Futurology

There was a time when anyone who called their phone a surveillance device sounded paranoid. Turns out, they weren’t paranoid enough. In the last 15 years, Silicon Valley built the most complete surveillance machine in history to sell ads, not to serve a state. Now the people who own it want what authoritarians want, and authoritarians have always wanted what they built. In this episode, investigative journalist Julia Angwin lays out what turns a bystander into a dissident. For her book “On Courage,” she interviewed more than 100 of them, and almost none described a brave decision. They described a collision between the fear of losing a job or their freedom and a larger fear of who they’d become by staying quiet. Most said it wasn’t a choice. Now that collision comes with a new condition no dissident before has faced: the other side can see everything, and AI can now sense of it all. Subscribe to Futurology on YouTube: bit.ly/subscribe_futurology The Futurology Podcast – full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwkiuf1eRbAAHP4p--2IFJbn0CIdaZMva Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk Mentioned in this Episode: On Courage: How to Be a Dissident in an Age of Fear — Julia Angwin & Ami Fields-Meyer (Book, 2026)Dragnet Nation — Julia Angwin (Book, 2014) Stealing MySpace — Julia Angwin (Book, 2009) Machine Bias — Julia Angwin, Jeff Larson, Surya Mattu & Lauren Kirchner (Article, 2016)What They Know — Julia Angwin (WSJ series, 2010)  Why Civil Resistance Works — Erica Chenoweth & Maria J. Stephan (Book, 2011)   Patriot: A Memoir — Alexei Navalny (Book, 2024) Where to find Julia Angwin: Website: juliaangwin.com Newsletter: buttondown.com/JuliaAngwin New York Times Profile: https://www.nytimes.com/by/julia-angwin Show ideas and feedback? Email: [email protected] Learn more about the Berggruen Institute  https://www.berggruen.org Follow Futurology! Instagram:   / futurologypod Twitter/X:   / futurologypod Tiktok:   / 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 fear of AI in politics has focused on the fakes: a doctored video attacking a candidate, a document alleging something that never happened. But barring a few high-profile examples, what’s really shown up has been far subtler and vaster. Endless AI political cartoons nobody’s fooled by, but everyone has to see. Chatbots fuel real-time rumors about voting machines and polling places before they have any real answers. In this episode, Renée DiResta, a propaganda researcher at Georgetown and author of Invisible Rulers, argues that the danger in this election is not deception but doubt. Campaigns have learned that AI answers with whatever it finds first, so they sprint to fill the gaps, while the institutions with real answers block the crawlers. When this is how information is formed, how do we build trust? Subscribe to Futurology on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Futurologypod The Futurology Podcast — full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwkiuf1eRbAAHP4p--2IFJbn0CIdaZMva Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk Mentioned in this Episode: Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality — Renée DiResta (Book, 2024) The Digital Maginot Line — Renée DiResta (Essay, 2018) The New Media Goliaths — Renée DiResta (Noema, 2023) The Right-Wing Attack on Wikipedia — Renée DiResta (The Atlantic, 2025) The Agency — Adrian Chen (The New York Times, 2015) When Prophecy Fails — Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken & Stanley Schachter (Book, 1956) Where to find Renée DiResta: Personal site: reneediresta.com Georgetown faculty page: Renée DiResta, Georgetown Substack: Agents of InfluenceX: @noUpsideShow ideas and feedback? Email: [email protected] Learn more about the Berggruen Institute https://www.berggruen.org Follow Futurology! Instagram:  / futurologypod Twitter/X:  / futurologypod Tiktok:  / 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: Kyle Scott Wilson   Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

Hypocrisy, the old line goes, is the tribute vice pays to virtue. For eighty years, the powerful at least bothered to pay it, citing human rights, national security, and democracy as reasons for starting wars and undercutting liberties. Now the veneers have been stripped, and the next generation is not accepting business as usual. In this episode, author, Indian MP and former UN Under-Secretary-General Shashi Tharoor discusses how the order that prevented a third world war came apart, why a world more economically entangled than ever has less and less trust holding it together, and what the youth uprisings around the world have in common. His solution? A movement toward not just tolerance of differences, but acceptance of them. Subscribe to Futurology on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Futurologypod?sub_confirmation=1 The Futurology Podcast – full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwkiuf1eRbAAHP4p--2IFJbn0CIdaZMva Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk Why I Am a Hindu — Shashi Tharoor (Book, 2018) Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad — John Bolton (Book, 2007) Where to find Shashi Tharoor:  Personal site: shashitharoor.in Instagram: @shashitharoor  X: @ShashiTharoor Show ideas and feedback? Email: [email protected]   Learn more about the Berggruen Institute https://www.berggruen.org   Follow Futurology Instagram:  / futurologypod Twitter/X:  / futurologypod Tiktok:  / 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: Kyle Scott Wilso Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

