

Snap.com: Official Profile

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Credits

Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch

Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos

Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney

Theme Music: Marcus Bagala

Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott Wilson

Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

Nothing Good Comes From This War (with Reza Aslan & Nathan Gardels)

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 16:45:00 -0000

Reza Aslan on why Iran is winning, and why the idea of nationalism may be the next great illusion to fall. | Subscribe to Futurology! https://linkin.bio/futurology/

What does it mean for a nation to fight a war it cannot win? Iranian scholar and author Reza Aslan joins Nathan Gardels to cut through four decades of American self-deception about Iran. In this episode, Aslan argues that the war in Iran has done exactly what decades of intelligence had predicted: silenced dissent, entrenched hardline power, and destroyed the slow-burning possibility of reform taking root in Iran. He makes the case that Iran is not an unhinged theocracy, but a completely rational actor facing a waning global superpower mired in a “cosmic war mentality.

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Apple Podcasts

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Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk?si=XB2qyyGjT2ONMTd5XUKJAg&nd=1&dlsi=ac8cda6751834298

Mentioned in this Episode:

No God but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam — Reza Aslan (Book, 2005)

Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth — Reza Aslan (Book, 2013)

God: A Human History — Reza Aslan (Book, 2017)

Where to find Resa Aslan:

https://www.rezaaslan.com/

Show ideas and feedback? Email:

futurology@berggruen.org

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Credits

Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch

Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos

Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney

Theme Music: Marcus Bagala

Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott Wilson

Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

Does Freedom Have a Future? (with Lea Ypi & Nils Gilman)

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 15:18:00 -0000

Lea Ypi grew up through the collapse of communist Albania. Now, as liberal democracy begins to fray, she examines what freedom means. | Subscribe to Futurology! https://linkin.bio/futurology/

Is the collapse of liberal democracy already here? Political philosopher Lea Ypi grew up in communist Albania and watched an entire political system disintegrate overnight. Now she sees a familiar undermining of the institutions the West takes for granted, fueled by Big Tech’s ubiquitous surveillance practices.

In this episode, Ypi draws on her extraordinary life story and rigorous political philosophy to interrogate what freedom means in a political landscape where old assumptions have vanished and personal autonomy is under closer watch than ever before.

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Catch up on the Futurology conversation with full episodes on YouTube.

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Apple Podcasts

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Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk?si=XB2qyyGjT2ONMTd5XUKJAg&nd=1&dlsi=ac8cda6751834298

Mentioned in this Episode:

Free — Lea Ypi (Memoir)

Indignity — Lea Ypi (Book)

“The Anthropologist as Inquisitor” — Carlo Ginzburg (Essay)

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism — Shoshana Zuboff (Book, 2019)

Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More — Alexei Yurchak (Book, 2005)

The Gift — Marcel Mauss (Essay/Book, 1925)

Where to find Lea Ypi:

Website: https://leaypi.com/

Instagram: @lea.ypi

Bluesky: @leaypi.bsky.social

X: @lea_ypi

Show ideas and feedback? Email:

futurology@berggruen.org

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Credits

Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch

Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos

Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney

Theme Music: Marcus Bagala

Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott Wilson

Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

Could We Spotify-ify Healthcare? (with D.A. Wallach & Grant Slater)

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 17:06:00 -0000

What do music, medicine, and markets have in common? They all rely on stories we tell ourselves about how the world works. And those stories are being turned on their heads by AI.

In this episode, medtech investor and former Spotify Artist-in-Residence D.A. Wallach digs into what makes music special (hint: it’s not originality) and what upending the healthcare industry would look like if AI puts the world’s best doctor in your pocket. This is a conversation about taste, technology, and what happens when you follow your curiosity wherever it leads.

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Catch up on the Futurology conversation with full episodes on YouTube.

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Apple Podcasts

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921

Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk?si=XB2qyyGjT2ONMTd5XUKJAg&nd=1&dlsi=ac8cda6751834298

The Gap — Ira Glass (Video, 2009)

https://vimeo.com/85040589

Who Owns the Future? — Jaron Lanier (Book, 2013)

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Who-Owns-the-Future/Jaron-Lanier/9781451654974

Bitcoin for Rockstars — D.A. Wallach (Essay, 2014)

https://www.wired.com/2014/12/bitcoin-for-rockstars/

Zero Toll Medicine — D.A. Wallach (Essay, 2024)

https://dawallach.substack.com/p/zero-toll-medicine
Where to find D.A. Wallach:

X: @dawallach

Instagram: @dawallach

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dawallach/

Show ideas and feedback? Email:

futurology@berggruen.org

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Credits

Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch

Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos

Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney

Theme Music: Marcus Bagala

Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott Wilson

Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

How to Build a Consciousness Meter (with Christof Koch & Claire Webb)

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 10:00:00 -0000

Where does consciousness come from, and who (or what) gets to have it? The newest AI models have the power to convince users that they’re very much alive inside. But what if there were a test to check if they’re right? Consciousness science is working on just that.

In this episode, renowned neuroscientist Christof Koch chronicles his decades-long exploration of the biology of consciousness. Sharing the field’s leading theories and what they say about everything from brain bridging to quantifying the soullessness of LLMs, he reveals why his own beliefs have changed on the subject and where he thinks all this talk of self-awareness is headed next.

