The Trajectory
Episodes
Ben Goertzel - The Primordial Soup of AGI Minds (Worthy Successor, Episode 26)
20 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Ben Goertzel, founder of SingularityNET and one of the earliest and most pers...
Luciano Floridi - How Life Could Flourish in the Information Ocean (Worthy Successor, Episode 25)
13 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This installment of the Worthy Successor series features Luciano Floridi, John K. Castle Professor of Cognitive Science at Yale University and Directo...
Weaver Weinbaum - Designing Intelligence for Freedom and Care (Worthy Successor, Episode 24)
06 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This episode of the Worthy Successor series features Weaver Weinbaum, an independent researcher and founder of NUNET. Weaver’s work sits at the inte...
Francis Heylighen - The Self-Organizing Universe After Humans (Worthy Successor, Episode 23)
27 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Francis Heylighen, a professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and di...
Stephen Wolfram - In a Sea of Complexity, Does a “Successor” Exist? (Worthy Successor, Episode 22)
13 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Stephen Wolfram, founder of Wolfram Research, creator of Mathematica and the ...
John Smart - Evolution from Cells to Super-intelligence (Worthy Successor, Episode 21)
30 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with John Smart, Director of the EvoDevo Institute and a longtime futures theorist...
Susan Schneider - Intelligence Is Everywhere, Consciousness Maybe Not (Worthy Successor, Episode 20)
23 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is a conversation with Dr. Susan Schneider, a philosopher of mind and consciousness researcher who...
Brian Thomas Swimme - Life Is Bigger Than Humanity (Worthy Successor, Episode 19)
09 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This installment of the Worthy Successor series is a conversation with Brian Thomas Swimme, a cosmologist and philosopher of science, and a professor ...
David Sloan Wilson - Darwinian Forces Shape the Earth Superorganism (Worthy Successor, Episode 18)
26 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with David Sloan Wilson, an American evolutionary biologist, Distinguished Profess...
Michael Johnson - Symmetry, Beauty, and the Shape of Consciousness (Worthy Successor, Episode 17)
12 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Michael Johnson, a philosopher and neuroscientist who describes himself as wo...
Robin Hanson - A Successor Must be Adaptive (Worthy Successor, Episode 16)
28 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Robin Hanson - Associate Professor of Economics at George Mason University, e...
Joe Carlsmith - A Wiser, AI-Powered Civilization is the “Successor” (Worthy Successor, Episode 15)
14 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Joe Carlsmith, a senior advisor at Open Philanthropy, whose work spans AI ali...
Blaise Agüera y Arcas - AGI Symbiosis and the Arrow of Intelligence (Worthy Successor, Episode 14)
31 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Blaise Agüera y Arcas, Vice President and Fellow at Google, and CTO of Techn...
Brad Carson - AGI Competition with Civility and Understanding (US-China AGI Relations, Episode 5)
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Brad Carson, who served as a U.S. Congressman and as Under Secretary of the Army. Later, he served as the Acting Under Secre...
Irakli Beridze - Can the UN Help with Global AGI Governance? (AGI Governance, Episode 11)
10 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Joining us in our eleventh episode of our series AGI Governance on The Trajectory is Irakli Beridze, Director of the UNICRI Centre for Artificial Inte...
Dean Xue Lan - A Multi-Pronged Approach to Pre-AGI Coordination (AGI Governance, Episode 10)
03 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Joining us in our tenth episode of our AGI Governance series on The Trajectory is Dean Xue Lan, longtime scholar of public policy and global governanc...
RAND’s Joel Predd - Competitive and Cooperative Dynamics of AGI (US-China AGI Relations, Episode 4)
26 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Joel Predd, a senior engineer at the RAND Corporation and co-author of RAND’s work on “five hard national security probl...
Drew Cukor - AI Adoption as a National Security Priority (US-China AGI Relations, Episode 3)
19 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
USMC Colonel Drew Cukor spent 25 years as decades in uniform and helped spearhead early Department of Defense AI efforts, eventually leading project i...
Stuart Russell - Avoiding the Cliff of Uncontrollable AI (AGI Governance, Episode 9)
12 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Joining us in our ninth episode of our AGI Governance series on The Trajectory is Stuart Russell, Professor of Computer Science at UC Berkeley and aut...