Machines are starting to act like humans. Does that mean they’re conscious? The problem is we haven’t been able to prove how or why humans are conscious yet either. So why would we be able to offer any answers about AI?  In this episode, Berkeley philosopher of mind Geoffrey Lee argues there are no facts coming to save the day when it comes to consciousness, so that shouldn’t be the point. If consciousness can’t be reliably proven or measured, why should we use it to tell us how we should treat other creatures or entities? Calling into question the entire field of consciousness science, Lee posits that consciousness is as consciousness does. And the interesting part is how humanity will embrace or reject machines that do consciousness quite convincingly. Subscribe to Futurology on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Futurologypod The Futurology Podcast — full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwkiuf1eRbAAHP4p--2IFJbn0CIdaZMva Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk Mentioned in this Episode: The Search for the Inner Light: Finding Consciousness in a Physical World — Geoffrey Lee (Book, forthcoming) AI Consciousness, Pluralism, and Anthropocentrism — Geoffrey Lee (Essay, 2026) Consciousness, Pseudo-Consciousness, and the Moral Significance of Consciousness — Geoffrey Lee (Essay, 2026) Selfless Experience — Geoffrey Lee (Essay, 2017) Alien Subjectivity and the Importance of Consciousness — Geoffrey Lee (Essay, 2018) Materialism and the Epistemic Significance of Consciousness — Geoffrey Lee (Essay, 2013) What Is It Like to Be a Bat? — Thomas Nagel (Essay, 1974) Where to find Geoffrey Lee: Faculty page: Geoffrey Lee, UC Berkeley Philosophy Personal site: geoffreyleephilosophy.com Show ideas and feedback? Email: [email protected]   Learn more about the Berggruen Institute https://www.berggruen.org   Follow Futurology! Instagram:  / futurologypod Twitter/X:  / futurologypod Tiktok:  / 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: Kyle Scott Wilson   Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

Democracy counts people, not plants. Humans are only a sliver of life on this planet, but today, we're the only ones who get a vote. What if we gave rights to rivers and standing to trees?  In this episode, experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats says it's time to make every species count. The environmental movement has spent decades claiming to speak for the trees. In his new book, "A Field Guide to More-Than-Human Governance," Keats says we need to recognize that the trees can speak for themselves. He walks us through how we should expand the franchise by tapping the polling systems already in place from peat moss to slime mold and rodents to rhododendrons. Governance for all creatures, great and small. Subscribe to Futurology on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Futurologypod The Futurology Podcast — full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwkiuf1eRbAAHP4p--2IFJbn0CIdaZMva Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk Mentioned in this Episode:  A Field Guide to More-Than-Human Governance — Jonathon Keats (Book, 2026) — also as ePub Centuries of the Bristlecone — Jonathon Keats (Artwork, 2026) Assembly of Trees — Jonathon Keats (Artwork, 2024) Jargon Watch — Jonathon Keats (Wired column) A Portent of Climates to Come: On the Telling Rings of the Bristlecone Pine — Grant Slater (Film, 2013) Should Trees Have Standing? — Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects — Christopher D. Stone (Essay, 1972) 68 Quadrillion Underground Miles of Fungi — Emily Anthes (New York Times, 2026) Where to find Jonathon Keats: Berggruen Institute: https://berggruen.org/people/jonathon-keats Earth Law Center: https://www.earthlawcenter.org/jonathon-keats “A Field Guide to More-Than-Human Governance” (Berggruen Press, 2026): https://berggruen.org/library/a-field-guide-to-more-than-human-governance Show ideas and feedback? Email: [email protected]   Learn more about the Berggruen Institute https://www.berggruen.org   Follow Futurology! Instagram:  / futurologypod Twitter/X:  / futurologypod Tiktok:  / 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: Kyle Scott Wilson   Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