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All Futurology Episodes

Apple Podcasts

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Mentioned in this Episode:

Then I Am Myself the World: What Consciousness Is and How to Expand It — Christof Koch (Book, 2024)

The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature — William James (Book, 1902)

My Octopus Teacher — Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed (Documentary Film, 2020)

Website: https://christofkoch.com/

Tiny Blue Dot Foundation: https://www.tinybluedotfoundation.org/about-us

Allen Institute: https://alleninstitute.org/person/christof-koch/

Show ideas and feedback? Email:

futurology@berggruen.org

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Credits

Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch

Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos

Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney

Theme Music: Marcus Bagala

Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott Wilson

Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

Should We Use CRISPR to Steer Human Evolution? (with Jennifer Doudna & Dawn Nakagawa)

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 10:00:00 -0000

We live in a moment when the power to change the world often arrives before the wisdom to understand that power. CRISPR, a bacterial immunity process turned DNA editing tool, promises breakthroughs across scientific disciplines. But it also collapses long-standing boundaries between nature and human design.

In this episode, Jennifer Doudna – Nobel Prize-winning chemist and founder of the Innovative Genomics Institute – reflects on the thrilling discovery of CRISPR as a gene-editing tool and what it means to suddenly possess the ability to edit the code of life itself. From the ongoing explosion of new opportunities to the shock of seeing ethical boundaries crossed in real time, is there a safe path forward in shaping the future of biological life as we know it?

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Catch up on the Futurology conversation with full episodes on YouTube.

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Apple Podcasts

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921

Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk?si=XB2qyyGjT2ONMTd5XUKJAg&nd=1&dlsi=ac8cda6751834298

Mentioned in this Episode:

The Double Helix — James D. Watson (Book, 1968) https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Double-Helix/James-D-Watson/9780743216302

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out — Richard P. Feynman (Book, 1999) https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/richard-p-feynman/the-pleasure-of-finding-things-out/9780465023951/

“The RNA World” — Walter Gilbert (Article, 1986) https://www.nature.com/articles/319618a0.pdf

A Programmable Dual-RNA–Guided DNA Endonuclease in Adaptive Bacterial Immunity — Martin Jinek, Krzysztof Chylinski, Ines Fonfara, Michael Hauer, Jennifer A. Doudna, Emmanuelle Charpentier (Paper, 2012). https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1225829

“Generation of Gene-Modified Cynomolgus Monkey via Cas9/RNA-Mediated Gene Targeting in One-Cell Embryos” — Niu et al. (Paper, 2014) https://www.cell.com/fulltext/S0092-8674(14)00171-6

Infant with rare, incurable disease is first to successfully receive personalized gene therapy treatment – (Article, May 2025) https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/infant-rare-incurable-disease-first-successfully-receive-personalized-gene-therapy-treatment

Human Genome Editing: Science, Ethics, and Governance — National Academies (Report, 2017) https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/24623/human-genome-editing-science-ethics-and-governance

“Can CRISPR Cut Methane Emissions From Cow Guts?” — UC Davis (Article, 2023) https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/can-crispr-cut-methane-emissions-cow-guts
Where to find Jennifer Doudna:

Website, Innovative Genomics Institute: https://innovativegenomics.org/people/jennifer-doudna/

Instagram, Innovative Genomics Institute: https://www.instagram.com/innovativegenomics/

Bluesky, Innovative Genomics Institute: https://bsky.app/profile/innovativegenomics.bsky.social

Linkedin, Innovative Genomics Institute: https://www.linkedin.com/company/innovative-genomics-institute

Show ideas and feedback? Email:

futurology@berggruen.org

Learn more about the Berggruen Institute

https://www.berggruen.org

Follow Futurology!

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Facebook: / berggrueninst

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Credits

Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch

Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos

Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney

Theme Music: Marcus Bagala

Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott Wilson

Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

Our Mind Meld with Machines Is Coming (with Max Hodak and Nils Gilman)

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 10:00:00 -0000

Big Tech already lives rent-free in our heads. The attention economy monetized and industrialized our mental real estate long ago. Now, with brain-computer interfaces, companies with ambitious names like Science are preparing to barge through the doors of perception and take up permanent residence inside our minds.

In this episode, Hodak – a co-founder of Neuralink and now the founder and CEO of Science – is more familiar with how to create this mind meld with machines than nearly anyone on Earth. Hodak is part of a growing cadre of true believer tech accelerationists who argue that humanity’s best chance to endure is to evolve alongside computers, wired together tightly enough that the boundary between tool and self starts to blur.

Subscribe to the Berggruen Institute on YouTube to be the first to listen to new Futurology episodes:

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Catch up on the Futurology https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyYCSKWs8iYgjg-mhu-EuhTrG0-adrb0c conversation with full episodes on YouTube.

