How We Discovered Our Own Extinction (with Thomas Moynihan and Benjamin Bratton)
For most of human history, the end of the world was a divine promise, inevitable and liberating for the holy alone. But the invention of extinction changed that. This was no prophecy. It was discovery...
29 Jul 202557min
The Rise of the Cyberocracy (with John Markoff and Grant Slater)
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. ...
22 Jul 20251h 35min
Did the Sun Ever Set on the Age of Empire? (with Niall Ferguson and Nathan Gardels)
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 a...
15 Jul 202556min
What if Buddhists Ran the World? (with Stephen Batchelor and Bing Song)
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, h...
8 Jul 20251h 17min
Letting Robots Know Where They Stand (with Fei-Fei Li and Dawn Nakagawa)
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...
1 Jul 202558min
Inhabiting Artificial Minds... On Mars and Beyond (with Vandi Verma and Claire Webb)
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 e...
24 Jun 20251h 10min
After the End of History, an Age of Disorder (with Francis Fukuyama and Nathan Gardels)
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 th...
24 Jun 202555min
Welcome to Futurology | Podcast Trailer
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 preve...
19 Jun 20251min
