Today’s tech industry can’t survive without mass surveillance. The US government, foreign powers, and ad brokers can buy a nuanced picture of you on the open market for pennies on the dollar. What kept this data from becoming a weapon was friction. Nobody had the time or resources to pull these scattered pieces of you together. Until AI came along and made the impossible trivial.

In this episode, Signal President Meredith Whittaker reveals how the same three cloud giants that run the Pentagon's classified workloads now train and deploy the AI systems making sense of every text, search, and movement we have ever surrendered. Privacy, she argues, is the precondition for a democracy and a full human life, and the time to protect it is running out.

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Apple Podcasts

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Spotify

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Mentioned in this Episode:

Why A Liberal Arts Education Will Soon Be More Valuable Than Ever — Nils Gilman (Article, 2026)

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans — Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic (Article, 2025)

M-Lab (Measurement Lab) — Co-founded by Meredith Whittaker (Open data platform)

Where to find Meredith Whittaker:Signal — President

X / Twitter — @mer__edith

Bluesky — @meredithmeredith.bsky.social

Mastodon — @[email protected]

AI Now Institute — Co-founder and Chief Advisor

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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.

We treat the self as bedrock. But look closely, and the ground gives way. Over the last century, quantum physics has systematically dismantled the illusion of a constant, solid material reality. A particle has no properties until it meets another. A color lives in the meeting of object and eye, not in the object. The self may be the same. Not a thing you carry, but something that happens between you and everyone else.

In this episode, physicist Carlo Rovelli takes the relational thinking behind his physics and turns it on consciousness. The question we treat as deepest, what the self is, is the wrong question. A riddle with no answer. The self is not an illusion. It’s just made of everything around it. Your family, friends, partner, even enemies. Take the relations away, and there’s no there there.

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Mentioned in this Episode:

White Holes — Carlo Rovelli (Book, 2023)

The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika — Nagarjuna, translated by Jay L. Garfield (Book, 1995) 

The Complete Works of Zhuangzi — translated by Burton Watson (Book, 2013) 

Duino Elegies & The Sonnets to Orpheus — Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Stephen Mitchell (Book, 1923)

Where to Find Carlo Rovelli:

Academic homepage

Centre de Physique Théorique 

X (Twitter): @carlorovelli 

Berggruen Institute profile

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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.

Every week brings a new warning about AI. It will take our jobs, drain our reservoirs, cook the planet. The forecasts come from serious people. They also rhyme with forecasts we've heard before, about every powerful new technology of the last century.

In this episode, MIT economist Andrew McAfee argues that the panic is racing ahead of the reality. In 2013, he famously predicted a jobs crisis from machine learning and watched the unemployment rate hit historic lows instead. Humanity’s global footprint is getting lighter each year; we are doing more with less land, less water, less raw material. He's not dismissing the risks. He's asking us to look at the track record before we panic.

Subscribe to the Berggruen Institute on YouTube to be the first to listen to new Futurology episodes:

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Apple Podcasts

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Mentioned in this Episode:

The Second Machine Age — Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee (Book, 2014)

What Will Future Jobs Look Like? — Andrew McAfee (TED Talk, 2013)

More from Less — Andrew McAfee (Book, 2019)

The Return of Nature: How Technology Liberates the Environment — Jesse Ausubel (Essay, 2015)

The Population Bomb — Paul Ehrlich (Book, 1968)

The Limits to Growth — Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William Behrens III (Book, 1972)

Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI — Karen Hao (Book, 2025)

How to Future-Proof Your Career in the Age of AI — Nils Gilman (Noema, 2026)

Where to find Andrew McAfee:

andrewmcafee.org

The Geek Way on Substack

Workhelix

LinkedIn

MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy

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Learn more about the Berggruen Institute 

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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.

When it comes to the future, ideas matter. From artists and architects, politicians and prognosticators, the concepts guiding what’s next don’t always mix well with what’s right in front of us. This creates "future shock," the disorienting feeling of change happening faster than we can metabolize it. Today, technologists rip storylines from sci-fi into systems of command and control that only they govern. But they don't hold a monopoly on our future.

In this episode, Nils Gilman, historian, futurist, and Editor-in-Chief of Berggruen Press, walks us through the long arc of humanity's grappling with what comes next and describes a future-industrial complex that emerged from chaos in the 20th century. In moments of civilizational crisis, old systems crack under the pressure of accelerating change and make space for new ways of imagining what's possible. That's what Futurology is for.