Apple Podcasts

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921

Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk?si=XB2qyyGjT2ONMTd5XUKJAg&nd=1&dlsi=ac8cda6751834298

Mentioned in this Episode:

Pantheon — Craig Silverstein; based on short stories by Ken Liu (Animated Television Series, 2022)

The Hidden Girl and Other Stories — Ken Liu (Book, 2021)

The Problems of Plenty: America, Abundance, and the Crisis of Global Power — Francis J. Gavin (Book, 2024)
Where to find Max Hodak:

Website: maxhodak.com

Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/maxhodak.bsky.social

X: https://x.com/maxhodak

Learn more about the Berggruen Institute

https://www.berggruen.org

Follow Futurology!

Instagram: /futurologypod

Twitter/X: / futurologypod

Facebook: / berggrueninst

LinkedIn: / berggrueninst

Bluesky: / futurologypod

Credits

Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch

Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos

Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney

Theme Music: Marcus Bagala

Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott Wilson

Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

The Human Right to Tell Our Own Stories (with Daniel Kwan and Dawn Nakagawa)

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 17:00:00 -0000

Daniel Kwan – the Oscar-winning co-director of Everything Everywhere All at Once – is a 21st-century filmmaker in the purest sense. He came up in the internet’s attention economy, making over-the-top viral videos that harnessed absurdity to cut through the noise. But as AI starts to generate its own strange media at scale, the surreal risks losing its charge in a world that already feels unreal.

In this episode, Kwan argues that Hollywood is on the verge of industrializing imagination in the way we mass-produce food. If machines become the default authors of culture, we may end up awash in highly processed creativity – empty calories with an aftertaste of authenticity. To safeguard creativity in the age of AI, he co-founded the Creators Coalition on AI: a push for a new creative contract where the tools can change, but authorship stays human.

Subscribe to the Berggruen Institute on YouTube to be the first to listen to new Futurology episodes:

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Catch up on the Futurology conversation with full episodes on YouTube:

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Apple Podcasts

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921

Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk?si=XB2qyyGjT2ONMTd5XUKJAg&nd=1&dlsi=ac8cda6751834298

Mentioned in this Episode:

Chromeo - When The Night Falls (feat. Solange Knowles) (Music Video, 2011)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkyYxAv6kB4

Turn Down for What — DJ Snake & Lil Jon / Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert (Music Video, 2014)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_Down_for_What

So Sorry Man — The Lonely Island / Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert (Music Video, 2009)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lonely_Island#Digital_shorts_and_music_videos

The Power of Myth — Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers (Book, 1988)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Myth

The Selfish Gene — Richard Dawkins (Book, 1976)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene
Where to find Dan Kwan:

Website, The Daniels: https://www.danieldaniel.us/

X, Dan Kwan: https://x.com/dunkwun

X, The Daniels: https://x.com/Daniels

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Credits

Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch

Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos

Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney

Theme Music: Marcus Bagala

Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott Wilson

Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

Can 'Big Math' Solve for the Future? (with Terence Tao and Dawn Nakagawa)

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 10:00:00 -0000

As AI floods the world with answers that merely sound right, math tethers them to the need to be actually right. New machine learning tools and collaboration platforms are pushing theoretical mathematics toward something bigger: large, open projects where progress is shared early; rabbit holes are avoided; and more people can contribute.

In this episode, Terence Tao, a Fields Medal-winning mathematician at UCLA, lays out his case for “big math.” He explains what AI can do well — and where it still fails. The question isn’t whether machines can produce answers. It’s whether we can build systems, human and technical, that keep those answers tethered to truth.

Resources

Mentioned in this Episode:

Green-Tao Theorem

The Primes Contain Arbitrarily Long Arithmetic Progressions — Ben Green & Terence Tao (Paper, 2004)

Observation of a New Boson at a Mass of 125 GeV With the CMS Experiment at the LHC — The CMS Collaboration (Paper, 2012)

Where to find Terence Tao:

Mastodon: mathstodon.xyz/@tao

Blog: terrytao.wordpress.com

Home Page: www.math.ucla.edu/~tao/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/teorth.bsky.social
Show ideas and feedback? Email:

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Credits

Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch

Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos

Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney

Theme Music: Marcus Bagala

Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott Wilson

Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

Why Consciousness Matters in the Age of AI (with David Chalmers and Nils Gilman)

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 10:00:00 -0000

It’s extremely difficult to doubt that you’re conscious, but still nearly impossible to explain why. As AI starts to speak in a voice that feels familiar, this ancient philosophical puzzle is becoming practical. If a system can persuade us it has an inner life, what does that do to the way we decide who – or what – matters?

In this episode, philosopher David Chalmers makes the case that consciousness needs to move beyond the realm of mystery. Over the past three decades, serious work on the subject has gone from fringe curiosity to an active research frontier, but the central enigma remains. As the virtual infiltrates ‘IRL,’ the line between human and machine blurs. Or maybe it never mattered at all.

