The Next Big Idea

Nearly half of all Americans believe AI is bad for humanity. Peter Diamandis is not one of them. On his podcast, Moonshots, and in his new book, We Are as Gods, co-written with the inimitable Steven Kotler, he makes the case that artificial intelligence is already ushering in a world of abundance — think radical life extension, 10 billion humanoid robots, and agents that do your job while you're sipping a latte.

He knows it may not be all sunshine and hydroponic roses, but he believes our future is incredibly bright. And he's putting his money where his mouth is: XPRIZE, the nonprofit he founded more than 30 years ago to bankroll breakthroughs, just announced it's giving $3.5 million to filmmakers who conjure convincingly optimistic visions of the future.

Rufus and Caleb don't have their film treatment ready yet, but they do have plenty of questions for Peter and Steven about flying cars, the future of work, worst-case scenarios, and the new commandments for working with AI.

💬 LINES WE LOVE:

“If you’re in ninth grade and you’re using AI to do your homework, that’s just stupid, and you shouldn’t be allowed to do that. But if you’re in ninth grade and you’re using AI to help you build a starship to go to Alpha Centauri, or create a new form of energy, or something that’s way beyond your dreams — and it’s enabling you to up-level your ambition and your abilities — then that’s amazing.” —Peter Diamandis

“Human writing is weird, it's surprising, it's idiosyncratic, it has high prediction error. An LLM optimizes towards the mean, towards the average. It standardizes output... [It] may make your writing look a lot cleaner to you, but it's actually hurting communication and it's hurting persuasion. Average gets ignored; remarkable gets remembered.” —Steven Kotler

"I'm not worried about artificial intelligence. I'm worried about human stupidity.” —Peter Diamandis

🎬 The Next Big Idea is now on YouTube! You can find our episodes ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠.

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🎁 The best way to support the show is by becoming a Next Big Idea Club member. Learn more at ⁠⁠nextbigideaclub.com⁠⁠, and use code PODCAST for a super secret discount (spoiler: it’s 20% off).

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Modern life has not been easy on our brains. Average IQ scores rose steadily throughout the last century. Now they appear to be leveling off. The problem, according to neuroscientists, may be that we have reached our neurobiological limits. Our brains simply can’t work any harder. Luckily, science writer Annie Murphy Paul has a solution. In her book The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain, she draws on a wealth of scientific research to show that we’re smarter when we get out of our heads. By offloading our memories onto our phones, making decisions based on our bodily sensations, using tactile tools to solve abstract problems, drawing inspiration from our surroundings, and arguing with our friends, we can access intelligence that exists beyond the confines of our craniums. In this episode, Annie explains how to do it.

This episode first aired in June 2021.

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Nicholas Epley is a mind reader. But he doesn’t have ESP or practice hypnosis. He's not telepathic or clairvoyant. Sure, you could ask him to read your fortune, but you'd be better off with a Magic 8 Ball.

When we say Nick is a mind reader, what we mean is he studies mind reading at the University of Chicago — studies, as he puts it, "how we make inferences about each other's thoughts and beliefs and attitudes, and mostly how we screw that up."

Today, he makes small talk — and big talk — with Rufus about his new book, A Little More Social, which draws on the dozens of studies he's run with thousands of participants to show that talking to strangers, cringe as it may feel, can enliven your days, lengthen your life, and maybe even heal our politics.

If you enjoyed this episode, check out our conversations with Charles Duhigg, Leslie John, David Brooks, Marc Schulz, Anna Sale, and John Colapinto.

The Next Big Idea is now on YouTube! You can find our episodes ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠.

Follow Rufus on ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠, subscribe to our ⁠⁠Substack⁠⁠, or send us an email at ⁠podcast@nextbigideaclub.com⁠.

The best way to support the show is by becoming a Next Big Idea Club member. Learn more at ⁠⁠nextbigideaclub.com⁠⁠, and use code PODCAST for a super secret discount (spoiler: it’s 20% off).

🔗 Sponsored By:

Fora — Build and scale your own travel business by becoming a Fora Advisor today at foratravel.com/idea

Northwest Registered Agent — Helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. Learn more at northwestregisteredagent.com/nbifree

Shopify — Launch your business for just $1/month. Start selling today at shopify.com/nbi

What do your five senses — sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch — have to do with happiness? According to Gretchen Rubin, a great deal. The world around us, she says, has the potential to dazzle, to entertain, to trigger a state of rapture. If only we pay attention. Today on the show, she shares the tools she's developed to delight in the physical world. She spoke to Rufus in April 2023 about her book Life in Five Senses.

Sponsored By:

Fora — Become a Fora Advisor today at foratravel.com/idea

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America's a funny place. It's not a country with a fixed geographic or religious identity. We don't have a common story of divine creation. "What we have," writes Ben Rhodes in his new book, ⁠All We Say⁠, "are words." The words of the founding documents, yes — but also "the words of speeches spoken by Americans who call us to be that better version of ourselves."

Ben has spent more time with great American speeches than just about anyone. For eight years, he was a speechwriter in the Obama White House, crafting some of the defining oratory of the era. His new book is a 250-year tour through 15 speeches that built the country, challenged it, and raised its sights.

He tells us how FDR changed the course of WWII from behind the lectern, how MLK ad-libbed one of the most famous lines in American history, and what Obama's 2008 speech about race can teach today's politicians about storytelling. And he makes the case that America needs great oratory now more than it has in a long time.

💬 LINES WE LOVED:

“Try to imagine American identity without speeches. It's hard to do. It's almost like secular scripture. Think about the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln's second inaugural, the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech or those Kennedy speeches — or, if you're a Republican, the speeches that Reagan gave. I would argue that one of the reasons our politics is so fractured and we can't talk to each other or persuade each other of anything is because we're not doing that anymore.”

“Obama used to say to me, ‘Remember that everything we do is just we're trying to tell the best story we can about America and what it can be.’ Not only is every speech a story, but every speech is a chapter in a larger story we're trying to tell.”

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If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like our conversations with Erik Larson, Walter Isaacson, Eric Weiner, and Jill Lepore.

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