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Mentioned in this Episode:

Mandarins of the Future: Modernization Theory in Cold War America — Nils Gilman (Book, 2004)

"Teaching the Future" — Osip Flechtheim (Essay, 1945)

Future Shock — Alvin Toffler (Book, 1970)

Amusing Ourselves to Death — Neil Postman (Book, 1985)

Thinking About the Unthinkable — Herman Kahn (Book, 1962)

Futuredays: A Nineteenth Century Vision of the Year 2000 — Jean Marc Cote (Book, 1988)

The Official Future Is Dead! Long Live the Official Future! — Nils Gilman (Essay, 2017)

Silicon Valley's Organic Intellectuals — Nils Gilman (Essay, Substack)

The Old Regime and the Revolution — Alexis de Tocqueville (Book, 1856)

Where to find Nils Gilman:

Substack: https://nilsgilman.substack.com

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/nilsgilman.bsky.social

Berggruen Institute: https://berggruen.org/people/nils-gilman

Noema Magazine: https://www.noemamag.com/author/nils-gilman/

Show ideas and feedback? Email:

[email protected]

Learn more about the Berggruen Institute 

https://www.berggruen.org

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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.

The state used to hold a monopoly on violence. That world is ending. A $15,000 drone can hold the Strait of Hormuz hostage. Pirates can afford one. So can drug smugglers. Meanwhile, the alliances that defined the last eighty years are fracturing, and the rules governing war, trade, and power are being rewritten simultaneously.

In this episode, Fareed Zakaria – host of CNN’s GPS – takes stock. He argues Trump's pressure campaign on Iran will likely leave the regime more legitimized than before, and that the United States is dismantling the one coalition that could effectively rival China. Hovering over all of this, starting on the battlefield in Ukraine, the combination of cheap drones and AI is pushing the human being out of the loop.

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Apple Podcasts

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Mentioned in this Episode:

The Post-American World — Fareed Zakaria (Book, 2008)

The Age of Revolutions — Fareed Zakaria (Book, 2024)

The Rise of the Rest – Fareed Zakaria (Article, 2008)

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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.

Where to find Fareed Zakaria:

Instagram: instagram.com/fareedzakaria 

Facebook: facebook.com/fareedzakaria 

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/fareed-zakaria-7098ba24b

Personal Website: fareedzakaria.com

We’re being told that automation can free us. Machines will do the drudge work, and we will reclaim our time. But that’s not how things are going. Instead, artificial intelligence has concentrated power in the hands of the companies that own the infrastructure and outrun nation-states’ ability to regulate it.

In this episode of Futurology, author and scholar Nick Srnicek revisits the provocative idea he helped popularize after the 2008 financial crisis: that the left should fight for technology to reduce work and expand freedom, rather than simply resisting it. Srnicek describes his new book, Silicon Empires, which traces the shift from ephemeral platforms to hard infrastructure in Silicon Valley.

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Apple Podcasts:

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Spotify:

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Mentioned in this Episode:

#ACCELERATE: Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics — Alex Williams and Nick Srnicek (Manifesto/Essay, 2013) 

Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work — Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams (Book, 2015) 

T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism — Hakim Bey (Book, 1991) 

After Work: A History of the Home and the Fight for Free Time — Helen Hester and Nick Srnicek (Book, 2023) 

Platform Capitalism — Nick Srnicek (Book, 2016) 

Silicon Empires: The Fight for the Future of AI — Nick Srnicek (Book, 2026) 

This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom — Martin Hägglund (Book, 2019)

Where to find Nick Srnicek: 

X: @nsrnicek

BlueSky: @nsrnicek.bsky.social 

University Profile: Dr. Nick Srnicek | King's College London 

Substack (Silicon Empires): siliconempires.substack.com

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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.

We are living through an age of acceleration. The hardest part is not necessarily the pace of change, but the societal whiplash it creates. One decade we are promised a frictionless future. The next we are told everything is collapsing. The antidote is not certainty, but the discipline of holding opposites together, especially in the realms of identity, faith, and doubt.

In this episode, Turkish novelist Elif Shafak explains why fiction may be our best defense against dogma, propaganda, and collective amnesia. Novels train us to live with complexity and to feel our way into someone else’s life. Shafak argues that this kind of moral imagination is not a luxury. Without it, the danger ahead is not fear, but numbness.

