Futurology

The ever-branching network of lakes, rivers, and streams that flow west from the Rockies enable human life to flourish in one of the hottest places on Earth. This is a “cyborg watershed” – part natural, part machine, and wholly entangled with the myths and machinery of the region. In this episode, LA-based artist Lauren Bon joins Futurology producer Grant Slater to trace the path of her large-scale artworks that intervene in that system, blurring the lines between art, engineering, and activism. The conversation moves through buried waterways, the choreography of permits and politics, and the search for a civic identity grounded in the flow of water rather than the lines on a map.

Rana Dasgupta, a writer investigating the fading liberal order, teams up with Jonathan Blake, a political scientist focused on global governance, to discuss the unraveling of the nation-state. They delve into how national identity is evolving amidst climate change and digital connectivity. The duo explores the historical ties between state and religion, the necessity of adaptable governance structures, and the potential for transnational identities to promote global harmony. Their conversation is a thought-provoking reflection on belonging in a chaotic world.

Thomas Moynihan, a historian focused on human extinction, teams up with Benjamin Bratton, a philosopher of technology. Together, they explore how humanity's understanding of time and extinction has evolved, shifting from religious prophecies to scientific realities. They discuss the cosmic significance of extinction, the ethical implications of AI and planetary intelligence, and how these ideas change our obligations to future generations. Their conversation dives deep into the interconnectedness of life and technology, urging listeners to rethink existence and responsibility.

In the 21st century, Silicon Valley has coded into existence a vast memetic machinery — a self-replicating ecosystem of feedback loops, default settings, and algorithms now steering society at scale. Increasingly, it appears this emergent cyberocracy no longer wants to disrupt the world, but to govern it. In this episode, veteran journalist John Markoff teases out novel strands of thought that are increasingly embedded in the DNA of Washington, DC. From Palo Alto to the Pentagon, from Burning Man to the Beltway, we must reckon with a new networked system of systems where power flows through their servers, not the Senate.

On America’s 250th birthday, historian Niall Ferguson suggests that the US has reached an age when most republics fizzle out. Donald Trump’s rise is merely a symptom of this late-stage unspooling of an empire that America could never quite escape. In this episode, Ferguson tells the story of a republic that burns hot, forgets fast, and could smolder on the ash heap of history sooner than we expect in the face of a second Cold War that has already begun with a more formidable and AI-empowered foe.

Stephen Batchelor has spent decades stripping Buddhism of its dogma to find what wisdom it can offer the modern world. Could cities and countries run on karma instead of capital? In this episode, he sketches a vision of society grounded in awareness, compassion, and radical interdependence — a politics of presence rather than power. Stripped of its cosmologies, he argues, a secular Buddhism could light the way toward an ethical response to a world on fire.

Before robots can act, they need to know where they are. That’s the deceptively simple premise behind the latest effort from machine vision pioneer Fei-Fei Li. She's building a Large World Model that will enable artificial intelligences to situate themselves in our reality and create entirely new worlds of their own, for human minds to inhabit. In this episode, we trace the evolution of artificial perception — from the early days of visual machine learning with stoplights and puppies to today's efforts to put robots in their place.

If we ever land on another planet, we won’t be the first to arrive. It will be our machines — the ones we’ve trained, calibrated, and loaded onto rockets – who will roam alien landscapes. In this episode, NASA roboticist Vandi Verma takes us inside the mind of a Mars rover — and into the process of building, steering, and co-evolving with machines that learn as they go. As we aim for unwelcoming planets and stranger moons, our robots must grow bolder to survive. With artificial intelligence on board, will they evolve to lead the search for life itself?

More than three decades ago, Francis Fukuyama saw the future: a world order that looked inevitable, stable, liberal. What emerged instead is something bumpier, louder, and far more dangerous. In this episode, Fukuyama takes us on a ride through the strange resurrection of 19th-century power politics, the rise of political strongmen, and the collapse of trust that can dooms institutions to failure. We discuss what’s left to salvage – and what a bureaucracy of the future could accomplish.

Futurology is a new a weekly podcast from the Berggruen Institute where we work to name what’s next. Join us as we imagine a future we can accomplish together, instead of one we must all work to prevent.