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Mentioned in this Episode:

The Conscious Mind — David Chalmers (Book, 1996)

Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy — David Chalmers (Book, 2022)

The Emperor’s New Mind — Roger Penrose (Book, 1989)

Neurophilosophy — — Patricia Churchland (Book, 1986)

Is the Hard Problem of Consciousness Universal?— David Chalmers (Article, 2020)

The Singularity: A Philosophical Analysis — David Chalmers (Article, 2010)

“What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” — Thomas Nagel (Article, 1974)

The Puzzle of Conscious Experience – David Chalmers (Article, 1995)

Could a Large Language Model Be Conscious? — David Chalmers (Paper, 2023)

The Meta-Problem of Consciousness — David Chalmers (Paper, 2018)

Does Thought Require Sensory Grounding? From Pure Thinkers to Large Language Models – David J. Chalmers (Talk, 2023)

Find David Chalmers Here:

Website: https://consc.net/

On X: https://x.com/davidchalmers42?lang=en

Show ideas and feedback? Email:

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Credits

Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch

Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos

Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney

Theme Music: Marcus Bagala

Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott Wilson

Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

Breaking Out of a Black-and-White World (with Brook Ziporyn and Bing Song)

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 10:00:00 -0000

We live in a culture that flattens the world into yes or no. Hot takes and hard binaries promise simplicity. But complexity is leaking through the cracks. Opposites depend on each other. If you try to tease out the uncertain from the certain, you destroy the reality of the thing itself.

In this episode, Taoist scholar Brook Ziporyn makes the case that Taoism and Buddhism aren’t puzzles to solve but tools for living. Reckoning with Eastern paradoxes can help us navigate the desire to end desire. Modern science has unlocked humanity's potential to see the emptiness of both the far-away universe and the vast space within the building blocks of matter. Buddhism and Taoism give us the capacity to reckon with the fact that there is "no there there."

Resources

Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) — Laozi; translated/edited by Brook Ziporyn (Book, 2023)

Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings — translated by Brook Ziporyn (Book, 2020)

Emptiness and Omnipresence: An Essential Introduction to Tiantai Buddhism — Brook Ziporyn (Book, 2016)

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid — Douglas R. Hofstadter (Book, 1979)

Find Professor Brook Ziporyn here: https://divinity.uchicago.edu/directory/brook-ziporyn

https://voices.uchicago.edu/ziporyn/

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Credits

Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, and Jason Hoch.

Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, and Nathalia Ramos.

Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney

Theme Music: Marcus Bagala

Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott Wilson

Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

The Future of Sovereignty Is Closer Than You Think (with Graham Brewer and Grant Slater)

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 16:01:00 -0000

The current world order seeks to make sovereignty simple. One map. One flag. One final authority. But in Indian Country, the borders break down. Tribal nations govern alongside the United States, and sovereignty overlaps in real, everyday ways. This isn’t a historical footnote. It’s the future, hiding in plain sight.

In this episode, Graham Brewer – the AP’s National Correspondent covering native lands and peoples – traces what sovereignty looks like when power overlaps and treaty promises from the 19th century adapt to the 21st. That negotiation is now playing out in the cloud: as languages are revived and culture moves onto servers. By its nature, the training of AI frontier models plunders native wisdom, but fully opting out risks another century of invisibility.

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity — David Graeber & David Wengrow (Book, 2021)

The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears — Theda Perdue & Michael D. Green (Book, 2007)

Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance — Leonard Peltier (Book, 1999)

Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) — U.S. Congress (U.S. law, 1990)

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) — United Nations General Assembly (UN declaration, 2007)

Music Modernization Act — U.S. Congress (U.S. law, 2018)

McGirt v. Oklahoma — Supreme Court of the United States (Supreme Court case, 2020)

Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta — Supreme Court of the United States (Supreme Court case, 2022)

Treaty of New Echota — Cherokee Nation and United States Government (Treaty, 1835)

https://apnews.com/author/graham-lee-brewer#

https://x.com/grahambrewer

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Credits

Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, and Jason Hoch.

Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, and Nathalia Ramos.

Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney

Theme Music: Marcus Bagala.

Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli

Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland.

Conjuring Art from Machine Hallucinations (with Refik Anadol and Claire Webb)

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 10:00:00 -0000

For Artist Refik Anadol, data is not just information. It is pigment. He feeds weather records, river flows, forests and archives into custom AI models and treats the outputs as brushstrokes. The point is to let AI learn from our memories and then push beyond them, catching the moments when the machine’s vision glitches out and creates something truly novel.In this episode, Anadol talks Claire Web, the head of the Berggruen Institute’s Future Humans program, about how this collaboration has changed his sense of nature, authorship, and the edges of reality. They explore how training a model on the textures of rainforests, rivers, and archives can produce a visual language that feels both familiar and strange, and why the future of art may depend less on controlling a system than on listening to where it leads.

Resources

Blade Runner – (Film, 1982)

The Poetics of Augmented Space — Lev Manovich (Essay, 2006)

TED Talk Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality — Anil Seth (Talk, April 2017)

Large Nature Model — Refik Anadol Studio (AI Model, ongoing)

Refik Anadol

https://refikanadol.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/refik-anadol-studio/

https://www.instagram.com/refikanadol/?hl=en

https://dataland.art/?utm_source

https://refikanadolstudio.com/

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Bluesky /futurologypod

Credits

Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, and Jason Hoch.

Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, and Nathalia Ramos.

Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney

Theme Music: Marcus Bagala.

Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli

Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland and distributed by Realm.

The Dangers of Seeing Ourselves in Artificial Intelligence (with Anil Seth and Nils Gilman)

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 10:00:00 -0000

Humans are built for pattern recognition. It is the engine behind perception, emotion, and the fragile sense of self that feels so solid from the inside. For Anil Seth, this pattern-making power explains why consciousness is not a light inside but a process the brain assembles from guesses about the world. And it matters that each of us perceives that world differently.

