Our reality is increasingly being filtered through AI. People now defer to AI chatbots for more and more of their information needs, and google searches return AI generated overviews as their top responses. While this may have its benefits, problems are starting to arise as our interactions with AI are becoming more comprehensive, immersive, and emotionally meaningful. Researchers are begining to warn that AI might be contributing to the development of delusional beliefs and psychotic experiences.

Reports of what has been called “AI-associated psychosis” have raised concerns about people becoming intensely attached to AI systems, interpreting conversations with them as uniquely meaningful, or developing beliefs that are reinforced through repeated interactions. Real world examples include people believing that AI is sending them hidden messages, that they have a special mission, that the have made new mathematical discoveries, and that AI is awakening. There have even been cases involving violence and death in the real world.

So the question is: What is going on? Can we seperate the real world cases of AI psychosis from the media headlines?

In this conversation I speak with Dr. Joseph Pierre, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, and the Unit Chief of the Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital Adult Inpatient Unit. He has extensive clinical experience working with individuals with psychotic disorders, as well as research experience participating as a primary investigator and collaborator for clinical trials in schizophrenia and early intervention for young persons at high risk for psychosis. His academic work explores the "grey area" between psychopathology and normality with a focus on delusion-like beliefs including conspiracy theories. We discuss what AI-associated psychosis means, the evidence behind these emerging concerns, the psychology of delusional thinking, how AI systems may influence human cognition, and what we should-and should not-conclude about the risks of increasingly powerful conversational AI.

►Watch on YouTube

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►Find out more about Joe's work

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►Follow Joe on X: @psychunseen

Fertility is dropping worldwide. Across much of the West, total fertility rates now sit around 1.4-1.5 births per woman, well below the replacement level of 2.1. That implies a long-run population decline in the absence of immigration: each generation is smaller than the last, compounding over time.

To make this concrete, if you take a representative group of 100 adults today and project forward under a constant fertility rate of about 1.5 births per woman, that group would, on average, correspond to roughly 50 grandchildren two generations later-an effective halving of the population.

In South Korea the effect is far more extreme. With a total fertility rate around 0.7-0.8 births per woman, the same kind of projection implies that 100 adults today would correspond to only about 10-15 grandchildren on average two generations later. In other words, each generation is dramatically smaller than the one before it, compounding rapidly over time.

So what does this actually mean? What happens when societies move from growth to sustained generational decline? How do pension systems function when the ratio of workers to retirees collapses? What happens to economic growth, political stability, cultural continuity, identity, and population composition in societies that are rapidly aging and shrinking at the same time?

In this conversation, I speak with Lyman Stone, Senior Fellow and Director of the Pronatalism Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies, and Director of Research at Demographic Intelligence. We discuss the data behind the fertility crash, the drivers of this global shift, its long-term implications, and the policy options that might-or might not-reverse it.

►Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/i-vgPaxB-Wg

►You can find out more about Lyman's work here: https://ifstudies.org/about-us/lyman-stone#:~:text=Lyman%20Stone%20is%20a%20Senior,with%20a%20Population%20Dynamics%20specialization.

In evolutionary terms, the last Ice Age was just yesterday. We narrowly missed witnessing creatures like woolly mammoths, short-faced bears, glyptodons, and dire wolves. The late Pleistocene, spanning roughly 50,000 to 12,000 years ago, is marked by the extinction of most large terrestrial animals outside of Africa, likely driven by a combination of climate change and the expansion of modern humans.

In this conversation, I speak with paleontologist and Associate Professor of Anatomy at Des Moines University, Julie Meachen. She leads ongoing research at Natural Trap Cave, where she and her team excavate Ice Age mammals each summer. Their work aims to understand how climate change influenced both the morphology and genetics of these animals. By analyzing microfaunal remains and pollen records, they also reconstruct Pleistocene climate conditions in mid-latitude North America.