Craig Mundie - Co-Evolution with AI: Industry First, Regulators Later (AGI Governance, Episode 8)
05 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Joining us in our eighth episode of our AGI Governance series on The Trajectory is Craig Mundie, former Chief Research and Strategy Officer at Microso...
Jeremie and Edouard Harris - What Makes US-China Alignment Around AGI So Hard (US-China AGI Relations, Episode 2)
29 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Jeremie and Edouard Harris, Canadian researchers with backgrounds in AI governance and national security consulting, and co-...
Ed Boyden - Neurobiology as a Bridge to a Worthy Successor (Worthy Successor, Episode 13)
22 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This new installment of the Worthy Successor series features Ed Boyden, an American neuroscientist and entrepreneur at MIT, widely known for his work ...
Roman Yampolskiy - The Blacker the Box, the Bigger the Risk (Early Experience of AGI, Episode 3)
15 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Roman V. Yampolskiy, a computer scientist at the University of Louisville and a leading voice in AI safety. Everyone has he...
Toby Ord - Crucial Updates on the Evolving AGI Risk Landscape (AGI Governance, Episode 7)
12 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Joining us in our seventh episode of our series AGI Governance on The Trajectory is Toby Ord, Senior Researcher at Oxford University’s AI Governance...
Martin Rees - If They’re Conscious, We Should Step Aside (Worthy Successor, Episode 12)
01 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with the brilliant Martin Rees - British cosmologist, astrophysicist, and 60th Pre...
Emmett Shear - AGI as "Another Kind of Cell" in the Tissue of Life (Worthy Successor, Episode 11)
18 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Emmett Shear - CEO of SoftMax, co-founder of Twitch, former interim CEO of OpenAI, and one of the few public-facing tech lea...
Joshua Clymer - Where Human Civilization Might Crumble First (Early Experience of AGI - Episode 2)
04 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Joshua Clymer, AI safety researcher at Redwood Research, and former researcher at METR.Joshua has spent years focused on ins...
Peter Singer - Optimizing the Future for Joy, and the Exploration of the Good [Worthy Successor, Episode 10]
20 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Peter Singer, one of the most influential moral philosophers of our time. Singer is best known for his groundbreaking work ...
David Duvenaud - What are Humans Even Good For in Five Years? [Early Experience of AGI - Episode 1]
06 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with David Duvenaud, Assistant Professor at University of Toronto, co-author of the Gradual Disempowerment paper, and former rese...
Kristian Rönn - A Blissful Successor Beyond Darwinian Life [Worthy Successor, Episode 9]
23 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Kristian Rönn, author, successful startup founder, and now CEO of Lucid, and AI hardware governance startup based in SF.Thi...
Jack Shanahan - Avoiding an AI Race While Keeping America Strong [US-China AGI Relations, Episode 1]
09 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Jack Shanahan, a three-star General and former Director of the Joint AI Center (JAIC) within the US Department of Defense. ...
Richard Ngo - A State-Space of Positive Posthuman Futures [Worthy Successor, Episode 8]
25 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Richard Ngo, AGI researcher and thinker - with extensive stints at both OpenAI and DeepMind.This is an additional installmen...
Yi Zeng - Exploring 'Virtue' and Goodness Through Posthuman Minds [AI Safety Connect, Episode 2]
11 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Yi Zeng, Professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a member of the United Nations High-Level Advisory Body on AI, and le...
Max Tegmark - The Lynchpin Factors to Achieving AGI Governance [AI Safety Connect, Episode 1]
28 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Max Tegmark, MIT professor, Founder of the Future of Humanity Institute, and author of Life 3.0.This interview was recorded ...
Michael Levin - Unfolding New Paradigms of Posthuman Intelligence [Worthy Successor, Episode 7]
14 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Dr. Michael Levin, a pioneering developmental biologist at Tufts University.This is an additional installment of our "W...
Eliezer Yudkowsky - Human Augmentation as a Safer AGI Pathway [AGI Governance, Episode 6]
24 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Eliezer Yudkowsky, AI Researcher at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute.This is the sixth installment of our "A...