In this episode of Futurology, Seth talks with Nils Gilman about what these differences reveal about the nature of consciousness and why they matter for the debate over artificial minds. LLMs are pattern-recognition machines of a different kind, uncanny enough to gain our sympathy but Seth argues there is no there there. Caring for conscious AI could quickly become more than a harmless curiosity. It may turn into a zero-sum game that diminishes how we treat one another long before the machines ‘wake up’ in any meaningful way, if that is even possible at all.

Anil Seth

Anil Seth’s Website: https://www.anilseth.com/

Instagram: @profanilseth https://www.instagram.com/profanilseth/

BlueSky @anilseth.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/anilseth.bsky.social

Twitter: https://x.com/anilkseth

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding — John Locke (Book, 1689)

How to Change Your Mind About Psychedelics — Michael Pollan (Book, 2018)

Ex Machina — Alex Garland (Film, 2014)

The Perception Census — Anil Seth et al. (Online Study, Ongoing)

The Dress — Viral Internet Illusion (Internet Phenomenon, 2015)

Müller-Lyer Illusion — Franz Carl Müller-Lyer (Visual Illusion, 1889)

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Bluesky /futurologypod

Credits

Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, and Jason Hoch.

Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, and Nathalia Ramos.

Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney

Theme Music: Marcus Bagala.

Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli

Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland and distributed by Realm.

What Whales Can Teach Us About Talking to Aliens (With David Gruber and Claire Webb)

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 10:36:00 -0000

We’ve spent decades beaming radio waves into space listening for an answer. But it might be enough to start here on Earth, or more accurately, under the seas. Sperm whales live in complex clans and communicate in rapid-fire clicks. Even if we could decode their messages, is it safe to assume they want to talk to us? What, exactly, would we have to say to them?

The Cetacean Translation Initiative – CETI for whales not SETI for E.T. – is considering the implications of AI translation tools for the ocean’s depths. In this episode of Futurology, CETI Founder David Gruber joins Claire Webb – the director of the Berggruen Institute's Future Humans program – to explore what it means to approach another intelligence with humility rather than conquest. In the end, creating a direct linguistic connection with another species may be yet another white whale that humanity should abandon as folly. For Gruber, the point isn’t fluency. It’s learning to speak more softly on a planet filled with minds we’ve barely begun to meet.

Resources

Aglow in the Dark: The Revolutionary Science of Biofluorescence — David Gruber & Vincent Pieribone (Book, 2005)

The Art of Translation — Vladimir Nabokov (Essay, 1941)

Songs of the Humpback Whale — Roger Payne & Scott McVay (Scientific Article, 1970)

Songs of the Humpback Whale — Roger Payne & Frank Watlington (Audio Recording, 1970)

Follow David Gruber

@davidfgruber

https://www.davidgruber.com/

Follow Project CETI

Instagram: @ProjectCETI

LinkedIn: Project CETI

Twitter/X: @ProjectCETI

YouTube: Project CETI

TikTok: @ProjectCETI

Want to share suggestions or feedback?

Email futurology@berggruen.org

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Bluesky /futurologypod

Credits

Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, and Jason Hoch.

Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, and Nathalia Ramos.

Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney

Theme Music: Marcus Bagala.

Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli

Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland and distributed by Realm.

The Big Lie Behind AI (with Jaron Lanier and Grant Slater)

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 10:00:00 -0000

Artificial intelligence isn’t alive. But our belief that it is may be the most dangerous illusion of all. Tech leaders talk about AI as if it thinks for itself. But that fantasy hides a more nuanced story about people, power, and profit.

In this episode of Futurology, musician and technologist Jaron Lanier joins Futurology Producer Grant Slater to explain why treating AI as a creature, rather than a tool, lets corporations own the work of millions and silence the humans behind the code. Lanier argues that every algorithm is built from borrowed human creativity — the songs, stories, and patterns we’ve already made. The way forward, he says, is to restore data dignity: valuing people for the music and meaning they create, instead of worshipping the machines that remix it.

Resources

Who Owns the Future — Jaron Lanier (Book, 2013)

The Dawn of the New Everything — Jaron Lanier (Book, 2017)

Vers la flamme — Alexander Scriabin (Solo Piano Piece, 1914)

A Blueprint for a Better Digital Society — Jaron Lanier and E. Glen Weyl (Article, 2018)

Computing Machinery and Intelligence — Alan Turing (Article, 1950)

Instruments of Change — Jaron Lanier (Album, 1994)

Fantasia — Walt Disney Productions (Film, 1940)

Snow Crash — Neal Stephenson (Novel, 1992)

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Bluesky /futurologypod

Credits

Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, Nathalia Ramos

Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney

Mixing & Mastering: Aaron Bastinelli

Theme Music: Marcus Bagala

Special Thanks: Heather Mason, Olivia de Rienzo, Carly Migliori, Nick Goddard

How to Spot an Alien Civilization (with Adam Frank and Claire Webb)

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 10:00:00 -0000

For the first time in human history, we can see other worlds. Nearly six thousand planets have been discovered orbiting distant stars — and more appear every year. Each one is a reminder that Earth is not unique, and humanity is not the center.

