The Hype vs. Reality of AI Innovations

AI is moving faster than most of us can comprehend. But what if our edge isn’t in outthinking machines—but in outflowing them?

In this episode, Steven Kotler sits down with two of the sharpest minds shaping our technological future: Peter Diamandis, founder of the XPRIZE and a pioneer of exponential thinking, and Mo Gawdat, former Chief Business Officer at Google X and bestselling author of Scary Smart. Together, they unpack how artificial intelligence is changing everything—from productivity and purpose to risk, resilience, and what it means to stay human at speed.

If you're feeling overwhelmed by the pace of change, this episode offers tools rooted in neuroscience, performance psychology, and hard-earned experience at the bleeding edge of innovation.

You'll Learn:

• Why intuition, context, and creativity are still uniquely human superpowers.

• How to use flow states to outperform exponential tech (instead of being crushed by it).

• Why training risk tolerance and recovery are essential survival skills in a synthetic world.

Peter Diamandis: Recently named one of Fortune’s “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders,” Peter Diamandis is the Founder and Executive Chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, which has launched over $500 million in incentive prize competitions. He also founded Singularity University and has started more than 25 companies in healthtech, space, venture capital, and education.

Diamandis is Co-founder and Vice-Chairman of Celularity and Vaxxinity, and Chairman of Fountain Life—a platform for predictive, preventative, and data-driven health. He also co-founded BOLD Capital Partners, a $500 million fund investing in exponential technologies and longevity companies.

A four-time New York Times bestselling author, his books include Abundance, BOLD, The Future is Faster Than You Think, LIFE FORCE (with Tony Robbins), and LONGEVITY: Your Practical Playbook.

Mo Gawdat: Mo Gawdat is the former Chief Business Officer of Google [X]; host of the popular podcast, Slo Mo: A Podcast with Mo Gawdat; author of the international bestselling books Solve for Happy; Scary Smart; That Little Voice in Your Head; and Unstressable; founder of One Billion Happy; and Chief AI Officer of Flight Story.

After a 30 year career in tech and serving as Chief Business Officer at Google [X], Google's 'moonshot factory' of innovation, Mo has made happiness his primary topic of research, diving deeply into literature and conversing on the topic with some of the wisest people in the world. In recent years, he has focused on the dangerous implications of rapid AI development.

In This Episode:

02:15 The False Promise of AI Productivity

06:41 Why Flow Beats the Busy Trap

11:02 Synthetic Intelligence, Human Reflection

17:48 You Can’t Outthink AI—But You Can Outflow It

23:05 Risk Tolerance: The Real Cognitive Upgrade

29:17 The Burnout Feedback Loop

36:44 Training Your Brain for Warp Speed

42:10  How AI Mirrors Your Attention Patterns 

48:19 Peak Performance as an Existential Choice

55:31The Human Advantage: Intuition, Context, Creativity

Flow Radio Is Presented By Steven Kotler’s Flow Research Collective.

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Flow Research Collective was founded by Steven Kotler, one of the world’s leading experts on human peak performance. He is an award-winning journalist and author with over ten bestselling books.

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