The Beyond Tomorrow Podcast with Julian Issa

Everyone agrees we can’t pause AI. So what do we do instead?

This episode is brought to you by AgelessRx, where aging becomes a puzzle that can be solved. The mission is to help you live longer and healthier by adding more life to your years through science-backed solutions and personalized care. Learn more at http://agelessrx.com/beyond-tomorrow.

Five people who think about AI for a living sit down for a rapid-fire debate, and the host throws a handful of big statements at them. First up: can we, or should we, pause AI? Almost nobody says yes, and the more interesting part is what they’d do instead. Some want to slow the frontier, some want to shape it as it goes, and one is trying to seed a beneficial AGI before someone else builds a worse one.

From there the panel gets into recursive self-improvement and whether you can keep an AI’s goals stable, whether AI will widen the gap between rich and poor (and rich and poor countries), and who foots the bill when jobs disappear. Then comes the question of why experts and the public see AI so differently. Media, culture, and trust all take some blame. The last stretch compares a Manhattan Project approach with open, decentralized AGI, and everyone gets to say the one thing they think the world needs right now, plus a parting sentence.

Key Takeaways
Nearly everyone calls a pause a non-starter: “AI” is too fuzzy to define, and a pause would just push work underground

Keeping an AI’s goals stable while it rewrites itself may be a solvable engineering problem, but not everyone agrees that’s even desirable

On inequality, the panel splits between “it’s already happening” and “the floor keeps rising”

Public opinion on AI is shaped more by culture and media than by the tech itself

The alternative to corporate control or a government Manhattan Project: open, decentralized AGI, in the spirit of Linux

Meet the Panelists:
Ben Goertzel is the CEO of SingularityNET and Executive Chairman & Chief Scientist of BGI Labs who popularized the term “artificial general intelligence.” He’s building open-source, decentralized AGI.

Joscha Bach is a cognitive scientist and AI researcher focused on models of the mind and consciousness. He’s known for his philosophical takes on AI and ethics.

Kai Bickell is co-founder and Chief Ethics Officer of OpenBGI, working on a decentralized AI moral constitution. He’s also a survivor advocate honored by CHILD USA.

AJ Green is Executive Director of The AI Collective, the world’s largest AI nonprofit community. 

Catherine McMillan is Chief Operating Officer of The AI Collective. She helps run its global network of chapters and events.

⏱ Timestamps
00:00  Intro
01:11 Can We Pause AI?
08:50 Would AGI Actually Kill Us All?
10:16 What’s Really Behind the Pause AI Debate
13:40 How People Really Use AI Day to Day
18:49 Can Self-Improving AI Stay Moral?
20:46 How to Build a Moral AGI
26:43 Will AI Widen the Wealth Gap?
32:36 What a Beneficial Superintelligence Looks Like
37:11 Will AI Destroy More Jobs Than It Creates?
39:28 Society’s Bumpy Transition to AGI
49:56 How the World Sees AI
51:54 Why Culture Shapes Our View of AI
01:03:04 Was AI Ever a Manhattan Project?
01:10:50 Fear, Awareness, and the Public Knowledge Gap
01:12:24 Who’s Funding the AI Narrative?
01:15:26 The Case for Open, Decentralized AGI

Connect with Ben
Website: https://singularitynet.io/ 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bengoertzel 

Connect with Kai
Website: https://singularitynet.io/ 

Connect with AJ
Website: https://www.aicollective.com/ 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aj-green-ai 

Connect with Catherine
Website: https://catherine-mcmillan.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-r-mcmillan 

Connect with Joscha
Website: http://bach.ai/ 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joschabach/ 

Connect with Julian
Instagram: @thebeyondtomorrowpodcast / @juliankissa 
LinkedIn: julian-issa
X: @juliankissa
Website: www.beyondtomorrowpodcast.com

Is “AI will destroy humanity” a real risk, or a story we tell ourselves because we haven’t done the hard engineering?

This episode is brought to you by AgelessRx, where aging becomes a puzzle that can be solved. The mission is to help you live longer and healthier by adding more life to your years through science-backed solutions and personalized care. Learn more at agelessrx.com/beyond-tomorrow.

This conversation opens with a simple question to roboticist Hod Lipson, the mind behind Emo: does he feel like a villain? His answer is honest. He’s both excited and terrified, like someone being told an alien race is about to arrive and being asked whether to welcome them. From there, the discussion turns to why robot faces are so hard to build, and why he thinks the moment a robot genuinely smiles back at you will change how we connect with machines.

Then it gets into the harder questions. Hod is firm that AI won’t wipe out humanity, and he’s challenged more than once on superintelligence, on who benefits from the fear, and on whether nested sandboxes and “AI cops” can really keep us safe. The conversation also explores what it means for a robot to be self-aware, robots that repair and even “eat” each other, why he worries about kids and students whose best friend is an AI, and how any of us finds meaning when machines can do almost everything. It closes with the best advice he’s ever been given.

About Hod Lipson
Hod Lipson is a roboticist and AI researcher who leads work on Emo, a robot focused on realistic facial expression and lip movement. His research spans robot self-awareness, self-repairing and self-reproducing robots, and AI in agriculture.

