Episode
Robert Wright On AI And Evolution
- Published
- Jun 26, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2990
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Summary
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com Bob is a journalist and the author of many books, including The Moral Animal , Nonzero , The Evolution of God , and Why Buddhism Is True . He’s written for countless magazines, including The New Republic, where he co-wrote the TRB column with Mickey Kaus. They also co-founded Bloggingheads TV, and Bob taught in the psych department at Penn and the religion department at Princeton. Today you can find him on Substack at the NonZero Newsletter , and his new book is The God Test : Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning . For two clips of the episode — how AI flatters its users, and the rapidly converging threats from AI — head to our YouTube page . Other topics: Bob’s reporting on AI in the early 1980s; Geoffrey Hinton — “the godfather of AI” — warning us about AI; “doomer-in-chief” Eliezer Yudkowsky; Bob’s own evolution on AI; the Tree of Knowledge; how AI is a more challenging global issue than nukes; the need for international regulation; the noosphere, our “global brain” — and its author, the visionary Christian, Teilhard de Chardin; neural networks; ChatGPT; Musk and self-driving cars; BF Skinner; philosopher John Searle; olfactory AI; virtual reality; AI designing drugs to induce spirituality; Anthropic’s Dario Amodei; Sam Altman calling Trump an NPC; AI stoking conspiracies; Leo’s encyclical; cognitive empathy; the Iran War; China vs Taiwan; kids befriending AI agents; Hal in 2001 ; the movie Her ; silicon neurons that evolve; AI threatening the human need to be needed; job losses; scams; electoral risks; populism and tribalism; how is AI a continuation of human evolution; and the many positive potentials of AI. Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you mi…