Podcast -

I’m on a mission to make the future as awesome as possible. I want to understand the biggest problems in the world & learn about the technologies that could help us solve them. I make The Deep Future Podcast so you can learn from the same conversations that I do.

The Death Star in Century City — Chris Kantrowitz 1/6

Chris Kantrowitz and I compare pre-deal venture investing with music lawyers and Hollywood agents, then get into hacker-advising WarGames, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and the CAA machine Andreessen Horowitz borrowed.
Reasoning from Fictional Evidence — Byron Reese 4/4

Byron Reese and I trace how stories shape what people fear and build—from biased machine learning and Hollywood’s dystopian AI to Star Trek, Agora, and the fight for a more optimistic technological future.
Stories, Dice & Rocks that Think — Byron Reese 3/4

Byron Reese and I follow the invention of probability into computer chips, then ask how stories, simulations, spreadsheets, sensors, and shared machine learning can help us choose a better future.
Where Are the Bronze Age Beavers? — Byron Reese 2/4

Byron Reese chases a weird question—why are there no Bronze Age beavers?—through Homo erectus, cave art, language, and the human superorganism he calls Agora.
Infinite Progress & Wasted, Two of My Favorite Books — Byron Reese 1/4

Byron Reese and I unpack Infinite Progress, The Fourth Age, and Wasted—then chase recycling’s perverse incentives back to the real technical problem: building clean, cheap energy.
Telepathy & Shared Consciousness – Spiros Michalakis 5/5

Spiros Michalakis and I explore The Telepathy Tapes, extraordinary claims, and the limits of what we know — then return to empathy, storytelling, and the challenge of connecting with other people.
AI, Education & the Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer – Spiros Michalakis 4/5

Spiros Michalakis and I explore the Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, AI tutors, game engines, and personalized stories — and how to help people go on adventures rather than spoon-feed them an education.
The Quantum Hall Effect & the Holographic Universe – Spiros Michalakis 3/5

Spiros Michalakis walks me through the quantum Hall effect, topology, entanglement, and his picture of a holographic universe. I test the ideas against jumping beans, scratch holograms, and a light bulb.
Why Gravity Feels Like Falling Through Time – Spiros Michalakis 2/5

Spiros Michalakis walks me through a thought experiment linking gravity and time. We explore consciousness, entropy, and what rock climbing and salsa dancing reveal about perspective.
The Intelligence of Outsiders – Spiros Michalakis 1/5

Spiros Michalakis and Pablos examine what the best and brightest miss when they only talk to one another. They move from access, mentorship, hackers, and useful outsiders to empathy as a form of intelligence and the power of changing your point of view.
A Million Robot Fans — Mike Winter 5/5

Mike Winter tells me how a 1994 Wired Robot Wars call pulled him out of an Alaska winter — flipper bots, a million fans, warehouse humanoids, and a Cannonball Run rule: never be bored.
Neurons in Your Hands — Mike Winter 4/5

Mike Winter and I go from local AI tools and gritty real props to childhood computers, Super 8 stop-motion, and why working with your hands still beats living only in your head.
Screw the Screws — Mike Winter 3/5

Mike Winter and I argue fasteners, DJI-grade mechanics, and a no-screws design challenge — then widen out to what manufacturing is for and what still makes a person fulfilled.
I Wanted to Make Monsters — Mike Winter 2/5

Mike Winter walks me through his first CAD startup, the secret wish to make film monsters, offline research contests, and why Dollar Tree dioramas beat sitting around watching TV.
AI or Die — Mike Winter 1/5

Mike Winter and I start with his AI or Die combat-robot fight against his BattleBots-veteran daughter — then dioramas as everyday model-making, and why creative thinking shouldn’t live only in language.
Christmas Every Day — Juan Enriquez 4/4

Juan Enriquez and I start with his case for scientific optimism, then follow it into optogenetics, Openwater’s open-source brain tools, and a new model for medical research. We connect that model to local AI and the larger question underneath the whole conversation: whether we use the extraordinary agency already in our hands.
Planet Water — Juan Enriquez 3/4

Juan Enriquez and I follow climate change into the oceans, where almost all of the warming is stored. He explains how more moisture in the atmosphere produces extreme rain while heat dries out the land, why net zero will not cool the oceans quickly, and how marine cloud layers or stratospheric geoengineering might help. We…
Air Condition the Planet — Juan Enriquez 2/4

Juan Enriquez and I confront the case for geoengineering. We trace how warming oceans, peat fires, permafrost methane, and abrupt shifts recorded in Greenland ice cores can turn climate change into a runaway cycle. Then we explore volcanic aerosols, Stephen Salter’s cloud-brightening ships, stratospheric reflectors, and dual-use drones—and the geopolitical problem of deciding who gets…
Print a Personalized Cancer Vaccine — Juan Enriquez 1/4

Juan Enriquez and I trace how sequencing makes biology readable and programmable—from personalized cancer vaccines to ocean genomics, biorefineries, and cheaper solar energy.
Constant Tension — Marc Porat 4/4

