The Trajectory

This installment of the Stewarding the Flame series is an interview with Michael Levin, Distinguished Professor of Biology at Tufts University, Director of the Allen Discovery Center, and one of the world's leading researchers in developmental biology, regeneration, bioelectricity, and collective intelligence. Michael argues that cognition may be more fundamental than biology itself. Rather t...

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Hod Lipson, Professor of Engineering at Columbia University and one of the world's leading researchers in robotics, machine self-modeling, and artificial intelligence. Hod argues that intelligence is not a single destination, but an expanding landscape of possibilities. Rather than asking whether machines can perform hum...

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Henry Shevlin, philosopher of cognitive science and AI ethicist at the University of Cambridge. In this conversation, Henry argues that many of the qualities we associate with life, intelligence, and moral value may not be confined to humans-or even to biology itself. As AI systems become increasingly agentic and autonomous,...

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Benjamin Bratton, Professor of Philosophy of Technology at UC San Diego and Director of Antikythera. In this conversation, Benjamin argues that intelligence is not exclusively human or biological, but a planetary-scale process shaped by technology, evolution, and complex systems. We talk about planetary intelligence, machine...

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Terrence Deacon, an emeritus professor of cognitive science and anthropology from UC Berkeley. In this conversation, Terrence argues that current large language models are not living or meaning-making systems, but statistical models built from human-generated text. He describes them as a “deep fake” of intelligence because th...

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Vincent C. Müller, Alexander von Humboldt Professor for Ethics of AI at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg. In this conversation, Vincent discusses how artificial intelligence has changed in recent years, particularly the development of large language models and the increasing role of deep learning. We talk about how deep le...

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Lee Spector, a professor at Amherst College and a researcher in evolutionary computation, whose work applies concepts like variation and selection to the development of intelligent systems. We talk about how evolutionary processes challenge fixed notions of species and continuity over time, and why future forms of intelligenc...

This is an interview with Aza Raskin, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology and co-founder of the Earth Species Project. His work has focused on the societal impacts of technology systems and how incentives shape large-scale human behavior. In this episode, Aza frames AGI governance as part of a broader pattern: when technology confers new forms of power, it creates races to exploit that...

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Ben Goertzel, founder of SingularityNET and one of the earliest and most persistent thinkers in artificial general intelligence, with decades of work spanning AI architectures, decentralized systems, and philosophical perspectives on intelligence. We talk about how early exposure to science fiction, philosophy, and psychedeli...

This installment of the Worthy Successor series features Luciano Floridi, John K. Castle Professor of Cognitive Science at Yale University and Director of the Digital Ethics Center at Yale. Luciano is widely recognized as one of the leading philosophers studying the ethical and civilizational implications of digital technology. In this conversation, we explore Luciano’s philosophy of the infospher...

This episode of the Worthy Successor series features Weaver Weinbaum, an independent researcher and founder of NUNET. Weaver’s work sits at the intersection of philosophy, engineering, and the study of intelligence.  In this episode, we explore Weaver’s idea that intelligence should not merely optimize for predefined goals. Instead, intelligence should expand the space of possible goals and values...

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Francis Heylighen, a professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and director of the Research Centre St. Leo Apostel. Francis is one of the world's leading theorists on evolution, complexity, and what he calls the "self-organizing universe." Francis's work applies evolutionary thinking beyond biology...

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Stephen Wolfram, founder of Wolfram Research, creator of Mathematica and the Wolfram Language, and a pioneer in computation and complexity. Stephen reframes intelligence not as a privileged human trait, but as one expression of a vast computational universe. From weather systems to geological processes, he argues that nature...

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with John Smart, Director of the EvoDevo Institute and a longtime futures theorist whose work spans accelerating change, developmental systems, and the long-term trajectory of intelligence. In this episode, we go deep on John’s view that intelligence does not evolve randomly, but instead progresses through constrained developmenta...

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is a conversation with Dr. Susan Schneider, a philosopher of mind and consciousness researcher whose work focuses on AI consciousness, mind uploading, and the long-run future of intelligence. In this episode, we explore why “life” and “consciousness” shouldn’t be treated as the same thing, why fluent chatbots can convincingly perform the concept...

This installment of the Worthy Successor series is a conversation with Brian Thomas Swimme, a cosmologist and philosopher of science, and a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. Brian’s work begins from a destabilizing claim: that humanity is not the center of value, but an expression of a much larger creative process. Rather than asking how humans can remain...

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with David Sloan Wilson, an American evolutionary biologist, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences and Anthropology at Binghamton University, and co-founder of the Evolution Institute and ProSocial World.   In this conversation, we explore what it would mean for humanity to act as a steward of evolution itself -...

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Michael Johnson, a philosopher and neuroscientist who describes himself as working on "how to turn consciousness into a real science." Mike is known for his formalist approach to consciousness research and his work on the Symmetry Theory of Valence at the Qualia Research Institute. In this episode, we explore Mike&a...

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Robin Hanson - Associate Professor of Economics at George Mason University, economist, polymath, and author of The Age of Em. Hanson is one of the few thinkers who approaches the future of intelligence through the lens of deep evolutionary dynamics, cultural drift, and long-term civilizational viability. In this episode, we d...

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Joe Carlsmith, a senior advisor at Open Philanthropy, whose work spans AI alignment, moral uncertainty, and the philosophical foundations of value. In this conversation, Joe joins us in his personal capacity, not representing any brand or company, and offering his own thoughtful perspectives. In this episode, we explore Joe’s...

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Blaise Agüera y Arcas, Vice President and Fellow at Google, and CTO of Technology & Society. In this conversation, Blaise talks about how life and intelligence seem to move in a single direction - toward greater complexity and deeper interdependence. Blaise describes this movement as an arrow of evolution, shaped by coope...

This is an interview with Brad Carson, who served as a U.S. Congressman and as Under Secretary of the Army. Later, he served as the Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel & Readiness, and now serves as President of Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI). You might expect someone with deep roots in national security to see AGI through a purely competitive lens - a technological arm...

Joining us in our eleventh episode of our series AGI Governance on The Trajectory is Irakli Beridze, Director of the UNICRI Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics under the United Nations mandate. In this conversation, Irakli draws a stark contrast between yesterday’s arms-control templates and tomorrow’s AI. Chemical weapons were narrow, outdated, and ultimately unwanted. By contrast, ad...

Joining us in our tenth episode of our AGI Governance series on The Trajectory is Dean Xue Lan, longtime scholar of public policy and global governance, whose recent work centers on AI safety and international coordination. In this episode, Xue stresses that AGI governance must evolve as an adaptive network. The UN can set frameworks among nations, but companies, safety institutes, and industry as...

This is an interview with Joel Predd, a senior engineer at the RAND Corporation and co-author of RAND’s work on “five hard national security problems from AGI,”. In this conversation, Joel lays out a sober frame for leaders: treat AGI as technically credible but deeply uncertain; assume it will be transformational if it arrives; and recognize that the pace of progress is outstripping our capacity...