Futurology

Berggruen Institute
  • 5.0 (14)
  • SOCIETY & CULTURE
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

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. 4H AGO

    Should We Use CRISPR to Steer Human Evolution? (with Jennifer Doudna & Dawn Nakagawa)

    We live in a moment when the power to change the world often arrives before the wisdom to understand that power. CRISPR, a bacterial immunity process turned DNA editing tool, promises breakthroughs across scientific disciplines. But it also collapses long-standing boundaries between nature and human design. In this episode, Jennifer Doudna – Nobel Prize-winning chemist and founder of the Innovative Genomics Institute – reflects on the thrilling discovery of CRISPR as a gene-editing tool and what it means to suddenly possess the ability to edit the code of life itself. From the ongoing explosion of new opportunities to the shock of seeing ethical boundaries crossed in real time, is there a safe path forward in shaping the future of biological life as we know it? 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: The Double Helix — James D. Watson (Book, 1968) https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Double-Helix/James-D-Watson/9780743216302 The Pleasure of Finding Things Out — Richard P. Feynman (Book, 1999) https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/richard-p-feynman/the-pleasure-of-finding-things-out/9780465023951/ “The RNA World” — Walter Gilbert (Article, 1986) https://www.nature.com/articles/319618a0.pdf A Programmable Dual-RNA–Guided DNA Endonuclease in Adaptive Bacterial Immunity — Martin Jinek, Krzysztof Chylinski, Ines Fonfara, Michael Hauer, Jennifer A. Doudna, Emmanuelle Charpentier (Paper, 2012). https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1225829 “Generation of Gene-Modified Cynomolgus Monkey via Cas9/RNA-Mediated Gene Targeting in One-Cell Embryos” — Niu et al. (Paper, 2014) https://www.cell.com/fulltext/S0092-8674(14)00171-6 Infant with rare, incurable disease is first to successfully receive personalized gene therapy treatment – (Article, May 2025) https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/infant-rare-incurable-disease-first-successfully-receive-personalized-gene-therapy-treatment Human Genome Editing: Science, Ethics, and Governance — National Academies (Report, 2017) https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/24623/human-genome-editing-science-ethics-and-governance “Can CRISPR Cut Methane Emissions From Cow Guts?” — UC Davis (Article, 2023) https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/can-crispr-cut-methane-emissions-cow-gutsWhere to find Jennifer Doudna:  Website, Innovative Genomics Institute: https://innovativegenomics.org/people/jennifer-doudna/ Instagram, Innovative Genomics Institute: https://www.instagram.com/innovativegenomics/ Bluesky, Innovative Genomics Institute: https://bsky.app/profile/innovativegenomics.bsky.social Linkedin, Innovative Genomics Institute: https://www.linkedin.com/company/innovative-genomics-institute 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 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.

    1h 38m

  2. 6D AGO

    Our Mind Meld with Machines Is Coming (with Max Hodak and Nils Gilman)

    Big Tech already lives rent-free in our heads. The attention economy monetized and industrialized our mental real estate long ago. Now, with brain-computer interfaces, companies with ambitious names like Science are preparing to barge through the doors of perception and take up permanent residence inside our minds. In this episode, Hodak – a co-founder of Neuralink and now the founder and CEO of Science – is more familiar with how to create this mind meld with machines than nearly anyone on Earth. Hodak is part of a growing cadre of true believer tech accelerationists who  argue that humanity’s best chance to endure is to evolve alongside computers, wired together tightly enough that the boundary between tool and self starts to blur. 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 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyYCSKWs8iYgjg-mhu-EuhTrG0-adrb0c conversation with full episodes on YouTube. 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: Pantheon — Craig Silverstein; based on short stories by Ken Liu (Animated Television Series, 2022) The Hidden Girl and Other Stories — Ken Liu (Book, 2021) The Problems of Plenty: America, Abundance, and the Crisis of Global Power — Francis J. Gavin (Book, 2024)Where to find Max Hodak:  Website: maxhodak.com Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/maxhodak.bsky.social X: https://x.com/maxhodak Learn more about the Berggruen Institute  https://www.berggruen.org Follow Futurology! Instagram:   /futurologypod Twitter/X:   / 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.

