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.

  1. 4d ago

    The Future Is a Human Invention (with Dean Buonomano and Grant Slater)

    Nothing on Earth plans like we do. A chimpanzee will use a tool, then walk away from it. A child takes years to learn that tomorrow is coming. Somewhere in our past, an ape started saving tools for a day that didn't exist yet. That move gave us agriculture, markets, and the knowledge that we will die. The future isn't out there waiting. The brain built it. In this episode, Dean Buonomano, the UCLA neuroscientist behind Your Brain Is a Time Machine, follows that invention through the mind. There is no clock in the head; every circuit keeps its own time. Consciousness is a process, not a state. The brain stays blind to itself. The modern world moves faster than it can absorb. Psychedelics, he argues, reveal no truer reality than the one evolution already tested. And our fear of AI, he suspects, is an older fear of each other. Subscribe to Futurology on YouTube: https://bit.ly/subscribe_futurology The Futurology Podcast – full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwkiuf1eRbAAHP4p--2IFJbn0CIdaZMva Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk Mentioned in this Episode: Your Brain Is a Time Machine: The Neuroscience and Physics of Time — Dean Buonomano (Book, 2017) How to Change Your Mind — Michael Pollan (Book, 2018) The Time Machine — H.G. Wells (Book, 1895) Bridging the Neuroscience and Physics of Time — Dean Buonomano & Carlo Rovelli (Preprint, 2021) The Perception of Time (The Principles of Psychology, Ch. XV) — William James (Book chapter, 1890) Where to find Dean Buonomano: Lab: buonomanolab.com UCLA: faculty profile Bluesky: @deanbuono.bsky.social Book: Your Brain Is a Time Machine Show ideas and feedback? Email: futurology@berggruen.org Learn more about the Berggruen Institute  https://www.berggruen.org Follow Futurology! Instagram:   / futurologypod Twitter/X:   / futurologypod Tiktok:   / futurologypod Facebook:   / berggrueninst   LinkedIn:   / berggrueninst   Bluesky:   / futurologypod Credits  Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney Theme Music: Marcus Bagala Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott Wilson Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

  2. Nov 5

    Is Dissent Even Possible Under AI Surveillance? (with Julia Angwin and Dawn Nakagawa)

    There was a time when anyone who called their phone a surveillance device sounded paranoid. Turns out, they weren’t paranoid enough. In the last 15 years, Silicon Valley built the most complete surveillance machine in history to sell ads, not to serve a state. Now the people who own it want what authoritarians want, and authoritarians have always wanted what they built. In this episode, investigative journalist Julia Angwin lays out what turns a bystander into a dissident. For her book “On Courage,” she interviewed more than 100 of them, and almost none described a brave decision. They described a collision between the fear of losing a job or their freedom and a larger fear of who they’d become by staying quiet. Most said it wasn’t a choice. Now that collision comes with a new condition no dissident before has faced: the other side can see everything, and AI can now sense of it all. Subscribe to Futurology on YouTube: bit.ly/subscribe_futurology The Futurology Podcast – full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwkiuf1eRbAAHP4p--2IFJbn0CIdaZMva Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk Mentioned in this Episode: On Courage: How to Be a Dissident in an Age of Fear — Julia Angwin & Ami Fields-Meyer (Book, 2026)Dragnet Nation — Julia Angwin (Book, 2014) Stealing MySpace — Julia Angwin (Book, 2009) Machine Bias — Julia Angwin, Jeff Larson, Surya Mattu & Lauren Kirchner (Article, 2016)What They Know — Julia Angwin (WSJ series, 2010)  Why Civil Resistance Works — Erica Chenoweth & Maria J. Stephan (Book, 2011)   Patriot: A Memoir — Alexei Navalny (Book, 2024) Where to find Julia Angwin: Website: juliaangwin.com Newsletter: buttondown.com/JuliaAngwin New York Times Profile: https://www.nytimes.com/by/julia-angwin Show ideas and feedback? Email: futurology@berggruen.org Learn more about the Berggruen Institute  https://www.berggruen.org Follow Futurology! Instagram:   / futurologypod Twitter/X:   / futurologypod Tiktok:   / futurologypod Facebook:   / berggrueninst   LinkedIn:   / berggrueninst   Bluesky:   / futurologypod Credits  Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney Theme Music: Marcus Bagala Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott Wilson Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