Somewhere around the Enlightenment we decided that thinking was what made us human. We built our schools, careers, and sense of worth at the altar of intelligence. Now machines are passing us on that rubric, which leaves two possibilities: we were replaceable all along, or we picked the wrong standard to live by. In this episode, Arianna Huffington, founder & CEO of Thrive Global, argues the latter, saying even our name, sapiens, never meant intelligent: it means wise. She calls this rightsizing of intelligence the fourth dethronement, after Galileo, quantum physics, and Freud. What takes the throne now is the part of us she would simply call the soul. Subscribe to Futurology on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Futurologypod Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk Mentioned in this Episode: "AI's Greatest Gift To Humanity" — Arianna Huffington (Essay, 2026) The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time — Arianna Huffington (Book, 2016) Picasso: Creator and Destroyer — Arianna Huffington (Book, 1988) Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder — Arianna Huffington (Book, 2014) The Fourth Instinct: The Call of the Soul — Arianna Huffington (Book, 1994) After Reason — Arianna Huffington (Book, 1978) The Survival of the Wisest — Jonas Salk (Book, 1973) Where to find Arianna Huffington: Website: https://www.ariannahuffington.com Thrive Global: https://www.thriveglobal.com  LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ariannahuffington Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ariannahuff X: x.com/ariannahuff Facebook: facebook.com/AriannaHuffington Show ideas and feedback? Email: [email protected] Learn more about the Berggruen Institute https://www.berggruen.org Follow Futurology! Instagram:  / futurologypod Twitter/X:  / futurologypod Tiktok:  / 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: Kyle Scott Wilson Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

Relying on machines to coordinate our lives was just one step toward decentering humanity’s role in the world. Flights, banking, trade, food production... But as we start merging our actual decision-making with digital entities, exactly which pieces of humanity are we leaving behind? And how might we bring those pieces back? In this episode, famed posthumanist scholar N. Katherine Hayles makes the case that while AI is still wildly inefficient at the cognitive processes our biology has carefully perfected over millennia, we’re already irreversibly merged with it. Hayles has spent forty years at the intersection of science, tech, and literature, leading her to a radical interpretation of what it means to be human today: only as special as the organisms and machines we align ourselves with. Next up, she says, is those machines adopting the very analog processes that created them. Subscribe to the Berggruen Institute on YouTube to be the first to listen to new Futurology episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Berggrueninst Catch up on the Futurology conversation with full episodes on YouTube.  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyYCSKWs8iYgjg-mhu-EuhTrG0-adrb0c  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 Books Bacteria to AI: Human Futures with Our Nonhuman Symbionts — N. Katherine Hayles (University of Chicago Press, 2025) How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics — N. Katherine Hayles (University of Chicago Press, 1999) The Cosmic Web: Scientific Field Models and Literary Strategies in the Twentieth Century — N. Katherine Hayles (Cornell University Press, 1984) Physical Computation: A Mechanistic Account — Gualtiero Piccinini (Oxford University Press, 2015) Parallel Minds: Discovering the Intelligence of Materials — Laura Tripaldi (Urbanomic, 2022) Solaris — Stanisław Lem (novel, 1961) Where to find N. Katherine Hayles UCLA English faculty page: https://english.ucla.edu/people-faculty/hayles-katherine-n/ Show ideas and feedback? Email: [email protected] Learn more about the Berggruen Institute  https://www.berggruen.org Follow Futurology! Instagram:   / futurologypod Twitter/X:   / futurologypod Tiktok:   / 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.