Connor Leahy - Slamming the Brakes on the AGI Arms Race [AGI Governance, Episode 5]
10 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Connor Leahy, the Founder and CEO of Conjecture.This is the fifth installment of our "AGI Governance" series - whe...
Andrea Miotti - A Human-First AI Future [AGI Governance, Episode 4]
27 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Andrea Miotti, the Founder and Executive Director of ControlAI.This is the fourth installment of our "AGI Governance&qu...
Stephen Ibaraki - The Beginning of AGI Global Coordination [AGI Governance, Episode 3]
13 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Stephen Ibaraki, the Founder of the ITU's (part of the United Nations) AI for Good initiative, and Chairman REDDS Capit...
Mike Brown - AI Cooperation and Competition Between the US and China [AGI Governance, Episode 2]
29 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Mike Brown, Partner at Shield Capital and the Former Director of the Defense Innovation Unit at the U.S. Department of Defen...
Sébastien Krier - Keeping a Pulse on AGI's Takeoff [AGI Governance, Episode 1]
15 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Sebastien Krier, who works in Policy Development and Strategy at Google DeepMind.This is the first installment of our "...
Joscha Bach - Building an AGI to Play the Longest Games [Worthy Successor, Episode 6]
25 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Joscha Bach, cognitive scientist, AI researcher, and AI Strategist at Liquid AI.This is the sixth and final installment of o...
Jeff Hawkins - Building a Knowledge-Preserving AGI to Live Beyond Us (Worthy Successor, Episode 5)
11 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Jeff Hawkins, Founder of Numenta and author of “A Thousand Brains."This is the fifth installment of our "Worthy ...
Scott Aaronson - AGI That Evolves Our Values Without Replacing Them (Worthy Successor, Episode 4)
13 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Scott Aaronson, theoretical computer scientist and Schlumberger Centennial Chair of Computer Science at the University of Te...
Anders Sandberg - Blooming the Space of Intelligence and Value (Worthy Successor Series, Episode 3)
23 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week, Anders Sandberg, Computational Neuroscience PhD, Researcher at the Mimir Center for Long-Term Futures Research.---This is the second instal...
Richard Sutton - Humanity Never Had Control in the First Place (Worthy Successor Series, Episode 2)
09 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week Dr. Richard Sutton. Known for his breakthroughs in reinforcement learning, Richard serves as a Professor at The University of Alberta and Re...
Nick Bostrom - AGI That Saves Room for Us (Worthy Successor Series, Episode 1)
26 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Nick Bostrom, the Founding Director of Future of Humanity Institute Oxford.This is the first installment of The Worthy Succe...
Dan Hendrycks - Avoiding an AGI Arms Race (AGI Destinations Series, Episode 5)
21 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Dan Hendrycks, Executive Director and Co-Founder of The Center for AI Safety (safe.ai).This is the fifth and final installme...
Dileep George - Keep Strong AI as a Tool, Not a Successor (AGI Destinations Series, Episode 4)
11 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Dileep George, AI Researcher at Google DeepMind, previously CTO and Co-founder of Vicarious AI.This is the fourth episode in...
Ben Goertzel - Regulating AGI May Do More Harm Than Good (AGI Destinations Series, Episode 3)
26 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Ben Goertzel, CEO of SingularityNET, and AGI researcher for many decades. This is the third episode in a 5-part series about...
Jaan Tallinn - The Case for a Pause Before We Birth AGI (AGI Destinations Series, Episode 2)
09 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Jaan Tallinn, billionaire tech mogul (Kazaa, Skype), brilliant thinker, and long-time funder for AI safety causes.This is th...
Yoshua Bengio - Why We Shouldn't Blast Off to AGI Just Yet (AGI Destinations Series, Episode 1)
09 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is an interview with Dr. Yoshua Bengio, Turing Award Winner and Scientific Director of the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms. This is th...
Welcome to The Trajectory - Realpolitik on AGI and the Posthuman Future
07 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There three main questions we'll be covering on the Trajectory: 1. Who are the power players in AGI and what are their incentives? 2. What kind...