  3. Oct 28

    Who Won the Election? AI Will Answer Before It Knows (with Renée DiResta and Dawn Nakagawa)

    The fear of AI in politics has focused on the fakes: a doctored video attacking a candidate, a document alleging something that never happened. But barring a few high-profile examples, what’s really shown up has been far subtler and vaster. Endless AI political cartoons nobody’s fooled by, but everyone has to see. Chatbots fuel real-time rumors about voting machines and polling places before they have any real answers. In this episode, Renée DiResta, a propaganda researcher at Georgetown and author of Invisible Rulers, argues that the danger in this election is not deception but doubt. Campaigns have learned that AI answers with whatever it finds first, so they sprint to fill the gaps, while the institutions with real answers block the crawlers. When this is how information is formed, how do we build trust? Subscribe to Futurology on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Futurologypod The Futurology Podcast — full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwkiuf1eRbAAHP4p--2IFJbn0CIdaZMva Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk Mentioned in this Episode: Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality — Renée DiResta (Book, 2024) The Digital Maginot Line — Renée DiResta (Essay, 2018) The New Media Goliaths — Renée DiResta (Noema, 2023) The Right-Wing Attack on Wikipedia — Renée DiResta (The Atlantic, 2025) The Agency — Adrian Chen (The New York Times, 2015) When Prophecy Fails — Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken & Stanley Schachter (Book, 1956) Where to find Renée DiResta: Personal site: reneediresta.com Georgetown faculty page: Renée DiResta, Georgetown Substack: Agents of InfluenceX: @noUpsideShow ideas and feedback? Email: futurology@berggruen.org Learn more about the Berggruen Institute https://www.berggruen.org Follow Futurology! Instagram:  / futurologypod Twitter/X:  / futurologypod Tiktok:  / futurologypod Facebook:  / berggrueninst LinkedIn:  / berggrueninst Bluesky:  / futurologypod   Credits Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney Theme Music: Marcus Bagala Audio Engineer: Kyle Scott Wilson   Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

  4. Oct 22

    How the UN Stopped World War III (with Shashi Tharoor and Nathan Gardels)

    Hypocrisy, the old line goes, is the tribute vice pays to virtue. For eighty years, the powerful at least bothered to pay it, citing human rights, national security, and democracy as reasons for starting wars and undercutting liberties. Now the veneers have been stripped, and the next generation is not accepting business as usual. In this episode, author, Indian MP and former UN Under-Secretary-General Shashi Tharoor discusses how the order that prevented a third world war came apart, why a world more economically entangled than ever has less and less trust holding it together, and what the youth uprisings around the world have in common. His solution? A movement toward not just tolerance of differences, but acceptance of them. Subscribe to Futurology on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Futurologypod?sub_confirmation=1 The Futurology Podcast – full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwkiuf1eRbAAHP4p--2IFJbn0CIdaZMva Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk Why I Am a Hindu — Shashi Tharoor (Book, 2018) Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad — John Bolton (Book, 2007) Where to find Shashi Tharoor:  Personal site: shashitharoor.in Instagram: @shashitharoor  X: @ShashiTharoor Show ideas and feedback? Email: futurology@berggruen.org   Learn more about the Berggruen Institute https://www.berggruen.org   Follow Futurology Instagram:  / futurologypod Twitter/X:  / futurologypod Tiktok:  / futurologypod Facebook:  / berggrueninst LinkedIn:  / berggrueninst Bluesky:  / futurologypod   Credits Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney Theme Music: Marcus Bagala Audio Engineer: Kyle Scott Wilso Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

  5. Oct 15

    There's No Mystery About AI Consciousness (with Geoffrey Lee and Grant Slater)

