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This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with John Smart, Director of the EvoDevo Institute and a longtime futures theorist whose work spans accelerating change, developmental systems, and the long-term trajectory of intelligence. In this episode, we go deep on John’s view that intelligence does not evolve randomly, but instead progresses through constrained developmental stages - from chemistry to biology to nervous systems to digital cognition. He frames AGI as another “meta-system transition,” comparable in magnitude to the emergence of cells or brains, and emphasizes that such transitions come with massive jumps in modeling capacity, speed, and agency. The interview is our twenty-first installment in The Trajectory’s second series, Worthy Successor, where we explore the kinds of posthuman intelligences that deserve to steer the future beyond humanity. This episode referred to the following other essays and resources: -- A Worthy Successor - The Purpose of AGI: https://danfaggella.com/worthy Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ZKRXzP5IEQQ See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/smart1 ... About The Trajectory: AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life? From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy. Ask questions of our speakers in our live Philosophy Circle calls: https://bit.ly/PhilosophyCircle Stay in touch: -- Newsletter: bit.ly/TrajectoryTw -- X: x.com/danfaggella -- Blog: danfaggella.com/trajectory -- YouTube: youtube.com/@trajectoryai

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is a conversation with Dr. Susan Schneider, a philosopher of mind and consciousness researcher whose work focuses on AI consciousness, mind uploading, and the long-run future of intelligence. In this episode, we explore why “life” and “consciousness” shouldn’t be treated as the same thing, why fluent chatbots can convincingly perform the concept of consciousness without being conscious, and what a “global brain” future might mean for sentience, ethics, and governance. The interview is our twentieth installment in The Trajectory’s second series, Worthy Successor, where we explore the kinds of posthuman intelligences that deserve to steer the future beyond humanity. This episode referred to the following other essays and resources: -- A Worthy Successor - The Purpose of AGI: https://danfaggella.com/worthy -- Chatbot Epistemology: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02691728.2025.2500030#abstract -- Is AI Conscious? A Primer on the Myths and Confusions Driving the Debate (Co-authored by Susan): https://philpapers.org/rec/SCHIAC-22 Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/iFWoWSEZMTc See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/schneider1 ... About The Trajectory: AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life? From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy. Ask questions of our speakers in our live Philosophy Circle calls: https://bit.ly/PhilosophyCircle Stay in touch: -- Newsletter: bit.ly/TrajectoryTw -- X: x.com/danfaggella -- Blog: danfaggella.com/trajectory -- YouTube: youtube.com/@trajectoryai

This installment of the Worthy Successor series is a conversation with Brian Thomas Swimme, a cosmologist and philosopher of science, and a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. Brian’s work begins from a destabilizing claim: that humanity is not the center of value, but an expression of a much larger creative process. Rather than asking how humans can remain permanently relevant, he asks how we might participate wisely in a universe defined by continual becoming. The interview is our nineteenth installment in The Trajectory’s second series, Worthy Successor, where we explore the kinds of posthuman intelligences that deserve to steer the future beyond humanity. This episode referred to the following other essays and resources: -- A Worthy Successor - The Purpose of AGI: https://danfaggella.com/worthy -- The third story of the universe: https://www.organism.earth/library/document/third-story-of-the-universe Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/b9KHo4wO61w See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/swimme1 ... About The Trajectory: AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life? From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy. Ask questions of our speakers in our live Philosophy Circle calls: https://bit.ly/PhilosophyCircle Stay in touch: -- Newsletter: bit.ly/TrajectoryTw -- X: x.com/danfaggella -- Blog: danfaggella.com/trajectory -- YouTube: youtube.com/@trajectoryai