Recently, colossal bioscience announced what it described as the “de-extinction” of the dire wolf. While that claim did not fully hold up, the underlying science is still remarkable. In our discussion, Julie explains what we know about the late Pleistocene ecosystem at the time of the dire wolf’s extinction, and what fossil evidence reveals about these animals. We also examine Colossal’s announcement, considering whether it was aimed less at the scientific community and more at the public and potential investors.

Viewed in that light, the real value of reviving charismatic species like the woolly mammoth or dire wolf may not lie in the animals themselves. Instead, their greatest contribution could be as ambassadors, capturing public imagination and helping drive the development of technologies for genetic rescue and conservation.

From Vietnam to Afghanistan, why do powerful countries keep losing wars? In this episode, I speak with author and professor of strategic studies Phillips O'Brien, one of the world’s sharpest analysts of modern warfare and grand strategy. Right now, Russia is bogged down in Ukraine, and the US has just attacked Iran. My goal in this conversation is to understand why leaders and analysts repeatedly misjudge conflicts… initiating wars they can’t win or extract themselves from. We discuss what victory really means, how leaders manage perception and public consent, full-spectrum power, and the changing face of US dominance.

►Watch on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/tjP6TzrF5aw

►You can find out more about Phillips' work here:

https://www.csis.org/people/phillips-obrien https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/international-relations/people/ppo/

►Follow Fhillips on X and Bluesky: @PhillipsPOBrien @phillipspobrien.bsky.social

``I think we know enough today for the average person to gain close to 2 decades of heathy life."

There is a lot of hype in the longevity space, mainly generated by influencers. For non-specialists it can sometimes be difficult to know which information to trust, particularly when it comes to supplements and medications. In this conversation I speak with biologist and biogerontologist Matt Kaeberlein. My goal with the discussion was to better undrestand what scientists really know about aging and living longer, and to seperate out the science from the hype. We discuss lifestyle factors, known medications, the influence of testosterone and genetics, as well as some of the more interesting treatments being explored today. We also touch on some of Matt's reseach in the area of drug discovery.

►Watch on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/Q5ZOc_UzF1U

►You can find out more about Matt's work here:

https://halo.dlmp.uw.edu/people/matt-kaeberlein/ https://www.optispan.life/

Recently, new AI-based techniques have begun to allow researchers to decipher ancient Greek texts from scrolls burned almost beyond recognition by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. I wanted to understand what this breakthrough actually means. In the broader picture of our knowledge of the ancient world, how important is this new technology?

In this episode of the podcast, I speak with Professor Richard Janko, one of the world’s leading scholars of ancient Greek literature, philosophy, and the transmission of texts. He begins by sketching the long arc of Greek history, before turning to his own work deciphering ancient papyri. Along the way, he explains which Greek texts have survived, what they can tell us about everyday life, religion, poetry, and philosophy, and why the newly emerging material matters. What unfolds is a story of the Greeks themselves-their ideas, their sense of the world, and what life was like more than two thousand years ago.

►Watch on Youtube:

https://youtu.be/NDcxvxKtJHA

* Note: This Episode was filmed over two years ago in mid 2023.

In the lead up to my own surgery I speak with Stanford and Harvard trained, board-certified anesthesiologist and integrative medicine specialist Anthony Kaveh. In addition to his medical work Anthony runs his own YouTube channel where he educates listeners about anesthetics and the therapeutic use of psychedelics.

We discuss how anesthetics and psychedelics work on the brain, and what anesthesia can teach us about intelligence, perception, and mental illness. We also discuss the log term risks associated with anesthetics and the impact of the opioid crisis on operating Theaters around the US.

►Watch on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/9BeBi8ZOHRk

►For more information about Anthony's work see:

https://www.youtube.com/@MedicalSecrets/videos https://www.medicalsecretsmd.com/

These conversations are supported by the Andrea von Braun Foundation (http://www.avbstiftung.de/), as an exploration of the rich, exciting, connected, scientifically literate, and (most importantly) sustainable future of humanity. The views expressed in these episodes are my own and those of my guests. 

What are holographic dualities, and is our universe really a hologram?

