The Existential Hope Podcast

Foresight Institute
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Technology

The Existential Hope Podcast features in-depth conversations with scientists, technologists, and thinkers about the ideas that could shape a better future.  In contrast to both doom and hype narratives, we focus on what positive futures are possible through scientific and technological progress, and the decisions we make about it.  Existential Hope is an initiative of the Foresight Institute, an independent nonprofit that has been advancing technology for the benefit of life since 1986.  → Show notes, transcripts and resources: https://www.existentialhope.com/podcasts → Join our newsletter to get the best ideas from our podcast and opportunities to help build great futures: https://theexistentialhope.substack.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. 3d ago

    The safest AI might be one that doesn't know what we want | Stuart Russell

    For 50,000 of generations, humans have passed civilization down to their children. We could be the first generation to hand its future to AIs instead. Should we? Or could the best AI be the kind that chooses to step back and leave some things to us? In this episode we sit down with Stuart Russell, professor of computer science at UC Berkeley and co-author of the world's standard textbook on AI. He’s also a leading proponent of provably beneficial AI: systems that are safe by design because their only goal is to further human interests. We talk about: How AI has changed over the past 50 years, from simple game-playing programs to today's large language models Why handing an AI a fixed objective becomes dangerous once it is more capable than us, and what a safer approach could look like How an AI might learn what we really want, even when we don't fully know ourselves How the race toward more powerful AI can still be steered somewhere safer What happens to human purpose as AI becomes more and more capable Chapters: 0:00 Cold open 0:39 How AI has changed over the past 50 years, from chess to large language models 4:15 What is the standard model of AI and why does it fail? 12:08 What is provably beneficial AI? 17:49 Teaching AI to learn from humans, even when we make bad choices 20:11 How can we steer AI development in a safer direction? 28:01 International cooperation on AI safety 30:41 What a good AI future could look like 35:38 Protecting human purpose: should AI step back? 39:15 How young people can get involved in AI safety 40:47 Stuart Russell's best advice On the Existential Hope Podcast hosts Allison Duettmann and Beatrice Erkers from the Foresight Institute invite scientists, founders, and philosophers for in-depth conversations on positive, high-tech futures. Full transcript, listed resources, and more: https://www.existentialhope.com/podcasts Follow on X. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  2. Sep 22

    How a board game helps Google DeepMind plan for AI in science

    Google DeepMind has a 7-hour-long roleplaying game that helps real scientists and policy makers understand how AI will transform science by 2030. And those who played it have found it more informative than any policy brief. In this episode, Zoë Brammer and Ankur Vora, who lead strategic foresight at Google DeepMind, walk us through why they developed the game and the surprising learnings from it. We cover: What strategic foresight actually means and why AI is so complicated to plan aroundWhy the game deliberately centers around "middle power" countries like the UK, Germany, or Singapore instead of the US and ChinaThe unexpected tradeoffs and discoveries participants come across while playing the game, including how fragile public trust in science funding really isWhy human scientists will become more relevant as AI takes on more of the science itself Timestamps: 0:00 Cold open 0:59 How Zoë and Ankur ended up at Google DeepMind 3:44 Why five-year plans don't work 4:23 What “strategic foresight” actually means 6:57 Finding common ground between different visions of the future 9:04 Why DeepMind built a role-playing game about science in 2030 13:42 How the Science 2030 game actually works 16:31 Why the game focuses on middle powers, not the US and China 17:42 The surprising range of technologies counted as “AI for science” 19:49 What the Science 2030 games have revealed so far 25:07 Do scientists feel powerless in an AI-driven future? 27:40 Why run this experiment inside an AI lab? 28:56 Zoë and Ankur's best-case scenario for AI and science 30:48 Advice for young people who want to shape how AI develops On the Existential Hope Podcast hosts Allison Duettmann and Beatrice Erkers from the Foresight Institute invite scientists, founders, and philosophers for in-depth conversations on positive, high-tech futures. Full transcript, listed resources, and more: https://www.existentialhope.com/podcasts Follow on X. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  3. Sep 16

    Civic tech in action: how 447 random citizens fixed an AI deepfake crisis | Audrey Tang