    1h 8m

  3. JAN 27

    The Human Right to Tell Our Own Stories (with Daniel Kwan and Dawn Nakagawa)

    Daniel Kwan – the Oscar-winning co-director of Everything Everywhere All at Once – is a 21st-century filmmaker in the purest sense. He came up in the internet’s attention economy, making over-the-top viral videos that harnessed absurdity to cut through the noise. But as AI starts to generate its own strange media at scale, the surreal risks losing its charge in a world that already feels unreal. In this episode, Kwan argues that Hollywood is on the verge of industrializing imagination in the way we mass-produce food. If machines become the default authors of culture, we may end up awash in highly processed creativity – empty calories with an aftertaste of authenticity. To safeguard creativity in the age of AI, he co-founded the Creators Coalition on AI: a push for a new creative contract where the tools can change, but authorship stays human. 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: Chromeo - When The Night Falls (feat. Solange Knowles) (Music Video, 2011) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkyYxAv6kB4 Turn Down for What — DJ Snake & Lil Jon / Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert (Music Video, 2014) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_Down_for_What So Sorry Man — The Lonely Island / Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert (Music Video, 2009) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lonely_Island#Digital_shorts_and_music_videos The Power of Myth — Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers (Book, 1988) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Myth The Selfish Gene — Richard Dawkins (Book, 1976) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_GeneWhere to find Dan Kwan: Website, The Daniels: https://www.danieldaniel.us/  X, Dan Kwan:  https://x.com/dunkwun  X, The Daniels: https://x.com/Daniels  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dunkwun 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 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.

    1h 18m

  4. JAN 20

    Can 'Big Math' Solve for the Future? (with Terence Tao and Dawn Nakagawa)

    As AI floods the world with answers that merely sound right, math  tethers them to the need to be actually right.  New machine learning tools and collaboration platforms are pushing theoretical mathematics toward something bigger: large, open projects where progress is shared early; rabbit holes are avoided; and more people can contribute. In this episode, Terence Tao, a Fields Medal-winning mathematician at UCLA, lays out his case for “big math.” He explains what AI can do well — and where it still fails. The question isn’t whether machines can produce answers. It’s whether we can build systems, human and technical, that keep those answers tethered to truth. Resources Mentioned in this Episode: Green-Tao Theorem The Primes Contain Arbitrarily Long Arithmetic Progressions — Ben Green & Terence Tao (Paper, 2004) Observation of a New Boson at a Mass of 125 GeV With the CMS Experiment at the LHC — The CMS Collaboration (Paper, 2012) Where to find Terence Tao:  Mastodon: mathstodon.xyz/@tao  Blog: terrytao.wordpress.com Home Page: www.math.ucla.edu/~tao/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/teorth.bsky.socialShow ideas and feedback? Email: futurology@berggruen.org Learn more about the Berggruen Institute  https://www.berggruen.org Follow Futurology! Instagram:   /futurologypod Twitter/X:   / 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.

    1h 5m

  5. JAN 13

    Why Consciousness Matters in the Age of AI (with David Chalmers and Nils Gilman)

    It’s extremely difficult to doubt that you’re conscious, but still nearly impossible to explain why. As AI starts to speak in a voice that feels familiar, this ancient philosophical puzzle is becoming practical. If a system can persuade us it has an inner life, what does that do to the way we decide who – or what – matters? In this episode, philosopher David Chalmers makes the case that consciousness needs to move beyond the realm of mystery. Over the past three decades, serious work on the subject has gone from fringe curiosity to an active research frontier, but the central enigma remains. As the virtual infiltrates ‘IRL,’ the line between human and machine blurs. Or maybe it never mattered at all. Find more episodes of Futurology: Subscribe to the Berggruen Institute on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Berggrueninst All Futurology Episodes: 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: The Conscious Mind — David Chalmers (Book, 1996) Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy — David Chalmers (Book, 2022) The Emperor’s New Mind — Roger Penrose (Book, 1989) Neurophilosophy — — Patricia Churchland (Book, 1986) Is the Hard Problem of Consciousness Universal?— David Chalmers (Article, 2020) The Singularity: A Philosophical Analysis — David Chalmers (Article, 2010)  “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” — Thomas Nagel (Article, 1974) The Puzzle of Conscious Experience – David Chalmers (Article, 1995) Could a Large Language Model Be Conscious? — David Chalmers (Paper, 2023) The Meta-Problem of Consciousness — David Chalmers (Paper, 2018) Does Thought Require Sensory Grounding? From Pure Thinkers to Large Language Models – David J. Chalmers (Talk, 2023) Find David Chalmers Here: Website: https://consc.net/ On X: https://x.com/davidchalmers42?lang=en 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 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.