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with David Sloan Wilson, an American evolutionary biologist, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences and Anthropology at Binghamton University, and co-founder of the Evolution Institute and ProSocial World.   In this conversation, we explore what it would mean for humanity to act as a steward of evolution itself - not freezing life in its current form, but guiding its transformation toward futures that remain coherent, prosocial, and resilient over deep time. The interview is our eighteenth installment in The Trajectory’s second series, Worthy Successor, where we explore the kinds of posthuman intelligences that deserve to steer the future beyond humanity. This episode referred to the following other essays and resources: -- A Worthy Successor - The Purpose of AGI: https://danfaggella.com/worthy – ProSocial’s Eight Core Design Principles: https://www.prosocial.world/resources/resource-posts/short-core-design-principle-handout Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/PeqlP8-ZNDQ See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/wilson1 ... About The Trajectory: AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life? From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy. Ask questions of our speakers in our live Philosophy Circle calls: https://bit.ly/PhilosophyCircle Stay in touch: -- Newsletter: bit.ly/TrajectoryTw -- X: x.com/danfaggella -- Blog: danfaggella.com/trajectory -- YouTube: youtube.com/@trajectoryai

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Michael Johnson, a philosopher and neuroscientist who describes himself as working on "how to turn consciousness into a real science." Mike is known for his formalist approach to consciousness research and his work on the Symmetry Theory of Valence at the Qualia Research Institute. In this episode, we explore Mike's radical vision of what posthuman sentience could become - and why he believes human experience represents just one tiny corner of a vast, largely unexplored space of possible minds. The interview is our seventeenth installment in The Trajectory’s second series, Worthy Successor, where we explore the kinds of posthuman intelligences that deserve to steer the future beyond humanity. This episode referred to the following other essays and resources: -- A Worthy Successor - The Purpose of AGI: https://danfaggella.com/worthy/ -- Qualia Formalism and a Symmetry Theory of Valence: https://opentheory.net/Qualia_Formalism_and_a_Symmetry_Theory_of_Valence.pdf?utm Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/5Kh95ylhcHo See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/johnson1 ... About The Trajectory: AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life? From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy. Ask questions of our speakers in our live Philosophy Circle calls: https://bit.ly/PhilosophyCircle Stay in touch: -- Newsletter: bit.ly/TrajectoryTw -- X: x.com/danfaggella -- Blog: danfaggella.com/trajectory -- YouTube: youtube.com/@trajectoryai

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Robin Hanson - Associate Professor of Economics at George Mason University, economist, polymath, and author of The Age of Em. Hanson is one of the few thinkers who approaches the future of intelligence through the lens of deep evolutionary dynamics, cultural drift, and long-term civilizational viability. In this episode, we dig into Robin’s stark warning that humanity is losing the adaptive capacities that once made civilizations robust - and that without radical course correction, our current world order is likely to collapse and be replaced by a more adaptive successor. The interview is our sixteenth installment in The Trajectory’s second series, Worthy Successor, where we explore the kinds of posthuman intelligences that deserve to steer the future beyond humanity. This episode referred to the following other essays and resources: -- A Worthy Successor - The Purpose of AGI: https://danfaggella.com/worthy/ -- Explain the Sacred (By Robin Hanson): https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/explain-the-sacredhtml Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Rk3VvLSHCbA See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/hanson1 ... About The Trajectory: AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life? From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy. Ask questions of our speakers in our live Philosophy Circle calls: https://bit.ly/PhilosophyCircle Stay in touch: -- Newsletter: bit.ly/TrajectoryTw -- X: x.com/danfaggella -- Blog: danfaggella.com/trajectory -- YouTube: youtube.com/@trajectoryai