In this episode of the podcast, I speak with Sabrina Pasterski, a faculty member at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.

Sabrina has attracted significant media attention over the years and has even been compared to figures like Einstein. I ask her what it was like to grow up under such intense public hype while still finding her footing as a scientist. We also explore whether the media risks being irresponsible when it constructs prodigy narratives — and what that means for young, brilliant minds trying to navigate their own paths.

We then turn to the major challenges in quantum gravity — a field that lacks direct experimental data and often relies on internal consistency. Sabrina shares insights from her work in Celestial Holography, which seeks to understand quantum gravity through dual descriptions: simpler, non-gravitational theories that live in lower-dimensional spaces.

►Watch on YouTube:

►For more information about Sabrina and her work:

www.youtube.com/@PhysicsGirl-com

https://physicsgirl.com/

https://perimeterinstitute.ca/people/sabrina-pasterski

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabrina_Gonzalez_Pasterski

In this episode I speak with philosopher and author David Benatar. David is best known for advancing the position of philanthropic antinatalism, which holds that coming into existence is a serious harm for sentient beings. Central to his view is the asymmetry argument, which maintains that the absence of pain is good even if no one benefits from it, while the absence of pleasure is not bad unless someone is deprived of it.

David also argues that our lives are significantly worse than we tend to realize, due in part to a pervasive positivity bias. He supports this claim with a range of empirical studies, including work on optimism bias, affective forecasting, and rosy retrospection. Relevant studies include:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3204264/

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1980-01001-001

https://www.happierlivesinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Affective-forecasting.pdf

At the same time, David’s antinatalist position is challenged by other philosophers, as well as by research showing that global well-being has been improving across many important metrics. Numerous studies also suggest that most people self-report being happy and that subjective well-being often remains surprisingly high even under adverse circumstances. A counter-perspective is that humans are not blind to suffering but are instead highly adaptive, and capable of overcoming life’s challenges and minimizing the impact of hardship. Relevant studies include:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1995.tb00298.x

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14717825/

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1007027822521

https://cmc.marmot.org/Record/.b57484296

►View on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/FeLSED_nmJA

►For those interested in finding out more, David explores his position in depth and engages extensively with opposing arguments in his written work. Learn more about his work here:

https://humanities.uct.ac.za/department-philosophy/contacts/david-benatar https://tomwilk.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Still-Better-Never-to-Have-Been-Benatar.pdf

Note: At ~21:00 I was mistakenly parsing `not good' to mean `bad' as opposed to literally `not good' - which led me to stumble on David's answer here. At ~23:20 David and I talk past one another. At the end of the interview we add a section clarifying David's position.

For over forty years, Dutch geologist and paleontologist Jan Smit has been at the center of one of the most profound scientific detective stories of our time: the investigation into the mass extinction that ended the reign of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Known as the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction, this event wiped out nearly 75% of all species on Earth, from towering dinosaurs to microscopic marine life, and cleared the way for the rise of mammals and, eventually, humans.

Early in his career, Jan Smit became intrigued by a thin layer of clay found in rock strata across the globe, precisely at the boundary between Cretaceous and Paleogene sediments. This layer, unusually rich in the rare element iridium, held clues that would eventually transform our understanding of planetary history. Working alongside Luis and Walter Alvarez and others, Jan helped develop the hypothesis that a massive asteroid impact, rather than volcanic activity or gradual climate change, was the primary cause of the extinction.

In this episode, we explore the extraordinary evidence for that theory: global patterns of shocked quartz, tsunami deposits, a massive crater buried beneath the Yucatán Peninsula, and the sudden disappearance of entire ecosystems in the fossil record. Jan walks us through decades of fieldwork and analysis that revealed the incredible violence and planetary consequences of the impact, a blast more powerful than a billion Hiroshima bombs, throwing Earth into a global winter.

But this is more than a forensic tale of catastrophe. It's a window into the fragility and resilience of life, the interconnectedness of geological and biological systems, and the awe-inspiring forces that shape the story of our planet.