    1h 30m

  6. JAN 6

    Breaking Out of a Black-and-White World (with Brook Ziporyn and Bing Song)

    We live in a culture that flattens the world into yes or no. Hot takes and hard binaries promise simplicity. But complexity is leaking through the cracks. Opposites depend on each other. If you try to tease out the uncertain from the certain, you destroy the reality of the thing itself. In this episode, Taoist scholar Brook Ziporyn makes the case that Taoism and Buddhism aren’t puzzles to solve but tools for living. Reckoning with Eastern paradoxes can help us navigate the desire to end desire. Modern science has unlocked humanity's potential to see the emptiness of both the far-away universe and the vast space within the building blocks of matter. Buddhism and Taoism give us the capacity to reckon with the fact that there is "no there there." Resources Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) — Laozi; translated/edited by Brook Ziporyn (Book, 2023) Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings — translated by Brook Ziporyn (Book, 2020) Emptiness and Omnipresence: An Essential Introduction to Tiantai Buddhism — Brook Ziporyn (Book, 2016) Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid — Douglas R. Hofstadter (Book, 1979) Find Professor Brook Ziporyn here: https://divinity.uchicago.edu/directory/brook-ziporyn https://voices.uchicago.edu/ziporyn/ Want to share suggestions or feedback?  Email futurology@berggruen.org Keep up to Date with the Berggruen Institute at:  https://www.berggruen.org Instagram:   /futurologypod Twitter/X:   / futurologypod Facebook:   / berggrueninst   LinkedIn:   / berggrueninst   Bluesky: / futurologypod Youtube: / berggrueninst Credits  Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, and Jason Hoch. Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, and 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.

    57 min

  7. 12/23/2025

    The Future of Sovereignty Is Closer Than You Think (with Graham Brewer and Grant Slater)

    The current world order seeks to make sovereignty simple. One map. One flag. One final authority. But in Indian Country, the borders break down. Tribal nations govern alongside the United States, and sovereignty overlaps in real, everyday ways. This isn’t a historical footnote. It’s the future, hiding in plain sight. In this episode, Graham Brewer – the AP’s National Correspondent covering native lands and peoples – traces what sovereignty looks like when power overlaps and treaty promises from the 19th century adapt to the 21st. That negotiation is now playing out in the cloud: as languages are revived and culture moves onto servers. By its nature, the training of AI frontier models plunders native wisdom, but fully opting out risks another century of invisibility. The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity — David Graeber & David Wengrow (Book, 2021)  The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears — Theda Perdue & Michael D. Green (Book, 2007) Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance — Leonard Peltier (Book, 1999) Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) — U.S. Congress (U.S. law, 1990) United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) — United Nations General Assembly (UN declaration, 2007) Music Modernization Act — U.S. Congress (U.S. law, 2018) McGirt v. Oklahoma — Supreme Court of the United States (Supreme Court case, 2020) Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta — Supreme Court of the United States (Supreme Court case, 2022) Treaty of New Echota — Cherokee Nation and United States Government (Treaty, 1835) https://apnews.com/author/graham-lee-brewer# https://x.com/grahambrewer Want to share suggestions or feedback?  Email futurology@berggruen.org Keep up to Date with the Berggruen Institute at:  https://www.berggruen.org Instagram:   / berggrueninst    Twitter/X:   / berggrueninst    Facebook:   / berggrueninst   LinkedIn:   / berggrueninst   Bluesky /futurologypod Credits  Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, and Jason Hoch. Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, and Nathalia Ramos. Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney Theme Music: Marcus Bagala. Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland.

    1h 37m

  8. 12/16/2025

    Conjuring Art from Machine Hallucinations (with Refik Anadol and Claire Webb)

    For Artist Refik Anadol, data is not just information. It is pigment. He feeds weather records, river flows, forests and archives into custom AI models and treats the outputs as brushstrokes. The point is to let AI learn from our memories and then push beyond them, catching the moments when the machine’s vision glitches out and creates something truly novel.In this episode, Anadol talks Claire Web, the head of the Berggruen Institute’s Future Humans program, about how this collaboration has changed his sense of nature, authorship, and the edges of reality. They explore how training a model on the textures of rainforests, rivers, and archives can produce a visual language that feels both familiar and strange, and why the future of art may depend less on controlling a system than on listening to where it leads. Resources Blade Runner – (Film, 1982) The Poetics of Augmented Space  — Lev Manovich (Essay, 2006) TED Talk Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality — Anil Seth (Talk, April 2017) Large Nature Model — Refik Anadol Studio (AI Model, ongoing) Refik Anadol https://refikanadol.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/refik-anadol-studio/ https://www.instagram.com/refikanadol/?hl=en https://dataland.art/?utm_source https://refikanadolstudio.com/ Want to share suggestions or feedback?  Email futurology@berggruen.org Keep up to Date with the Berggruen Institute at:  https://www.berggruen.org Instagram:   / berggrueninst    Twitter/X:   / berggrueninst    Facebook:   / berggrueninst   LinkedIn:   / berggrueninst   Bluesky /futurologypod Credits  Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, and Jason Hoch. Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, and Nathalia Ramos. Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney Theme Music: Marcus Bagala. Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland and distributed by Realm.

    56 min
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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
    30
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Berggruen Institute
  • Show Website
    Futurology

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