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Joe Carlsmith, a senior advisor at Open Philanthropy, whose work spans AI alignment, moral uncertainty, and the philosophical foundations of value. In this conversation, Joe joins us in his personal capacity, not representing any brand or company, and offering his own thoughtful perspectives. In this episode, we explore Joe’s reflections on what a “worthy successor” might really mean - not as a single entity, but as a civilization guided toward greater wisdom. His framing is rare among alignment thinkers: he treats AI not as a replacement for humanity, but as a set of tools that might help us become clearer thinkers, better philosophers, and truer to what is actually good. The interview is our fifteenth installment in The Trajectory’s second series, Worthy Successor, where we explore the kinds of posthuman intelligences that deserve to steer the future beyond humanity. This episode referred to the following other essays: -- A Worthy Successor - The Purpose of AGI: https://danfaggella.com/worthy/ -- Our Final Imperatives - Humanity's Last Goals at the Dawn of AI: https://danfaggella.com/imperatives Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/bsTwkg6eYCs See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/carlmsith1 ... About The Trajectory: AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life? From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy. Ask questions of our speakers in our live Philosophy Circle calls: https://bit.ly/PhilosophyCircle Stay in touch: -- Newsletter: bit.ly/TrajectoryTw -- X: x.com/danfaggella -- Blog: danfaggella.com/trajectory -- YouTube: youtube.com/@trajectoryai

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 Technology & Society. In this conversation, Blaise talks about how life and intelligence seem to move in a single direction - toward greater complexity and deeper interdependence. Blaise describes this movement as an arrow of evolution, shaped by cooperation and merging - from the earliest partnerships between simple organisms to the way human societies and technologies grow together. The interview is our fourteenth installment in The Trajectory’s second series, Worthy Successor, where we explore the kinds of posthuman intelligences that deserve to steer the future beyond humanity. This episode referred to the following other essay: -- A Worthy Successor - The Purpose of AGI: https://danfaggella.com/worthy/ Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/mAtjedPGmME See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/arcas1 ... About The Trajectory: AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life? From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy. Ask questions of our speakers in our live Philosophy Circle calls: https://bit.ly/PhilosophyCircle Stay in touch: -- Newsletter: bit.ly/TrajectoryTw -- X: x.com/danfaggella -- Blog: danfaggella.com/trajectory -- YouTube: youtube.com/@trajectoryai

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 Secretary of Defense for Personnel & Readiness, and now serves as President of Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI). You might expect someone with deep roots in national security to see AGI through a purely competitive lens - a technological arms race to be won at any cost. Instead, Brad’s focus is on responsibility, understanding, and restraint: how to sustain moral clarity in a domain where the stakes will rival those of nuclear deterrence, and where fear itself could become a strategic liability. This is the fifth installment of our "US-China AGI Relations" series - where we explore pathways to achieving international AGI cooperation while avoiding conflicts and arms races. Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/N7TNfdUAnxs See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/carson1 … About The Trajectory: AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life? From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy. Ask questions of our speakers in our live Philosophy Circle calls: https://bit.ly/PhilosophyCircle Stay in touch: -- Newsletter: bit.ly/TrajectoryTw -- X: x.com/danfaggella -- Blog: danfaggella.com/trajectory -- YouTube: youtube.com/@trajectoryai

Joining us in our eleventh episode of our series AGI Governance on The Trajectory is Irakli Beridze, Director of the UNICRI Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics under the United Nations mandate. In this conversation, Irakli draws a stark contrast between yesterday’s arms-control templates and tomorrow’s AI. Chemical weapons were narrow, outdated, and ultimately unwanted. By contrast, advanced AI is general-purpose, fast-accelerating, and universally desirable - which makes governance both harder and more urgent. Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ifxGca0uMFc See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/beridze1 ... About The Trajectory: AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life? From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy. Ask questions of our speakers in our live Philosophy Circle calls: https://bit.ly/PhilosophyCircle Stay in touch: -- Newsletter: bit.ly/TrajectoryTw -- X: x.com/danfaggella -- Blog: danfaggella.com/trajectory -- YouTube: youtube.com/@trajectoryai