Astrophysicist and astrobiologist Adam Frank joins Claire Webb to talk about what this means for science and for us. From NASA’s search for technosignatures — the fingerprints of alien civilizations — to the planetary traces we ourselves leave behind, Frank argues that the hunt for life beyond Earth is also a way of seeing our own species differently.

Episode Resources:

Vladimir Vernadsky — The Biosphere (1926)https://www.amazon.com/Biosphere-Vladimir-I-Vernadsky/dp/038798268X

Cordwainer Smith — The Rediscovery of Manhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rediscovery_of_Man

East of Eden (1955 film)https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048028/

Frank Herbert — Dune

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(franchise)

Kim Stanley Robinson — Red Marshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy

The Expanse (novel series by James S. A. Corey)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(novel_series)

Follow Adam Frank

Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/adamfrankscience/?hl=en

Bluesky-https://bsky.app/profile/adamfrank4.bsky.social

X- https://x.com/AdamFrank4

https://www.adamfrankscience.com/

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Bluesky /futurologypod

Credits

Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, and Jason Hoch.

Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, and Nathalia Ramos.

Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney

Theme Music: Marcus Bagala.

Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli

Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland and distributed by Realm.

When the Machine Becomes the Medium (with Ken Liu and Nils Gilman)

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 13:57:00 -0000

The first machines mimicked our muscles. Today, they’ve learned to mirror our minds. Now they’re beginning to imitate something even closer to the core of our humanity – imagination itself. Sci-fi author, translator, and technologist Ken Liu calls this new medium the Noematagraph: a tool for capturing creativity and collaborating with AI in the same way cinema tells stories with actors, sound and a splash of light on a screen.

In this episode of Futurology, Liu joins Berggruen Press’ Executive Editor Nils Gilman to explore how AI blurs the line between artist and audience, code and consciousness. They discuss why storytelling has always been humanity’s most powerful technology and how machines, by learning to tell their own stories, may change what it means to express emotion in the AI age.

A Cosmic Voyage Through Deep Time (with Ross Andersen and Grant Slater)

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 09:00:00 -0000

Humanity has a deep time problem. Our internal clock simply cannot compute on a time scale that takes into account the rise and fall of civilizations, star systems, and superintelligences. Unable to fathom consequences beyond our chronology, we make decisions and take actions that could snuff out our species in a blinding flash of light that would barely merit mention on the cosmic timeline.

Ross Andersen writes for The Atlantic about the sublime and scary implications of deep time. In this episode, he speaks with Futurology producer Grant Slater about how our view of time itself dictates what feels urgent now. From our definition of consciousness to our search for life in the cosmos, a wider frame of reference could dictate a new organizing principle for life on our planet and beyond.

SHOW NOTES

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Episode Resources:

Follow Ross Andersen

Bluesky / @rossandersen

X/ @andersen

Instagram @rossandersen

www.theatlantic.com/author/ross-andersen/

Articles

The Vanishing Groves – Ross Andersen, Aeon Magazine

The Bristlecone’s Fate – Grant Slater, Aeon Magazine

In the Beginning – Ross Andersen, Aeon Magazine

Are We Disappointed With Space Exploration? – Ross Andersen, The Atlantic

The Search for America’s Atlantis – Ross Andersen, The Atlantic (2021)

Exodus – Ross Andersen, Aeon (2014)

What Happens When AI Has Read Everything? – Ross Andersen, The Atlantic (2023)

The Most Powerful Space Telescope Ever – Video by The Atlantic, Ross Andersen (2016)

Welcome to Pleistocene Park – Ross Andersen, The Atlantic (2017)

A Journey Into the Animal Mind – Ross Andersen, The Atlantic (2019)

The Nuclear Club Might Soon Double – Ross Andersen, The Atlantic (2025)

Books

The Wild Trees – Book by Richard Preston

Is a River Alive? – Robert Macfarlane (2025)

The Three-Body Problem – Novel by Liu Cixin

Other
Timeline of the Far Future – Wikipedia

Will We Run Out of Data? Limits of LLM Scaling Based on Human-Generated Data – Epoch AI (2024)
Want to share suggestions or feedback?

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Credits

Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, Nathalia Ramos

Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney

Mixing & Mastering: Aaron Bastinelli

Theme Music: Marcus Bagala

Special Thanks: Heather Mason, Olivia de Rienzo, Carly Migliori, Nick Goddard

Chapter Headings

0:00 – Introduction

2:12 – Bristlecone Pines and Ancient Trees

6:20 – Trees as Climate Records

9:07 – The Oldest Living Things on Earth

10:47 – The Deep Time Beat

11:38 – The Incomprehensibility of Big Numbers

13:07 – Cosmology and Cyclical Universes

15:52 – Becoming a Journalist

18:50 – Human Migration and Lost Worlds

26:27 – Pleistocene Park and Rewilding the Arctic

33:26 – Long Now Thinking and Tech Optimism

37:01 – Elon Musk, Mars, and Longtermism

42:01 – Searching for Extraterrestrial Life

47:06 – How Creative Is the Universe?

