Humanity has a deep time problem. Our internal clock simply cannot compute on a time scale that takes into account the rise and fall of civilizations, star systems, and superintelligences. Unable to fathom consequences beyond our chronology, we make decisions and take actions that could snuff out our species in a blinding flash of light that would barely merit mention on the cosmic timeline. Ross Andersen writes for The Atlantic about the sublime and scary implications  of deep time. In this episode, he speaks with Futurology producer Grant Slater about how our view of time itself dictates what feels urgent now. From our definition of consciousness to our search for life in the cosmos, a wider frame of reference could dictate a new organizing principle for life on our planet and beyond.

In 2014, the breakthrough Human Microbiome Project confirmed that – within our own bodies – we are outnumbered. For every human cell, there are three bacterial microbes residing in our gut and throughout what we long considered solid and singular self. This discovery severed the final remaining links in the Great Chain of Being, a persistent mythology from antiquity that cast humans as higher than and apart from the rest of creation. In this episode of Futurology, Aminah Bradford talks with Jonathan Blake about what she calls microbial theology. It’s a way of thinking about God, spirit, and community in light of the teeming life within us. This discovery forces Western religion to contend with the fact that we are never alone, that we are porous and dependent upon multitudes that we cannot see.

We live in a culture hooked on speed and certainty. Hot takes, quick fixes, and algorithms that claim to know us better than we know ourselves. Yet despite all the information at our fingertips, the world seems to make less sense by the day. In this episode, renowned travel writer Pico Iyer describes how globalization – which offered up the mirage of a global monoculture – has instead led to a clash of civilizations and identity. For Pico, wisdom resides not in mastery but in doubt. From his decades of constant travel to his retreats in silence, Iyer describes how humility and stillness can open a clearer view of the world than certainty ever could.

Each and every image of the cosmos is an act of interpretation. Scientists collaborate with artists and illustrators to saturate the colorless data of distant nebulae and galaxies and invoke awe. They rotate images, signalling which way is up in a void where ‘up’ does not exist. They make up for the shortcomings of our perception with the power of our imagination. In this episode, space historian Lois Rosson joins Claire Webb to examine the hidden politics of how we picture the universe. What we see in the stars is never just out there. It’s also a projection of what we’re going through here on Earth. From frontier nostalgia to government propaganda and corporate branding to the increasing role of AI in depicting the unknown, space imagery dictates what destiny humanity will manifest.

For decades, world leaders told us that global trade would keep the peace. Markets would bind nations together, and economic interdependence would make conflict too costly to pursue. That logic shaped the global institutions of the late twentieth century and defined the worldview of Pascal Lamy, former head of the World Trade Organization. In this episode, Lamy sits down with Lorenzo Marsili, the director of the Berggruen Institute-Europe to reflect on why that promise can't be kept. From the collapse of the WTO consensus to the rise of U.S.–China rivalry, from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the splintering of the internet, he explains why globalization can no longer guarantee harmony and what a world order governed by “precautionism” that prioritizes a Planetary commons might offer instead.

The Berggruen Institute began with a simple conviction: ideas shape the world. Out of the wreckage of the 2008 financial crisis,the Institute's co-founders – Nicolas Berggruen and Nathan Gardels – set out to build an independent think tank that would imagine bold, new futures, bridge cultures, and redesign institutions to match the pace of the 21st century. Beyond just thinking about these ideas, today the Institute works to make them real. In this episode, Berggruen and Gardels reflect on their unlikely partnership and the projects that shaped their vision. From bipartisan reform efforts in California to high-level dialogues in Beijing, they chart the emergence of some of the Institute’s most innovative frameworks: participation without populism, pre-distribution of wealth, and planetary realism. Along the way, they discuss why philosophy still matters and how nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

The liberal world order was built for a different era — more centralized, more hierarchical, more predictable. In the 21st century, power has gone fluid. It flows through supply chains and satellites, networks and platforms, alliances that shift issue by issue. In this episode, policy thinker Anne-Marie Slaughter joins Nathan Gardels to map a world no longer defined by blocs, but by webs. From climate cooperation to civilizational conflict, from multipolar diplomacy to local democratic renewal, they explore what comes after the end of the nation-state’s monopoly on the future.

