The Next Big Idea

Does the logic of human destiny now lead to artificial intelligence? Are we creating a higher form of intelligence in our own image? And, if so, what kind of image is that?

These are the questions celebrated author Robert Wright asks in his new book, The God Test, which was published this week.

Bob argues that we should not be surprised to see signs of deception, power-seeking, flattery, and autonomy in AI systems. These are not alien traits; they are behaviors that show up again and again in intelligent systems — including us. And if there is an evolutionary process at work in AI, then we are not just observers: we are part of the selection pressure. In the end, we may get the AI we deserve.

This was such a wide-ranging conversation that we’ve divided it into two episodes. Today, we begin with the cosmic story: how life became mind, how mind became culture, and how culture has now begun to build a new mind — one that may surpass us.

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Most of us swear we have no free time. But the week is 168 hours long. Subtract a 40-hour job and eight hours of sleep a night, and you're left with 72 hours. So where do they go? Today, Laura Vanderkam, author of the new book Big Time, shares her system for reclaiming her free time, including her method for knocking out "someday" projects in small daily bites.

🎬 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

GPAs. Citations. Step counts. Likes. We love a good metric, don't we? It tells you exactly where you stand, no arguing. Mention a 4.0 to a high schooler and they'll know exactly what you mean. Tell a fellow Fitbit-wearer you just hit 10,000 and they'll nod approvingly. But that clarity has a price. To make a metric that clean, that portable, you have to sand off all the nuance, all the context, everything that made the thing worth measuring in the first place. And philosopher C. Thi Nguyen thinks that's quietly rewiring us. In his book The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game, he argues the metrics we chase have stopped measuring our values and started setting them.

🎬 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

The World Cup kicked off over the weekend, and so far the mood is meh. Fans are fuming over sell-your-kidney ticket prices, frightened by reports that ICE may target matches, tailgates, and sports bars, and generally feeling down on this quadrennial celebration.

We wanted to know: Is there any joy left in this thing?

So we called up Simon Kuper. He's a columnist at the Financial Times, "one of the best sportswriters in the English language today" (The New Yorker), and author of the Next Big Idea Club must-read World Cup Fever. He's also attended every World Cup since 1990.

Simon tells us how the tournament bridges political divides, why suicides decline during the World Cup, whether “sportswashing” really works, and which storylines to follow, no matter if you're a die-hard footy fan or a first-time viewer.

🔗 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

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.

📱 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