Robert Wright (Author: The God Test)
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What is Robert Wright’s “God Test” and why does it matter?
Radio Mano, Papa Chango.
Here we are again. Today's episode is my conversation with a guy named Bob Wright. He goes by Robert Wright on his books. He's written a bunch of books. He's a really good writer, really smart guy, wide-ranging interests. The book we're talking about today, which is out today, is called The God Test, Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning. Yeah. When I first got the book, I thought God, he was referring to AI as potentially being God. But in fact, I think what he's saying is that we need to become godlike in order to properly deal with the coming cosmic reckoning that AI is bringing our way. I think that's what he's saying, that it's finally time for us, you know, if God is made in man's image, it's time for man to make himself in God's image.
Anyway, Bob Wright, he's an interesting guy. Another one of his books is called Why Buddhism is True. So I guess he considers himself a Buddhist. I haven't read that one. But a book he wrote back in the early 90s, I think, is called The Moral Animal, Why We Are The Way We Are, The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology. I've told this story before, but that book changed my life in a big way. Because I was like a year into doing doctoral research about doctors who work in oncology and intensive care units. Essentially doctors who have a lot of patients who die. And I was trying to understand why. is that tolerable for some doctors and why do others just burn out and they just can't take it? Because I was teaching English, I guess I started teaching English to doctors as a way to get into those spaces in the hospital.
So I was spending a lot of time with doctors and, you know, doing conversational English classes. And so we talked a lot about, like, How do you deal with a patient who you suspect is going to die or know is going to die, but you do the procedure anyway because that's the protocol? How do you talk to their family? How do you talk to them? How do you deal with these existential issues that come up? And I started to get a sense that there were certain personalities that were well-suited for this sort of thing and other personalities that weren't. And so my idea was to develop sort of a personality screening tool that could be used in medical school so that people – who did not have a good personality match with that kind of specialization could change course before they got too far into it and thereby save them a lot of time and money and the medical school time and money.
So, you know, if you have trouble with people dying, don't become an oncologist, right? Like go into proctology or something, right? I mean, there are more attractive options than proctology probably, but... You see my point. Anyway, I was like a year into this research and I picked up a copy of The Moral Animal about evolutionary psychology. And I read this book and it's so well written, so well designed. It's just a real pleasure to read. And it introduced me to the science of evolutionary psychology. And I thought, holy shit, this is amazing. This explains everything. And then I started proselytizing, telling all my friends, and some of my friends said, you know, maybe some of this shit doesn't make sense.
Maybe you need to look into this a little more. And anyway, that was the beginning of the road that led me to write my doctoral dissertation about human sexual behavior in prehistory, which then became Sex at Dawn, which then, you know, leads to where we are now, where I am now anyway. And what's ironic about it is that I ended up arguing against the argument that he makes in The Moral Animal. So and he had me on his podcast after Sex of Dawn came out and he was very skeptical, of course, because he understood that my argument was sort of like we couldn't both be right there. Somebody, you know, but it was great. We had a good conversation. And then I invited him on my show after he one of his books came out.
I forget which one it was. And so we're kind of friends now, as you'll hear in the conversation.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is Robert Wright’s “God Test” and why does it matter?
0:00–10:39
2
How does the book frame AI as a planetary‑scale challenge?
10:39–23:39
3
Why does Wright argue that humanity must become “god‑like” to survive AI?
23:39–34:38
4
What evolutionary and psychological forces shape AI behavior?
34:38–46:35
5
Does AI have a survival instinct, and is it a form of life?
46:35–57:47
6
How might politics, wealth concentration, and corporate power influence AI’s future?
57:47–1:09:27
7
What are the possible scenarios for AI’s relationship with humanity?
1:09:27–1:19:24
8
What practical takeaways does Wright offer for navigating the AI era?
1:19:24–1:29:46