    Machines are starting to act like humans. Does that mean they’re conscious? The problem is we haven’t been able to prove how or why humans are conscious yet either. So why would we be able to offer any answers about AI?  In this episode, Berkeley philosopher of mind Geoffrey Lee argues there are no facts coming to save the day when it comes to consciousness, so that shouldn’t be the point. If consciousness can’t be reliably proven or measured, why should we use it to tell us how we should treat other creatures or entities? Calling into question the entire field of consciousness science, Lee posits that consciousness is as consciousness does. And the interesting part is how humanity will embrace or reject machines that do consciousness quite convincingly. Subscribe to Futurology on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Futurologypod The Futurology Podcast — full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwkiuf1eRbAAHP4p--2IFJbn0CIdaZMva Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk Mentioned in this Episode: The Search for the Inner Light: Finding Consciousness in a Physical World — Geoffrey Lee (Book, forthcoming) AI Consciousness, Pluralism, and Anthropocentrism — Geoffrey Lee (Essay, 2026) Consciousness, Pseudo-Consciousness, and the Moral Significance of Consciousness — Geoffrey Lee (Essay, 2026) Selfless Experience — Geoffrey Lee (Essay, 2017) Alien Subjectivity and the Importance of Consciousness — Geoffrey Lee (Essay, 2018) Materialism and the Epistemic Significance of Consciousness — Geoffrey Lee (Essay, 2013) What Is It Like to Be a Bat? — Thomas Nagel (Essay, 1974) Where to find Geoffrey Lee: Faculty page: Geoffrey Lee, UC Berkeley Philosophy Personal site: geoffreyleephilosophy.com Show ideas and feedback? Email: futurology@berggruen.org   Learn more about the Berggruen Institute https://www.berggruen.org   Follow Futurology! Instagram:  / futurologypod Twitter/X:  / futurologypod Tiktok:  / futurologypod Facebook:  / berggrueninst LinkedIn:  / berggrueninst Bluesky:  / futurologypod   Credits Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney Theme Music: Marcus Bagala Audio Engineer: Kyle Scott Wilson   Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

  6. Oct 6

    Multispecies Democracy Now! (with Jonathon Keats and Grant Slater)

    Democracy counts people, not plants. Humans are only a sliver of life on this planet, but today, we're the only ones who get a vote. What if we gave rights to rivers and standing to trees?  In this episode, experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats says it's time to make every species count. The environmental movement has spent decades claiming to speak for the trees. In his new book, "A Field Guide to More-Than-Human Governance," Keats says we need to recognize that the trees can speak for themselves. He walks us through how we should expand the franchise by tapping the polling systems already in place from peat moss to slime mold and rodents to rhododendrons. Governance for all creatures, great and small. Subscribe to Futurology on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Futurologypod The Futurology Podcast — full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwkiuf1eRbAAHP4p--2IFJbn0CIdaZMva Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk Mentioned in this Episode:  A Field Guide to More-Than-Human Governance — Jonathon Keats (Book, 2026) — also as ePub Centuries of the Bristlecone — Jonathon Keats (Artwork, 2026) Assembly of Trees — Jonathon Keats (Artwork, 2024) Jargon Watch — Jonathon Keats (Wired column) A Portent of Climates to Come: On the Telling Rings of the Bristlecone Pine — Grant Slater (Film, 2013) Should Trees Have Standing? — Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects — Christopher D. Stone (Essay, 1972) 68 Quadrillion Underground Miles of Fungi — Emily Anthes (New York Times, 2026) Where to find Jonathon Keats: Berggruen Institute: https://berggruen.org/people/jonathon-keats Earth Law Center: https://www.earthlawcenter.org/jonathon-keats “A Field Guide to More-Than-Human Governance” (Berggruen Press, 2026): https://berggruen.org/library/a-field-guide-to-more-than-human-governance Show ideas and feedback? Email: futurology@berggruen.org   Learn more about the Berggruen Institute https://www.berggruen.org   Follow Futurology! Instagram:  / futurologypod Twitter/X:  / futurologypod Tiktok:  / futurologypod Facebook:  / berggrueninst LinkedIn:  / berggrueninst Bluesky:  / futurologypod   Credits   Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney Theme Music: Marcus Bagala Audio Engineer: Kyle Scott Wilson   Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

  7. Sep 29

    Let AI Have Intelligence. We’ll Keep Wisdom. (with Arianna Huffington and Dawn Nakagawa)