The ever-branching network of lakes, rivers, and streams that flow west from the Rockies enable human life to flourish in one of the hottest places on Earth. This is a “cyborg watershed” – part natural, part machine, and wholly entangled with the myths and machinery of the region. In this episode, LA-based artist Lauren Bon joins Futurology producer Grant Slater to trace the path of her large-scale artworks that intervene in that system, blurring the lines between art, engineering, and activism. The conversation moves through buried waterways, the choreography of permits and politics, and the search for a civic identity grounded in the flow of water rather than the lines on a map.

The modern nation-state wasn’t just a conglomeration of laws and armies. It was a belief in borders, in belonging, in the promise that citizenship could ground identity in a chaotic world. That belief is faltering. In this episode, writer and thinker Rana Dasgupta joins Jonathan Blake to explore the spiritual and political collapse of state power.They unearth sovereignty's theological roots, assess its crumbling currency regimes, and reckon with the return of nomadism in a world of climate migration and digital drift.

For most of human history, the end of the world was a divine promise, inevitable and liberating for the holy alone. But the invention of extinction changed that. This was no prophecy. It was discovery – a realization that the universe could go on without us – and probably would. In this episode, philosopher Thomas Moynihan joins Benjamin Bratton to trace the history of a shift in thinking: that the future isn’t guaranteed. They ask how our expanding knowledge of time reshaped not just our fears, but our obligations — not only to each other, but to futures we might never see. Along the way: AI, planetary intelligence, and the ethics of life beyond Earth.

In the 21st century, Silicon Valley has coded into existence a vast memetic machinery — a self-replicating ecosystem of feedback loops, default settings, and algorithms now steering society at scale. Increasingly, it appears this emergent cyberocracy no longer wants to disrupt the world, but to govern it. In this episode, veteran journalist John Markoff teases out novel strands of thought that are increasingly embedded in the DNA of Washington, DC. From Palo Alto to the Pentagon, from Burning Man to the Beltway, we must reckon with a new networked system of systems where power flows through their servers, not the Senate.

On America’s 250th birthday, historian Niall Ferguson suggests that the US has reached an age when most republics fizzle out. Donald Trump’s rise is merely a symptom of this late-stage unspooling of an empire that America could never quite escape. In this episode, Ferguson tells the story of a republic that burns hot, forgets fast, and could smolder on the ash heap of history sooner than we expect in the face of a second Cold War that has already begun with a more formidable and AI-empowered foe.

Stephen Batchelor has spent decades stripping Buddhism of its dogma to find what wisdom it can offer the modern world. Could cities and countries run on karma instead of capital? In this episode, he sketches a vision of society grounded in awareness, compassion, and radical interdependence — a politics of presence rather than power. Stripped of its cosmologies, he argues, a secular Buddhism could light the way toward an ethical response to a world on fire.

Before robots can act, they need to know where they are. That’s the deceptively simple premise behind the latest effort from machine vision pioneer Fei-Fei Li. She's building a Large World Model that will enable artificial intelligences to situate themselves in our reality and create entirely new worlds of their own, for human minds to inhabit. In this episode, we trace the evolution of artificial perception — from the early days of visual machine learning with stoplights and puppies to today's efforts to put robots in their place.

If we ever land on another planet, we won’t be the first to arrive. It will be our machines — the ones we’ve trained, calibrated, and loaded onto rockets – who will roam alien landscapes. In this episode, NASA roboticist Vandi Verma takes us inside the mind of a Mars rover — and into the process of building, steering, and co-evolving with machines that learn as they go. As we aim for unwelcoming planets and stranger moons, our robots must grow bolder to survive. With artificial intelligence on board, will they evolve to lead the search for life itself?

More than three decades ago, Francis Fukuyama saw the future: a world order that looked inevitable, stable, liberal. What emerged instead is something bumpier, louder, and far more dangerous. In this episode, Fukuyama takes us on a ride through the strange resurrection of 19th-century power politics, the rise of political strongmen, and the collapse of trust that can dooms institutions to failure. We discuss what’s left to salvage – and what a bureaucracy of the future could accomplish.

Futurology is a new a weekly podcast from the Berggruen Institute where we work to name what’s next. Join us as we imagine a future we can accomplish together, instead of one we must all work to prevent.