48:19 – First Contact: West and East Perspectives

55:18 – AI’s Rise and Limits

59:05 – What Happens When AI Runs Out of Text

1:05:13 – Consciousness in AI and Animals

1:13:25 – Animism, Gaia, and Personhood

1:17:30 – Nuclear Proliferation and Global Risks

1:23:49 – Linking Geopolitics to Cosmic Futures

The Spiritual Life of the Microbiome (with Aminah Bradford and Jonathan Blake)

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 09:00:00 -0000

In 2014, the breakthrough Human Microbiome Project confirmed that – within our own bodies – we are outnumbered. For every human cell, there are three bacterial microbes residing in our gut and throughout what we long considered solid and singular self. This discovery severed the final remaining links in the Great Chain of Being, a persistent mythology from antiquity that cast humans as higher than and apart from the rest of creation.

In this episode of Futurology, Aminah Bradford talks with Jonathan Blake about what she calls microbial theology. It’s a way of thinking about God, spirit, and community in light of the teeming life within us. This discovery forces Western religion to contend with the fact that we are never alone, that we are porous and dependent upon multitudes that we cannot see.

The Wisdom of Not Knowing (with Pico Iyer and Nathan Gardels)

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 09:00:00 -0000

We live in a culture hooked on speed and certainty. Hot takes, quick fixes, and algorithms that claim to know us better than we know ourselves. Yet despite all the information at our fingertips, the world seems to make less sense by the day.

In this episode, renowned travel writer Pico Iyer describes how globalization – which offered up the mirage of a global monoculture – has instead led to a clash of civilizations and identity. For Pico, wisdom resides not in mastery but in doubt. From his decades of constant travel to his retreats in silence, Iyer describes how humility and stillness can open a clearer view of the world than certainty ever could.

The Artful Politics of Picturing the Cosmos (with Lois Rosson and Claire Webb)

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 09:00:00 -0000

Each and every image of the cosmos is an act of interpretation. Scientists collaborate with artists and illustrators to saturate the colorless data of distant nebulae and galaxies and invoke awe. They rotate images, signalling which way is up in a void where ‘up’ does not exist. They make up for the shortcomings of our perception with the power of our imagination.

In this episode, space historian Lois Rosson joins Claire Webb to examine the hidden politics of how we picture the universe. What we see in the stars is never just out there. It’s also a projection of what we’re going through here on Earth. From frontier nostalgia to government propaganda and corporate branding to the increasing role of AI in depicting the unknown, space imagery dictates what destiny humanity will manifest.

Why Globalization Can't Stop War Anymore (with Pascal Lamy and Lorenzo Marsili)

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 09:00:00 -0000

For decades, world leaders told us that global trade would keep the peace. Markets would bind nations together, and economic interdependence would make conflict too costly to pursue. That logic shaped the global institutions of the late twentieth century and defined the worldview of Pascal Lamy, former head of the World Trade Organization.

In this episode, Lamy sits down with Lorenzo Marsili, the director of the Berggruen Institute-Europe to reflect on why that promise can't be kept. From the collapse of the WTO consensus to the rise of U.S.–China rivalry, from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the splintering of the internet, he explains why globalization can no longer guarantee harmony and what a world order governed by “precautionism” that prioritizes a Planetary commons might offer instead.

The Making of Ideas That Matter (with Nicolas Berggruen and Nathan Gardels)

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 09:00:00 -0000

The Berggruen Institute began with a simple conviction: ideas shape the world. Out of the wreckage of the 2008 financial crisis,the Institute's co-founders – Nicolas Berggruen and Nathan Gardels – set out to build an independent think tank that would imagine bold, new futures, bridge cultures, and redesign institutions to match the pace of the 21st century. Beyond just thinking about these ideas, today the Institute works to make them real.

In this episode, Berggruen and Gardels reflect on their unlikely partnership and the projects that shaped their vision. From bipartisan reform efforts in California to high-level dialogues in Beijing, they chart the emergence of some of the Institute’s most innovative frameworks: participation without populism, pre-distribution of wealth, and planetary realism. Along the way, they discuss why philosophy still matters and how nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

A Breakdown in Global Governance (with Nathan Gardels and Anne-Marie Slaughter)

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 09:00:00 -0000

The liberal world order was built for a different era — more centralized, more hierarchical, more predictable. In the 21st century, power has gone fluid. It flows through supply chains and satellites, networks and platforms, alliances that shift issue by issue.

In this episode, policy thinker Anne-Marie Slaughter joins Nathan Gardels to map a world no longer defined by blocs, but by webs. From climate cooperation to civilizational conflict, from multipolar diplomacy to local democratic renewal, they explore what comes after the end of the nation-state’s monopoly on the future.

The Cyborg Watershed of the American West (with Lauren Bon and Grant Slater)

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 09:00:00 -0000

The ever-branching network of lakes, rivers, and streams that flow west from the Rockies enable human life to flourish in one of the hottest places on Earth. This is a “cyborg watershed” – part natural, part machine, and wholly entangled with the myths and machinery of the region.