⏱ Timestamps
00:00  Intro
00:08 Do You Feel Like a Villain? The AI Disaster Question
00:59 Robot Faces Are Next
03:49 Why Do We Need a Robot Face?
05:58 Robots That Look More Human-Like
07:50 Are You Scared?
08:42 “We Earned It” as a Human Race
10:40 The Benefits of Developing AI
15:07 Could AI Go Against Us?
17:42 Regulation, Liability and the FDA Analogy
20:00 Meet Emo
23:56 How Will We Interact With Robots in 2030?
27:00 Can a Humanoid Say No to You?
29:24 Do We Lose Skills to Technology?
32:24 Hod’s P(doom) Number: Zero
34:54 AI Is Limited to a Small Part of Our Life
37:42 Can You Switch Off All Robots?
40:44 Is the Doomer Movement Marketing?
43:40 Using AI to Make AI Safer
46:23 Why AI Can’t Kill Us All
50:07 China Leads in Robotics
52:12 Can Robots Develop Awareness?
58:12 The ChatGPT Moment for Robotics
59:28 A Robot Best Friend for a Child?
01:00:26 Would You Let a Robot Babysit?
01:01:53 Self-Awareness in Robots
01:03:42 The Weirdest Things People Will Do With Robots
01:05:10 Building and Maintaining Robots: Robot Metabolism
01:08:41 Exciting Possibilities With Physical Robots
01:10:22 Humans Are Evolving Too
01:13:04 The Pyramid of Needs: Finding Meaning
01:17:35 The Best Piece of Advice
01:18:58 If Tomorrow Was Your Last Day

Connect with Hod: 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hod-lipson-4018189 
Website: https://www.hodlipson.com/ 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/HodLipson1 
Books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B008VGBM8E/allbooks 

Connect with Julian
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebeyondtomorrowpodcast/ / https://www.instagram.com/juliankissa/ 
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/julian-issa 
X: https://x.com/juliankissa 
Website: www.beyondtomorrowpodcast.com 
Email: bookings@beyondtomorrowpodcast.com 

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Do we really know enough about GLP-1 drugs?
Mike Israetel breaks down the risks and trade-offs, from anhedonia and calorie-deprived diets to cognitive distortion and the myth of a “zero-harm” default.

Watch the full episode here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4iHXkGzLvxSU87rzOHNvlq?si=361782122faa4ea9

What if the fastest way to a longer life isn't a miracle drug, but a wartime mentality against aging?

This episode is brought to you by AgelessRx, where aging becomes a puzzle that can be solved. The mission is to help you live longer and healthier by adding more life to your years through science-backed solutions and personalized care. Learn more at agelessrx.com/beyond-tomorrow.
Curious about quantum energy wellness? Check out Leela Quantum Tech. Check out https://leelaq.com/  
On this episode of Beyond Tomorrow, four heavyweights of the longevity field take a rapid-fire statement format and turn it into a real debate. Aubrey de Grey, Alex Zhavoronkov (Insilico Medicine), George Church (Harvard Medical School), Michael Ringel (Life Biosciences) argue over whether hype helps or hurts the field, and when longevity escape velocity, the point where damage is repaired faster than it accumulates, might actually arrive. Aubrey puts it at a 50/50 chance within 12 to 15 years. Alex says 20 to 50 years and doubts drugs alone can get there. Michael pushes back on the idea of infinite lifespans entirely, while George suggests we may already be gaining years without the evidence to prove it.

From there the panel digs into the FDA's new interest in aging, why the TAME metformin trial never opened the floodgates, and whether AI will really shrink clinical timelines. George cites a gene therapy that reached a patient in seven months, while Alex, running many programs, argues that biology still moves at the speed of traffic. The back half covers biohacking and early adopters, the gap between everyday "longevity" and longevity biotechnology, the science of epigenetic reprogramming, what could happen by the XPRIZE Healthspan deadline in 2030, and what each panelist thinks the "ChatGPT moment" for longevity will look like.

About the Panelists
Aubrey de Grey has spent his entire career in the nonprofit sector, coined the term longevity escape velocity, and has been signed up with Alcor for cryonic preservation since 2002.

Alex Zhavoronkov is the founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine, a public biotech company with a large pipeline of drug programs that uses AI to compress early discovery work.

George Church is a Harvard Medical School geneticist and an optimist on gene therapy and exponential technologies, who argues that regulators embrace new technology and that trial parallelism could dramatically cut development time.

Michael Ringel left a career at BCG to join Life Biosciences as chief operating officer, where he works on epigenetic restoration as a path to treating age-related disease and, ultimately, aging itself.

⏱ Timestamps
00:00  Intro
00:20 Is Hype Necessary for Longevity?
02:49 When Hype Goes Too Far
04:14 When Can Longevity Escape Velocity Happen?
09:52 The FDA and Aging as a Focus Area
19:49 Will AI Transform Longevity Research?
24:04 Can AI Shorten Clinical Trials?
26:57 AI Optimists vs. Skeptics
28:38 Alex on Being the Field’s Biggest Skeptic
32:00 Do Critics Need a Drug in the Clinic?
35:24 When Criticism Does Harm
36:45 Is Biohacking Hurting Longevity’s Credibility?
46:57 What Could Be Possible by 2030?
50:49 Optimism vs. Skepticism: Final Thoughts
54:01 Cryonics
54:36 The Longevity “ChatGPT Moment”

Connect with Aubrey: 
X: https://x.com/aubreydegrey 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aubrey-de-grey-24260b 

Connect with Alex: 
X: https://x.com/biogerontology 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zhavoronkov 

Connect with George: 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-church-2b86301 
Website: https://colossal.com/george-church/ 

Connect with Michael: 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-ringel-b272a2 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/msringel/ 

Connect with Julian
Instagram: @thebeyondtomorrowpodcast / @juliankissa
LinkedIn: julian-issa
X: @juliankissa
Website: www.beyondtomorrowpodcast.com 
Email: bookings@beyondtomorrowpodcast.com

Are we living in a simulation?

Dr. Roman Yampolskiy explains how scientists run experiments inside simulations, why boxing AI may not hold, and what it would mean if AI breaks out of its safe environment, or if humanity escapes its own.
Watch the full episode here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2R7oKzVSOWTR5079TYrZsg?si=7fd6c78a016a4b67