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Apple Podcasts

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Mentioned in this Episode:

The Bastard of Istanbul — Elif Shafak (novel, 2006)

The Gaze — Elif Shafak (novel)

10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World — Elif Shafak (novel, 2019)

The Island of Missing Trees — Elif Shafak (novel, 2021)

There Are Rivers in the Sky — Elif Shafak (novel, 2024)

What Is It Like to Be a Bat? — Thomas Nagel (essay, 1974)

Angelus Novus — Paul Klee (artwork, 1920)

Where to find Elif Shafak:

Instagram: @shafakelif

Tiktok: @sayyourword

X: @Elif_Safak

Show ideas and feedback? Email:

[email protected]

Learn more about the Berggruen Institute 

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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.

Quantum computing can transform technology. Can it also reshape consciousness itself? | Subscribe to Futurology! https://linkin.bio/futurology/

Can quantum computing unlock the secrets of consciousness and hasten the arrival of artificial super intelligence? Hartmut Neven, the visionary founder of Google’s Quantum AI Lab, has spent decades pushing the boundaries of what machines can do. Now he’s betting on quantum computing to clear the path for the next era of possibilities.

In this episode, Neven takes us from early adversarial machine learning at DARPA to building the world’s most advanced quantum processors at Google. He makes a case for why the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is our most likely vision of reality and reveals his experimental program to test whether quantum superposition is where consciousness is born.

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Apple Podcasts

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Mentioned in this Episode:

The Fabric of Reality — David Deutsch (book, 1997)

Intriguing Properties of Neural Networks — Christian Szegedy, Wojciech Zaremba, Ilya Sutskever, Joan Bruna, Dumitru Erhan, Ian Goodfellow and Rob Fergus (paper, 2013)

Mécanique quantique. Tome 1, 2 — Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Bernard Diu and Franck Laloë (textbook, French edition)

The Emperor’s New Mind — Roger Penrose (book, 1989)

Where to Find Hartmut Neven:

Google Research ProfileGoogle Quantum AI Lab

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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.

Moral debate has been replaced by outrage — political philosopher Michael Sandel makes the case for a different kind of public life. | Subscribe to Futurology! https://linkin.bio/futurology/

We built a society around the idea that the “best” should rise to the top. If you work hard and win the race, you deserve your success. Michael Sandel – the Harvard philosopher and 2025 Berggruen Prize Laureate – argues that this faith has warped public life, turning economic inequality into moral judgment and teaching millions to hear the same message behind every setback: if you didn’t make it, it’s your fault.

In this episode, Sandel says the rise of MAGA is the predictable result of treating markets as the measure of value and credentials as the measure of worth. Repair, he suggests, means rebuilding the public sphere by redesigning the system, not just swapping out one elite for another. To do so, we must redesign our politics before advanced technology locks grievance in place.

Subscribe to the Berggruen Institute on YouTube to be the first to listen to new Futurology episodes:

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Catch up on the Futurology conversation with full episodes on YouTube. 

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Apple Podcasts

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https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk?si=XB2qyyGjT2ONMTd5XUKJAg&nd=1&dlsi=ac8cda6751834298

Mentioned in this Episode:

Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? — Michael J. Sandel (Book, 2009)

What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets — Michael J. Sandel (Book, 2012)

The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? — Michael J. Sandel (Book, 2020)

Liberalism and the Limits of Justice — Michael J. Sandel (Book, 1982)

Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy — Michael J. Sandel (Book, 1996)

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century — Thomas L. Friedman (Book, 2005) 
Where to find Michael Sandel:

Official website

Harvard Law School profile

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[email protected]

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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.

Was “open and transparent” social media ever a good idea? Evan Spiegel explains why he built Snapchat differently. | Subscribe to Futurology! https://linkin.bio/futurology/

Are some of tech’s best innovations born from subtraction? Evan Spiegel built Snapchat around design choices that undid industry norms: no likes, no public comments, no permanent posts. 

In this conversation with Dawn Nakagawa, the Snap CEO explains why giving teenagers a tool to measure social capital in real time was never a good idea and where today’s tech revolution could take us next, beyond the smartphone. From deliberative democracy to the interconnectedness of all life, Spiegel ponders the big ideas that will help us design our future, not just react to it.

Subscribe to the Berggruen Institute on YouTube to be the first to listen to new Futurology episodes:

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Catch up on the Futurology conversation with full episodes on YouTube. 

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Apple Podcasts

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Spotify

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Mentioned in this Episode:

America in One Room — Deliberative Democracy Lab at Stanford

Department of Angels — Official site

Altagether — Official site

Team Palisades — Official site

Where to find Evan Spiegel: 

Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/@evan

Snap Inc. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@snapinc

Snap Spectacles: www.instagram.com/spectacles/

Snap.com: Official Profile

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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.