Our Machines Evolved From Us (with Blaise Agüera y Arcas and Carlo Rovelli)

The machines were supposed to come from somewhere else as invaders. An alien intelligence, hellbent robots, a rival species. But nothing’s arrived. Instead, the machines came out of us, the same way our cells emerged from bacteria that learned to live together. Evolution builds new life by combining old life, and it doesn’t stop with biology. In this episode, Blaise Agüera y Arcas makes the case to physicist Carlo Rovelli that artificial general intelligence has already arrived. But we moved the goalposts rather than admit it. Arcas is the Chief Technology Officer of Technology & Society at Google Research. He traces intelligence back to its original use case – modeling others, cooperating with them, surviving together. The same force now entwines us with our technology. Ten billion people can't live without them. They can't exist without us. The merger isn't coming. It's how we got here. Subscribe to the Berggruen Institute on YouTube to be the first to listen to new Futurology episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Berggrueninst Catch up on the Futurology conversation with full episodes on YouTube.  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyYCSKWs8iYgjg-mhu-EuhTrG0-adrb0c  Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk?si=XB2qyyGjT2ONMTd5XUKJAg&nd=1&dlsi=ac8cda6751834298 Mentioned in this Episode: What Is Life?: Evolution as Computation — Blaise Agüera y Arcas (Book, 2025) Do Large Language Models Understand Us? — Blaise Agüera y Arcas (Article, 2022) Artificial General Intelligence Is Already Here — Blaise Agüera y Arcas and Peter Norvig (Article, 2023) Computational Life: How Well-formed, Self-replicating Programs Emerge from Simple Interaction — Blaise Agüera y Arcas et al. (Paper, 2024) What Is Life? — Erwin Schrödinger (Book, 1944) What Is It Like to Be a Bat? — Thomas Nagel (Article, 1974) The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves — W. Brian Arthur (Book, 2009) Where to Find Blaise Agüera y Arcas: Website: https://www.blaiseaguera.com/ Paradigms of Intelligence, Google: https://github.com/paradigms-of-intelligence Instagram: @blaiseaguera X: @blaiseaguera Bluesky: @blaiseaguera.bsky.social Show ideas and feedback? Email: [email protected] Learn more about the Berggruen Institute  https://www.berggruen.org Follow Futurology! Instagram:   / futurologypod Twitter/X:   / futurologypod Tiktok:   / futurologypod Facebook:   / berggrueninst   LinkedIn:   / berggrueninst   Bluesky:   / futurologypod Credits  Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney Theme Music: Marcus Bagala Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott Wilson Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.