Futurology
Berggruen Institute
The future never arrives all at once. It ripples through society long before we know what to call it.At the Berggruen Institute, we know that we need more than prediction to name what’s next; we need invention. Each week, Institute President Dawn Nakagawa introduces us to scientists and philosophers recalibrating our cosmologies, technologists coming to terms with alien intelligence, and policymakers scrambling to design systems for a world in flux. Join thinkers and doers from the Berggruen-verse as we imagine a future that we can accomplish together, instead of one that we’re all working to prevent.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Oct 28, 2026 • 1h 32min
Who Won the Election? AI Will Answer Before It Knows (with Renée DiResta and Dawn Nakagawa)
Renée DiResta, a Georgetown propaganda researcher and author of Invisible Rulers, explores how influence campaigns shape public belief. She discusses online communities, influencers, algorithms, and the “warm war” of information. The conversation turns to AI’s quieter electoral threats: synthetic consensus, automated persuasion, search systems that amplify uncertainty, and a dangerous slide from misinformation into universal doubt.
Oct 22, 2026 • 47min
How the UN Stopped World War III (with Shashi Tharoor and Nathan Gardels)
Shashi Tharoor, Indian politician, author, and former UN Under-Secretary-General, explores how the UN helped avert global catastrophe and why its authority has weakened. They discuss India’s evolving place in world affairs, globalization without trust, social media’s fractured politics, and the youth uprisings challenging broken systems. Tharoor also contrasts pluralist Hinduism with exclusionary nationalism.
11 snips
Oct 15, 2026 • 1h 17min
There's No Mystery About AI Consciousness (with Geoffrey Lee and Grant Slater)
Geoffrey Lee, a UC Berkeley philosopher of mind, joins producer Grant Slater to explore consciousness in humans, animals, and machines. They question whether consciousness can be measured, examine physicalism, no-self, and competing theories of experience, and consider whether AI could deserve moral concern. The conversation probes AI welfare, politics, spirituality, and how society might respond to artificial minds.
Oct 6, 2026 • 1h 37min
Multispecies Democracy Now! (with Jonathon Keats and Grant Slater)
Jonathon Keats, an experimental philosopher, artist, and author, imagines democracy beyond humanity. They explore whether trees, fungi, rivers, and other life forms can participate politically, how bristlecone pines preserve climate history, and why different species inhabit different timescales. The conversation also probes AI consciousness, ecological networks, technology, and the challenge of expanding our definition of “we.”
10 snips
Sep 29, 2026 • 1h 5min
Let AI Have Intelligence. We’ll Keep Wisdom. (with Arianna Huffington and Dawn Nakagawa)
Arianna Huffington, media entrepreneur and Thrive Global founder, explores what remains uniquely human in an age of AI. They discuss wisdom versus intelligence, the soul, consciousness, love, and the limits of machine capability. The conversation also covers burnout, spiritual growth, education, personalized health, human nature, and why society must cultivate compassion and purpose alongside technological progress.
17 snips
Sep 17, 2026 • 1h 8min
Are We Posthuman? (with N. Katherine Hayles and Claire Webb)
N. Katherine Hayles, pioneering scholar of technology, literature, and posthumanism, explores how cognition extends beyond humans to plants, bacteria, machines, and microbial communities. She examines analog computing, embodied intelligence, machine aesthetics, radically different lifeworlds, and humanity’s growing symbiosis with AI. The conversation asks what remains distinctly human in an increasingly planetary cognitive web.
101 snips
Sep 9, 2026 • 1h 40min
God Is In the Machine (with Kevin Kelly and Nils Gilman)
Kevin Kelly, technologist, author, photographer, and Wired co-founder, explores AI through a cosmic and spiritual lens. He argues the singularity may already be underway, with multiple kinds of machine intelligence reshaping human identity. They discuss AI morality, religious wisdom, human enhancement, plural AIs, nonhuman rights, and a hopeful vision of technology, society, and nature evolving together.
Aug 18, 2026 • 1h 17min
Gamble on Anything. Except Murder. (with Bobby Allyn and Grant Slater)
Bobby Allyn, an NPR tech correspondent who covers prediction markets, TikTok, and platform policy, walks through the rise of Kalshi and Polymarket. He explores how these markets work, why insiders and AI matter, and the ethics and political risks when bets start shaping reality. Short, sharp conversation about regulation, manipulation, and the future of prediction-driven incentives.
15 snips
Aug 11, 2026 • 1h 8min
There's No Such Thing as a Free Agent (with Gillian Tett and Dawn Nakagawa)
Gillian Tett, anthropologist and Financial Times columnist who studies how culture shapes markets, explores how AI masquerades as a helpful companion while hollowing out real agency. She discusses shifting trust from institutions to crowds, AI’s subtle influence via personalization, and why analog experiences and liberal-arts thinking are becoming protective luxuries.
Aug 4, 2026 • 52min
We're Winning the Race to Replace Ourselves (with Tristan Harris and Dawn Nakagawa)
Tristan Harris, co‑founder of the Center for Humane Technology and public advocate on tech harms, discusses the race to build AGI. He frames the rush as a solvable global coordination problem. He talks about geopolitical arms‑race dynamics, asymmetric breakthroughs, labor replacement, and how to steer incentives toward safer, human‑centered outcomes.
