# Steven Kotler on We Are As Gods

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/singularity-fm-1654370/steven-kotler-on-we-are-as-gods
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/singularity-fm-1654370/steven-kotler-on-we-are-as-gods.md
Podcast: [Singularity.FM](https://stenobird.com/podcast/singularity-fm-1654370)
Published: 2026-04-06T12:23:49+00:00
Episode link: https://soundcloud.com/singularity1on1/we-are-as-gods
Audio file: https://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/2297411714-singularity1on1-we-are-as-gods.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/singularity-fm-1654370/episodes/steven-kotler-on-we-are-as-gods
Duration seconds: 5200

## Resource

We have godlike technology. Do we have godlike responsibility to match? In this third conversation with Steven Kotler — our first in 14 years — we dig into his latest book, We Are As Gods: A Survival Guide for the Age of Abundance, co-written with Peter Diamandis. And while the book makes a powerful case for abundance, I came prepared to challenge it. Because abundance without purpose, as Kotler himself argues, is not salvation. It is a different kind of crisis. The evidence is already in. John Calhoun’s Universe 25 experiment created a perfect mouse utopia — unlimited food, water, and space, with no predators. The population boomed. Then society collapsed completely. Not from scarcity. From the absence of challenge and meaning. Calhoun’s haunting conclusion, quoted in the book: there is no logical reason a comparable sequence could not unfold for a species as complex as man. This is why it is a survival guide. I also push back on what has — and hasn’t — aged well from the original Abundance: the techno-philanthropist thesis, the formula of capital plus people plus technology, and whether the explosion of AI is actually delivering on the promise — or accelerating the dark side. As the Dalai Lama put it: “We don’t need more intelligence. We need more compassion.” And as Jerry Seinfeld added: “We’re smart enough to invent AI, dumb enough to need it, and so stupid we can’t figure out if we did the right thing.” We explore all of this — and more: What “We Are As Gods” actually means — promise, aspiration, warning, or choice? What the original Abundance got right — and what Kotler now regrets The techno-philanthropist thesis: visionaries or new robber barons? AI: overhyped, underpowered, and why the backlash is a mark of sanity Cognitive offloading and what we risk losing w…

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## Transcript

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