In this episode, LA-based artist Lauren Bon joins Futurology producer Grant Slater to trace the path of her large-scale artworks that intervene in that system, blurring the lines between art, engineering, and activism. The conversation moves through buried waterways, the choreography of permits and politics, and the search for a civic identity grounded in the flow of water rather than the lines on a map.

The Death Knell of the Nation-State (with Rana Dasgupta and Jonathan Blake)

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 09:00:00 -0000

The modern nation-state wasn’t just a conglomeration of laws and armies. It was a belief in borders, in belonging, in the promise that citizenship could ground identity in a chaotic world. That belief is faltering.

In this episode, writer and thinker Rana Dasgupta joins Jonathan Blake to explore the spiritual and political collapse of state power.They unearth sovereignty's theological roots, assess its crumbling currency regimes, and reckon with the return of nomadism in a world of climate migration and digital drift.

How We Discovered Our Own Extinction (with Thomas Moynihan and Benjamin Bratton)

Tue, 29 Jul 2025 09:00:00 -0000

For most of human history, the end of the world was a divine promise, inevitable and liberating for the holy alone. But the invention of extinction changed that. This was no prophecy. It was discovery – a realization that the universe could go on without us – and probably would.

In this episode, philosopher Thomas Moynihan joins Benjamin Bratton to trace the history of a shift in thinking: that the future isn’t guaranteed. They ask how our expanding knowledge of time reshaped not just our fears, but our obligations — not only to each other, but to futures we might never see. Along the way: AI, planetary intelligence, and the ethics of life beyond Earth.

The Rise of the Cyberocracy (with John Markoff and Grant Slater)

Tue, 22 Jul 2025 09:00:00 -0000

In the 21st century, Silicon Valley has coded into existence a vast memetic machinery — a self-replicating ecosystem of feedback loops, default settings, and algorithms now steering society at scale. Increasingly, it appears this emergent cyberocracy no longer wants to disrupt the world, but to govern it.

In this episode, veteran journalist John Markoff teases out novel strands of thought that are increasingly embedded in the DNA of Washington, DC. From Palo Alto to the Pentagon, from Burning Man to the Beltway, we must reckon with a new networked system of systems where power flows through their servers, not the Senate.

Did the Sun Ever Set on the Age of Empire? (with Niall Ferguson and Nathan Gardels)

Tue, 15 Jul 2025 09:00:00 -0000

On America’s 250th birthday, historian Niall Ferguson suggests that the US has reached an age when most republics fizzle out. Donald Trump’s rise is merely a symptom of this late-stage unspooling of an empire that America could never quite escape.

In this episode, Ferguson tells the story of a republic that burns hot, forgets fast, and could smolder on the ash heap of history sooner than we expect in the face of a second Cold War that has already begun with a more formidable and AI-empowered foe.

What if Buddhists Ran the World? (with Stephen Batchelor and Bing Song)

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 09:00:00 -0000

Stephen Batchelor has spent decades stripping Buddhism of its dogma to find what wisdom it can offer the modern world. Could cities and countries run on karma instead of capital?

In this episode, he sketches a vision of society grounded in awareness, compassion, and radical interdependence — a politics of presence rather than power. Stripped of its cosmologies, he argues, a secular Buddhism could light the way toward an ethical response to a world on fire.

Letting Robots Know Where They Stand (with Fei-Fei Li and Dawn Nakagawa)

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 09:00:00 -0000

Before robots can act, they need to know where they are. That’s the deceptively simple premise behind the latest effort from machine vision pioneer Fei-Fei Li. She's building a Large World Model that will enable artificial intelligences to situate themselves in our reality and create entirely new worlds of their own, for human minds to inhabit.

In this episode, we trace the evolution of artificial perception — from the early days of visual machine learning with stoplights and puppies to today's efforts to put robots in their place.

Inhabiting Artificial Minds... On Mars and Beyond (with Vandi Verma and Claire Webb)

Tue, 24 Jun 2025 09:00:00 -0000

If we ever land on another planet, we won’t be the first to arrive. It will be our machines — the ones we’ve trained, calibrated, and loaded onto rockets – who will roam alien landscapes.

In this episode, NASA roboticist Vandi Verma takes us inside the mind of a Mars rover — and into the process of building, steering, and co-evolving with machines that learn as they go. As we aim for unwelcoming planets and stranger moons, our robots must grow bolder to survive. With artificial intelligence on board, will they evolve to lead the search for life itself?

After the End of History, an Age of Disorder (with Francis Fukuyama and Nathan Gardels)

Tue, 24 Jun 2025 08:00:00 -0000

More than three decades ago, Francis Fukuyama saw the future: a world order that looked inevitable, stable, liberal. What emerged instead is something bumpier, louder, and far more dangerous.

In this episode, Fukuyama takes us on a ride through the strange resurrection of 19th-century power politics, the rise of political strongmen, and the collapse of trust that can dooms institutions to failure. We discuss what’s left to salvage – and what a bureaucracy of the future could accomplish.

Welcome to Futurology | Podcast Trailer

Thu, 19 Jun 2025 13:16:00 -0000

Futurology is a new a weekly podcast from the Berggruen Institute where we work to name what’s next. Join us as we imagine a future we can accomplish together, instead of one we must all work to prevent.