Futurology

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.

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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

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/

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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.

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:

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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:

futurology@berggruen.org

Learn more about the Berggruen Institute

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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: 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:

futurology@berggruen.org

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:

futurology@berggruen.org

Learn more about the Berggruen Institute

https://www.berggruen.org

Follow Futurology!

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Twitter/X: / futurologypod

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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 people racing to build artificial general intelligence tell us this rush to the future is inevitable. It reads like a forecast, but works like an alibi. If nothing can stop the race, then no one driving it is responsible for where it ends. And only the fear of humanity losing together can end it.

In this conversation from May 2026, Tristan Harris argues the race is not preordained, just the hardest coordination problem humanity has ever faced, and one nobody has seriously tried to solve. Harris co-founded the Center for Humane Technology; he was a driving force behind "The Social Dilemma" and a new film: "The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist." After watching bad incentives wreck social media, he warns where they lead this time: every country automating labor at once and mutually assured political revolution.

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:

The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist — Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell (Documentary, 2026)

The Social Dilemma — Jeff Orlowski (Documentary, 2020)

The Day After — Nicholas Meyer (TV Film, 1983)

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind — Yuval Noah Harari (Book, 2011)

The Ministry for the Future — Kim Stanley Robinson (Book, 2020)

Amusing Ourselves to Death — Neil Postman (Book, 1985)

The Intelligence Curse — Luke Drago and Rudolf Laine (Essay Series, 2025)

Statement on Superintelligence — Future of Life Institute (Open Statement, 2025)

AGI Ruin: A List of Lethalities — Eliezer Yudkowsky (Essay, 2022)

Where to find Tristan Harris:

Personal site: https://www.tristanharris.com/

Center for Humane Technology: https://www.humanetech.com/

Your Undivided Attention (podcast): https://www.humanetech.com/podcast

The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist: https://www.humanetech.com/landing/the-ai-doc

X: https://x.com/tristanharris

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tristanharris/

Show ideas and feedback? Email:

futurology@berggruen.org

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.