    Somewhere around the Enlightenment we decided that thinking was what made us human. We built our schools, careers, and sense of worth at the altar of intelligence. Now machines are passing us on that rubric, which leaves two possibilities: we were replaceable all along, or we picked the wrong standard to live by. In this episode, Arianna Huffington, founder & CEO of Thrive Global, argues the latter, saying even our name, sapiens, never meant intelligent: it means wise. She calls this rightsizing of intelligence the fourth dethronement, after Galileo, quantum physics, and Freud. What takes the throne now is the part of us she would simply call the soul. Subscribe to Futurology on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Futurologypod Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk Mentioned in this Episode: "AI's Greatest Gift To Humanity" — Arianna Huffington (Essay, 2026) The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time — Arianna Huffington (Book, 2016) Picasso: Creator and Destroyer — Arianna Huffington (Book, 1988) Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder — Arianna Huffington (Book, 2014) The Fourth Instinct: The Call of the Soul — Arianna Huffington (Book, 1994) After Reason — Arianna Huffington (Book, 1978) The Survival of the Wisest — Jonas Salk (Book, 1973) Where to find Arianna Huffington: Website: https://www.ariannahuffington.com Thrive Global: https://www.thriveglobal.com  LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ariannahuffington Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ariannahuff X: x.com/ariannahuff Facebook: facebook.com/AriannaHuffington Show ideas and feedback? Email: futurology@berggruen.org Learn more about the Berggruen Institute https://www.berggruen.org Follow Futurology! Instagram:  / futurologypod Twitter/X:  / futurologypod Tiktok:  / futurologypod Facebook:  / berggrueninst LinkedIn:  / berggrueninst Bluesky:  / futurologypod   Credits Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney Theme Music: Marcus Bagala Audio Engineer: Kyle Scott Wilson Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

  8. Sep 17

    Are We Posthuman? (with N. Katherine Hayles and Claire Webb)

    Relying on machines to coordinate our lives was just one step toward decentering humanity’s role in the world. Flights, banking, trade, food production... But as we start merging our actual decision-making with digital entities, exactly which pieces of humanity are we leaving behind? And how might we bring those pieces back? In this episode, famed posthumanist scholar N. Katherine Hayles makes the case that while AI is still wildly inefficient at the cognitive processes our biology has carefully perfected over millennia, we’re already irreversibly merged with it. Hayles has spent forty years at the intersection of science, tech, and literature, leading her to a radical interpretation of what it means to be human today: only as special as the organisms and machines we align ourselves with. Next up, she says, is those machines adopting the very analog processes that created them. Subscribe to the Berggruen Institute on YouTube to be the first to listen to new Futurology episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Berggrueninst Catch up on the Futurology conversation with full episodes on YouTube.  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyYCSKWs8iYgjg-mhu-EuhTrG0-adrb0c  Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk?si=XB2qyyGjT2ONMTd5XUKJAg&nd=1&dlsi=ac8cda6751834298 Mentioned in this Episode Books Bacteria to AI: Human Futures with Our Nonhuman Symbionts — N. Katherine Hayles (University of Chicago Press, 2025) How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics — N. Katherine Hayles (University of Chicago Press, 1999) The Cosmic Web: Scientific Field Models and Literary Strategies in the Twentieth Century — N. Katherine Hayles (Cornell University Press, 1984) Physical Computation: A Mechanistic Account — Gualtiero Piccinini (Oxford University Press, 2015) Parallel Minds: Discovering the Intelligence of Materials — Laura Tripaldi (Urbanomic, 2022) Solaris — Stanisław Lem (novel, 1961) Where to find N. Katherine Hayles UCLA English faculty page: https://english.ucla.edu/people-faculty/hayles-katherine-n/ Show ideas and feedback? Email: futurology@berggruen.org Learn more about the Berggruen Institute  https://www.berggruen.org Follow Futurology! Instagram:   / futurologypod Twitter/X:   / futurologypod Tiktok:   / futurologypod Facebook:   / berggrueninst   LinkedIn:   / berggrueninst   Bluesky:   / futurologypod Credits  Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney Theme Music: Marcus Bagala Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott Wilson Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

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About

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.

Information

  • Creator
    Berggruen Institute
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    60
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Berggruen Institute
  • Show Website
    Futurology

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