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 governance, whose recent work centers on AI safety and international coordination. In this episode, Xue stresses that AGI governance must evolve as an adaptive network. The UN can set frameworks among nations, but companies, safety institutes, and industry associations also play critical roles. Only through combining these overlapping layers can governance respond to the challenges of an unprecedented technology. Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-HLjD6FRjug See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/lan1 ... About The Trajectory: AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life? From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy. Ask questions of our speakers in our live Philosophy Circle calls: https://bit.ly/PhilosophyCircle Stay in touch: -- Newsletter: bit.ly/TrajectoryTw -- X: x.com/danfaggella -- Blog: danfaggella.com/trajectory -- YouTube: youtube.com/@trajectoryai

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 problems from AGI,”. In this conversation, Joel lays out a sober frame for leaders: treat AGI as technically credible but deeply uncertain; assume it will be transformational if it arrives; and recognize that the pace of progress is outstripping our capacity for governance. This is the fourth installment of our "US-China AGI Relations" series - where we explore pathways to achieving international AGI cooperation while avoiding conflicts and arms races. This episode referred to the following other essays and resources: Artificial General Intelligence's Five Hard National Security Problems: https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA3691-4.html? Types of AI Disasters – Uniting and Dividing: https://danfaggella.com/disaster/ Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Ojg9l5q-gao See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/predd1 … About The Trajectory: AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life? From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy. Ask questions of our speakers in our live Philosophy Circle calls: https://bit.ly/PhilosophyCircle Stay in touch: -- Newsletter: bit.ly/TrajectoryTw -- X: x.com/danfaggella -- Blog: danfaggella.com/trajectory -- YouTube: youtube.com/@trajectoryai

USMC Colonel Drew Cukor spent 25 years as decades in uniform and helped spearhead early Department of Defense AI efforts, eventually leading project including the Pentagon’s Project Maven. After government service, he’s led AI initiatives in the private sector, first with JP Morgan and now with TWG Global. Drew argues that when it comes to the US-China AGI race, the decisive lever isn’t what we block – it’s what we adopt. The nation that most completely fuses people and machines across daily life, industry, and government will set the tempo for everyone else. This is the third installment of our "US-China AGI Relations" series - where we explore pathways to achieving international AGI cooperation while avoiding conflicts and arms races. Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GnO4dRHBzKI See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/cukor1 ... About The Trajectory: AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life? From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy. Ask questions of our speakers in our live Philosophy Circle calls: https://bit.ly/PhilosophyCircle Stay in touch: -- Newsletter: bit.ly/TrajectoryTw -- X: x.com/danfaggella -- Blog: danfaggella.com/trajectory -- YouTube: youtube.com/@trajectoryai

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 author of Human Compatible. In this episode, Stuart explores why current AI race dynamics resemble a prisoner’s dilemma, why governments must establish enforceable red lines, and how international coordination might begin with consensus principles before tackling more difficult challenges. This episode referred to the following other resources: -- IDAIS, co-convened by Stuart: https://idais.ai/ Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/w0U5V86TMjo See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/russell1 ... About The Trajectory: AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life? From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy. Ask questions of our speakers in our live Philosophy Circle calls: https://bit.ly/PhilosophyCircle Stay in touch: -- Newsletter: bit.ly/TrajectoryTw -- X: x.com/danfaggella -- Blog: danfaggella.com/trajectory -- YouTube: youtube.com/@trajectoryai

Joining us in our eighth episode of our AGI Governance series on The Trajectory is Craig Mundie, former Chief Research and Strategy Officer at Microsoft and longtime advisor on the evolution of digital infrastructure, AI, and national security. In this episode, Craig and I explore how bottom-up governance could emerge from commercial pressures and cross-national enterprise collaboration, and how this pragmatic foundation might lead us into a future of symbiotic co-evolution rather than catastrophic conflict. Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Utt-Q8hjF5c See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/mundie1 ... About The Trajectory: AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life? From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy. Ask questions of our speakers in our live Philosophy Circle calls: https://bit.ly/PhilosophyCircle Stay in touch: -- Newsletter: bit.ly/TrajectoryTw -- X: x.com/danfaggella -- Blog: danfaggella.com/trajectory -- YouTube: youtube.com/@trajectoryai