    In 2024, Taiwan was flooded with deepfake scam ads. Instead of a crackdown, the government texted 200,000 random citizens: what should we do? People’s proposals became law within months, and by 2025 deepfake ads were down 94%. In this episode, we speak with Audrey Tang, Taiwan's former digital minister. A self-taught programmer who dropped out at 14, she first helped occupy Taiwan's parliament during the 2014 Sunflower Movement, then joined the government two years later. We cover: How Audrey went from organizing a 2014 parliamentary occupation to becoming Taiwan's digital minister two years laterHer case for accelerating some AI capabilities and deliberately slowing others, and how she decides which is whichHow 447 randomly selected citizens drafted Taiwan's deepfake legislationAudrey’s proposal for AI systems that belong to local communities rather than sitting in a remote cloudWhy she thinks being a "good enough ancestor" for future generations is more useful than trying to perfectly optimize the future This episode is part of our AI Pathways series, where we explore the choices we can still make about how AI gets built. Chapters: 0:00 Cold open 0:48 How the Sunflower Movement led Audrey Tang into government 3:06 What is d/acc, and how does it work in practice? 5:39 How do you make democratic deliberation actually work? 6:49 Civic tech in action: Taiwan's deepfake scam crisis, and how citizens solved it 9:10 What a d/acc world could look like in 10 years 11:09 What frontier AI labs get right about public input 13:13 What AI labs are doing wrong on closing the public input loop 15:14 Can Taiwan's model work anywhere else? 18:10 Can one person cause catastrophic harm with AI? 22:02 Where Audrey Tang disagrees with the mainstream d/acc take 24:10 What Audrey Tang got wrong about transparency 26:36 What does it mean to be a "good enough ancestor"? 28:20 How to start your own civic AI project 30:25 The best advice Audrey Tang ever received On the Existential Hope Podcast hosts Allison Duettmann and Beatrice Erkers from the Foresight Institute invite scientists, founders, and philosophers for in-depth conversations on positive, high-tech futures. Full transcript, listed resources, and more: https://www.existentialhope.com/podcasts Follow on X. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  4. Aug 26

    What happens when you let an AI run a science lab

    There are AIs running labs with little human intervention right now. And they’re doing experiments that human experts would never try. Is this changing what and how science gets done?  In this episode, we speak with Antony “Ant” Rowstron, who has worked with ARIA (the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency) on their biggest bet to date.  We cover: How ARIA funded twelve teams to build AI scientists that can run an entire research process: generating hypotheses, designing experiments, and carrying them out without continuous human intervention. What AI scientists are actually achieving now, from personalized cancer vaccines to molecules that stimulate our own immune response to new viruses in 48 hours.How we could train AIs on the tacit, hands-on knowledge only human scientists have.How AI hallucinations might actually be useful for scientific discovery.How labs and the role of human scientists will change as AI automates more and more parts of the research process. Chapters: 0:00 Cold open 1:14 What is an AI scientist? (the three-layer stack behind it) 3:48 What AI scientists can do in practice: quantum dots, cancer vaccines, and AI-designed antigens 8:17 Inside ARIA's AI scientist grant: 245 applications, 12 teams, 9 months 11:36 What can an AI scientist actually achieve in nine months? 16:33 How will the role of the human scientist change in the future? 18:42 Can AI scientists work outside a computer, in the physical world? 21:20 What will the lab of the future look like? 25:34 How to capture the tacit knowledge only scientists in the room have 29:32 Do AI scientists trained on the same data lose their creativity? 31:17 Why AI hallucinations might actually help scientific discovery 39:56 Career advice for young people who want to work on AI for science 45:21 Ant Rowstron's existential hope vision for AI in science 46:10 What Ant would do if not at ARIA 46:38 The best piece of advice Ant ever received On the Existential Hope Podcast hosts Allison Duettmann and Beatrice Erkers from the Foresight Institute invite scientists, founders, and philosophers for in-depth conversations on positive, high-tech futures. Full transcript, listed resources, and more: https://www.existentialhope.com/podcasts Follow on X. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  5. Jul 28

