Jobst Landgrebe, co-author (with Barry Smith) of Why Machines Will Never Rule the World: Artificial Intelligence Without Fear, joins Matt and Yuri for a wide-ranging argument about what AI can and cannot do. Landgrebe claims that minds and living systems are complex systems shaped by history and irreversibility, and that LLMs can imitate language without understanding meaning in open contexts. Yuri pushes back with an “approximation” critique—planes don’t fly like birds, yet they outperform birds—asking why AI couldn’t surpass humans in many domains without “real” understanding. The conversation moves from philosophy and neuroscience to economics, scaling narratives, and the political risks of AI-enabled surveillance and propaganda.

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