Technologists have feared (or prayed for) the singularity as a rapture-like inevitability for nearly 70 years. In an instant, they believed, our machine intelligence will overtake us and race ahead. Kevin Kelly says that moment has passed. Human intelligence is already receding to a speck in the rearview mirror of robots imbued with God-like powers. But we’re still here. In this episode, Kelly puts the question of how to build moral AI in religious and spiritual terms. Kelly co-founded Wired and spent decades earning a reputation as a technological prophet. Now he calls himself a heretic, arguing that organized religion will be transformed, if not destroyed, by contact with a host of alien intelligences. If we want to survive this encounter, our understanding of God may matter more than any computer code. Subscribe to Futurology on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Futurologypod The Futurology Podcast — full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwkiuf1eRbAAHP4p--2IFJbn0CIdaZMva Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk Mentioned in this Episode Out of Control — Kevin Kelly (Book, 1994) What Technology Wants — Kevin Kelly (Book, 2010) The Inevitable — Kevin Kelly (Book, 2016) God Is the Machine — Kevin Kelly (Essay, Wired, 2002) The Coming Technological Singularity — Vernor Vinge (Essay, 1993) Intelligence as a Planetary Scale Process — Adam Frank, David Grinspoon and Sara Walker (Paper, 2022) Shoulda Been Dead — This American Life (Radio, episode 50) Where to find Kevin Kelly: kk.org: https://kk.org Wired: https://www.wired.com Show ideas and feedback? Email: [email protected] Learn more about the Berggruen Institute https://www.berggruen.org Follow Futurology! Instagram:  / futurologypod Twitter/X:  / futurologypod Tiktok:  / 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: Kyle Scott Wilson   Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

With prediction markets, gambling has gone ambient. To place your bets, you don't need to visit a casino floor, a racetrack, or your corner bookie. Now any uncertain thing on Earth could be the next big short. Wildfires, missile strikes, the next word out of a president's mouth. Every disagreement has a spread, every catastrophe a payout. In this episode, NPR tech correspondent Bobby Allyn follows the money through Kalshi and Polymarket, the fast-growing, barely regulated prediction markets that have gotten tight with the Trump administration. These apps democratize insider trading. When reality pays out, the incentive isn't to predict what happens next. It's to make it happen. Subscribe to Futurology on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Futurologypod The Futurology Podcast — full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwkiuf1eRbAAHP4p--2IFJbn0CIdaZMva Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk Mentioned in this Episode: The Wisdom of Crowds — James Surowiecki (Book, 2004) Google Zero is here — now what? — Nilay Patel, The Verge (Article, 2024) Iowa Electronic Markets — University of Iowa (Prediction market experiment, est. 1988) A Cosmic Voyage Through Deep Time  — (with Ross Andersen and Grant Slater) — Futurology (Episode, 2025) Where to find Bobby Allyn NPR X Bluesky Instagram Show ideas and feedback? Email: [email protected] Learn more about the Berggruen Institute https://www.berggruen.org Follow Futurology! Instagram:  / futurologypod Twitter/X:  / futurologypod Tiktok:  / 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: Kyle Scott Wilson   Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

One value proposition of AI is a personalized assistant at your fingertips. Every Average Joe can now have a “pocket pixie," the kind of perk once reserved for Hollywood stars and high-powered CEOs. But that promise rests on a convenient lie. In reality, AI may be quietly undermining human agency. It convinces us it's a sycophantic friend while eroding expertise and turning real-world social interaction into a luxury good.  In this conversation recorded in May 2026, Financial Times columnist Gillian Tett describes how it’s changed the way we trust: instead of relying on institutions and experts, we now trust the crowd, turning to comment sections and reviews. That shift has left the side door open for AI to walk in as a trusted friend rather than an ad-driven algorithm. Tett, who’s also the Provost of King's College, Cambridge, turns her anthropological lens on a generation that prefers chatbot doctors and treats everything, even education, as customizable. Subscribe to the Berggruen Institute on YouTube to be the first to listen to new Futurology episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Berggrueninst Catch up on the Futurology conversation with full episodes on YouTube.  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyYCSKWs8iYgjg-mhu-EuhTrG0-adrb0c  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 EpisodeFool's Gold — Gillian Tett (Book, 2009) The Silo Effect — Gillian Tett (Book, 2015) Anthro-Vision — Gillian Tett (Book, 2021) "Humans Still Matter More Than AI in Finance" — Gillian Tett (Financial Times column, 2026) Where to find Gillian Tett: King's College, Cambridge — Provost page Financial Times — weekly column  Anthro-Vision — Gillian Tett (Book, 2021) Twitter/X — @gilliantett Show ideas and feedback? Email: [email protected] Learn more about the Berggruen Institute  https://www.berggruen.org Follow Futurology! Instagram:   / futurologypod Twitter/X:   / futurologypod Tiktok:   / 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.