    The only 12 proven self-help tools for a meaningful life and improving the world

    There's an overwhelming amount of self-help advice out there, which makes it really hard to know what will work for you. But it turns out that over 450 self-help techniques from 100 books and 20 types of therapy actually boil down to just 12 tools. In this episode, we talk with Spencer Greenberg, a mathematician and founder of the psychology research nonprofit Clearer Thinking. He recently co-authored the book The 12 Levers with clinical psychologist Jeremy Stevenson, to cut through the noise of self-help and provide people with the smallest number of concrete tools they can leverage in different situations. We cover: How nearly 500 self-help techniques got narrowed down into 12 core psychological strategies, and how to use them.Why most people live by values they absorbed from their parents or environment rather than ones they actually chose, and how to figure out what your own values are.The real formula for productivity, which takes into account how important the work actually is.Why hopelessness is often less about the state of the world than about feeling unable to act, plus the single most evidence-backed exercise for building genuine optimism. The exposure therapy techniques he used to overcome severe social anxiety. Chapters: 0:00 Cold open 0:52 How 459 self-help techniques boil down to just 12 levers 2:36 Does self-help need to be evidence-based? 4:40 Why understanding yourself can change the world 5:42 Are you living on your values or someone else’s values? 7:11 How to figure out what you actually value 8:03 Pleasurable life vs meaningful life: what actually makes you fulfilled? 9:39 Redefining productivity: on the importance of the work vs hours and efficiency 11:46 Optimism vs hope, and training yourself to be more optimistic 15:21 Why Spencer wrote The 12 Levers, and how he beat his own social anxiety 18:14 Which levers are hardest to maintain and self development as an ongoing journey 20:01 Overwhelmed by 12 levers? Where to start 22:26 How to create meaning in your life through your values 26:26 Advice for young people who feel hopeless about the future 28:15 Designing an AI assistant that pushes you toward your values 31:39 What would it look like if everyone used the 12 levers? 32:56 When to accept things vs when to fight for change 36:55 Why your self-help knowledge might have blind spots 38:13 Spencer's existential hope vision for AI 38:48 The technology Spencer wants to see built 39:14 What Spencer would do instead of his current work 39:58 The best piece of advice Spencer ever received On the Existential Hope Podcast hosts Allison Duettmann and Beatrice Erkers from the Foresight Institute invite scientists, founders, and philosophers for in-depth conversations on positive, high-tech futures. Full transcript, listed resources, and more: https://www.existentialhope.com/podcasts Follow on X. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  6. Jul 16

    How tech can earn public trust and why 21st century science needs 21st century funding | Dorothy Chou

    What does it take to fund a Nobel Prize-winning idea? Apparently, not a Nobel Prize. AlphaFold solved the shape of 200 million proteins in one shot, a problem that used to take a PhD four years per protein, and biotech investment still fell. Funding isn’t the only problem tech is facing: it has also never been good at talking to the people it builds for. Is that a coincidence? In this episode, we speak with Dorothy Chou, who ran Google DeepMind's Public Engagement Lab for nine years. She now advises DeepMind and chairs UCLPartners, an organization connecting new technology to the UK's National Health Service.  We cover: What made AlphaFold possible in the first place and how we can replicate its success in other domainsWhy neither venture capital nor governments can fund biology on biology's actual timeline, and Dorothy’s proposed solutionWhy AI could help redirect money the ideas that will actually help people the most, not just the ones that are easiest to fundraise for How AI companies are about to repeat the public engagement mistake the biotech industry already made onceHer advice for young people who feel like they're not the expert in the room Chapters: 0:00 Cold open 1:00 Why Dorothy Chou is leaving Google DeepMind after nine years 4:26 How do we actually use AI for good? 6:12 What is DeepMind's public engagement lab? 9:53 The AlphaFold breakthrough, explained 12:37 Why funding science is stuck in the 20th century 15:30 How governments and investors should fund AI for science 19:21 Other AI for science projects worth watching 22:11 What is blended finance for science? 24:44 Is funding for AI-driven science finally picking up? 26:05 What could an AlphaFold moment look like in 10 years? 28:33 Why venture capital and biotech investors don't understand each other 30:08 How AI could level the playing field for science funding 31:43 The fusion project Dorothy wishes more people knew about 33:04 Why public imagination matters as much as public policy 36:06 How do we build more public imagination? 39:11 Advice for people who want to work at this intersection of AI and science 41:11 The best advice Dorothy's ever received On the Existential Hope Podcast hosts Allison Duettmann and Beatrice Erkers from the Foresight Institute invite scientists, founders, and philosophers for in-depth conversations on positive, high-tech futures. Full transcript, listed resources, and more: https://www.existentialhope.com/podcasts Follow on X. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  7. Jun 18

    AI learned to be a villain from Hollywood. Here's how we retrain it. | Peter Diamandis

    Science fiction has always shaped the technologies we build, from the submarine to the smartphone. But almost every story we've ever told about AI is dystopian. And now we're training AI on those stories. In this episode, we spoke with Peter Diamandis, entrepreneur and founder of the XPRIZE Foundation, which runs large-scale incentive competitions to crack some of the world's hardest problems, from private spaceflight to carbon removal. He recently launched the Future Vision XPRIZE, a $3.5 million competition to generate a new wave of optimistic science fiction.  We cover: The historical pattern of science fiction shaping the technologies we build, and why Peter thinks this makes the stories we tell about AI especially high stakes right nowHow Claude’s blackmailing behavior showed the connection between dystopian training data and AI behavior How the Future Vision XPRIZE will generate a new wave of optimistic science fiction to train AI onWhy public optimism about technology has dropped significantly in the US and Europe, what Peter thinks is driving it, and why he believes the data tells a different storyHow the cost of starting a company has fallen dramatically and how this can empower you to build your visionWhy Peter thinks traditional education is no longer preparing young people for the future, and what he sees replacing it If you would like to get in touch with Foresight’s community of scientists to get help for your XPRIZE submission, please reach out to existentialhope@foresight.org. Chapters: 0:00 Cold open 1:25 Why Peter Diamandis created the Future Vision XPRIZE 5:57 Is it harder to recruit for a culture prize than a science one? 11:38 How do you design a great XPRIZE? 14:19 What would you measure in 10 years to know this worked? 19:34 Why scientists should team up with filmmakers on the Future Vision XPRIZE 22:16 Beyond film: the case for rebooting games, journalism, and education 27:29 Why sci-fi turned so dark: the evolutionary reason we focus on doom 31:12 Peter's favorite positive sci-fi examples (besides Star Trek) 31:56 Real-world inventions that started as sci-fi 32:46 How AI has democratized the ability to build the future 33:50 How to counter the anti-tech narrative 38:04 Peter's advice for anyone thinking of submitting to the Future Vision XPRIZE 39:11 What does Peter Diamandis's ideal future actually look like? 40:13 The technology Peter most wants to exist 40:39 What's underhyped and what's overhyped right now? 42:05 The best piece of advice Peter has ever received On the Existential Hope Podcast hosts Allison Duettmann and Beatrice Erkers from the Foresight Institute invite scientists, founders, and philosophers for in-depth conversations on positive, high-tech futures. Full transcript, listed resources, and more: https://www.existentialhope.com/podcasts Follow on X. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  8. May 27

    Why people agree on the future more than the present, and what it means for governance

    Political polarization might have a surprisingly simple fix: ask people what they want for their communities in 50 years instead of today, and their answers start to look remarkably similar. But almost no political system is built to plan that long-term. In this episode we talk to Taylor Dee Hawkins, founder of Foundations for Tomorrow, a nonprofit pushing for long-term governance reform in Australia and internationally. We cover topics like: Why the problem with political leadership isn't individual leaders, but the incentive structures and systems designed to reward short-term decisions at the expense of long-term onesWhy naming political procrastination is the first step to solving itHow Foundations of Tomorrow secured cross-party support in a polarized parliament by making the economic case for long-term policy rather than the moral oneWhy planning for the future doesn’t have to come at the expense of present generationsTaylor’s advice for a young person who wants to get started in long-term policy, and what she has learned from years of being the youngest person in the room Timestamps: 0:00 Cold open 0:56 From climate advocacy to long-term governance: founding Foundations for Tomorrow 3:07 What made Taylor quit her job during COVID and start an organization 4:18 Why bad leadership isn't the problem, but broken incentive structures are 5:53 Policrastination: naming political procrastination so we can tackle it 6:59 What can actually be done about political short-termism 9:08 Governments leading the way on long-term thinking: Finland, Wales, Singapore, Kenya 13:17 The biggest misconception about long-term governance 14:29 How long-term thinking earns cross-party support in a polarized parliament 16:06 What the world looks like if every country takes future generations seriously 18:14 When long-term thinking goes wrong 19:25 Why one-solution thinking is the most overhyped idea in governance reform 20:44 The sharpest critiques of Taylor's work and what they've taught her 22:42 How governance can keep pace with fast-moving technology 24:12 Being the youngest person in the room: what Taylor does about it 25:58 How to break into long-term governance work 29:29 How to stay anchored to the long term when everything pulls you short-term 30:26 Taylor's existential hope vision for the future 31:13 The technology Taylor wishes existed 31:39 What Taylor would be doing if not this 31:57 The best piece of advice Taylor has ever received On the Existential Hope Podcast hosts Allison Duettmann and Beatrice Erkers from the Foresight Institute invite scientists, founders, and philosophers for in-depth conversations on positive, high-tech futures. Full transcript, listed resources, and more: https://www.existentialhope.com/podcasts Follow on X. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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About

The Existential Hope Podcast features in-depth conversations with scientists, technologists, and thinkers about the ideas that could shape a better future.  In contrast to both doom and hype narratives, we focus on what positive futures are possible through scientific and technological progress, and the decisions we make about it.  Existential Hope is an initiative of the Foresight Institute, an independent nonprofit that has been advancing technology for the benefit of life since 1986.  → Show notes, transcripts and resources: https://www.existentialhope.com/podcasts → Join our newsletter to get the best ideas from our podcast and opportunities to help build great futures: https://theexistentialhope.substack.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Information

  • Creator
    Foresight Institute
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    43
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Foresight Institute
  • Show Website
    The Existential Hope Podcast

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