I closed with Marc on holding two futures at once — paperclip apocalypses, the stories in our heads, and why I still believe we have volition in the toolkit we are building.
Break the Hockey Stick — Marc Porat 3/4

I pressed Marc on cheap energy as a civilizational discontinuity — and whether AI is actually different in kind, or just another hockey-stick story we tell ourselves.
Goal Cloning — Marc Porat 2/4

I asked Marc how a vision actually spreads inside a company — Alan Kay’s goal cloning, hiring people who already see it, and pulling from the future instead of pushing from the present.
I was Born of Revolutions — Marc Porat 1/4

I sat down with Marc Porat about personal technology as a north star — and how information as power runs from his family history through Stanford, Apple, and General Magic.
Spotify for Nature — Kevin Slavin 4/4

I talk with Kevin Slavin about building a transaction layer for genomic data: a Spotify-like system that rewards countries and scientists for nature’s inventions while keeping research data usable.
The Next Pandemic Is Optional — Kevin Slavin 3/4

I talk with Kevin Slavin about using wastewater, airplanes, sequencing, and genomic surveillance to detect outbreaks early, and why the missing pieces are political will, infrastructure, and business models rather than technology.
The Invisible City — Kevin Slavin 2/4

I talk with Kevin Slavin about Situationist psychogeography, location-aware games, bees, sewers, and the invisible microbial layers that make one city biologically different from another.
Raising Curiosity — Kevin Slavin 1/4

I talk with Kevin Slavin about raising curious children, the power of light-touch mentorship, childhood memory, wonder, and the distance between intention and lived experience.
Universal Basic Salt & Pepper – Sarah Rose Siskind 5/5

Sarah Rose Siskind and I trace humanity’s dance with nature—from childbirth and AI filmmaking to universal basic salt, software abundance, and technological progress.
Tech Stories Out of Desperation – Sarah Rose Siskind 4/5

Sarah Rose Siskind and I talk about invisible progress, technology as connection, AI scribes, and why humanity needs a global pizza party for its biggest wins.
Fire Is Technology – Sarah Rose Siskind 3/5

Sarah Rose Siskind and I talk data moats, the feature-vs-platform trap, why fire is technology, and accessibility wins from disability ASR to Be My Eyes.
AI Panic and Human Work – Sarah Rose Siskind 2/5

Sarah Rose Siskind and I on AI panic, technological disruption, and the work machines should take — plus what humans get back when robots handle the dirty, dreary, and dangerous.
I Ran a 50K on LSD – Sarah Rose Siskind 1/5

Sarah Siskind on running a 50K on LSD, testing drugs as performance enhancers, and why surrender matters to the psychedelic experience.
Dual-Use AI, Perennial Truths & 2040 – Pedro Domingos 5/5

Dual-use AI, perennial truths in The Master Algorithm, and the satire of 2040.
Seattle, Weird Science, & The Master Algorithm – Pedro Domingos 4/5

Seattle vs Bay Area, ignored ML departments, and the quest for the Master Algorithm.
The Lab Race & the Open Research Ecosystem – Pedro Domingos 3/5

Why open research still beats closed labs in the AI talent and breakthrough race.
If It Needs a Harness Its Not AGI – Pedro Domingos 2/5

Harnesses aren’t AGI — adversarial cybersecurity, personal agents, and commoditizing the model layer.
A Better Name for Moonshot Would Be Moonshine – Pedro Domingos 1/5

Pedro Domingos on Moonshot, model distillation, and why open AI gives defenders a white-hat advantage.
The Truth About Raising Venture Capital – Jamie Wood 5/5

Jamie Wood asks Pablos what would stop him from investing in AUTONOMIC. Their conversation expands into a blunt guide to venture fundraising: fund mandates, venture-scale outcomes, timing, opaque decisions, warm introductions and why founders should not overinterpret any one investor’s response. The central advice is simple and difficult—there is no enlightened fundraising algorithm, so build…
The Brain Data Flywheel – Jamie Wood 4/5

Jamie Wood asks Pablos for a direct assessment of AUTONOMIC’s hardest business problems. They work through the product, behavior-change loop, proprietary data, wearable integrations, university distribution, efficacy and the operating discipline required to make those pieces reinforce one another. The result is a candid startup teardown about the difference between owning several valuable ingredients and…
Brain Training the next Generation – Jamie Wood 3/5

AUTONOMIC is focusing first on college and university students. Jamie Wood describes the needs of the 18-to-24-year-old market, early pilot results, institutional buyers and the practical challenge of reaching students before they hit a crisis. She and Pablos also explore how an AI coach could translate research into short, relevant guidance and why scaling the…
A Personal Trainer for Your Brain – Jamie Wood 2/5

Jamie Wood explains how AUTONOMIC turns neuroscience into a short, adaptive coaching loop. The system asks a small set of behavior-linked questions, identifies a user’s goal, recommends a practical intervention and measures what happens next. Jamie and Pablos discuss why long assessments fail, how personalization can improve over time, what evidence users actually trust and…
From Burnout to Brain Science – Jamie Wood 1/5

Jamie Wood grew up in a finance family, entered the corporate world early and eventually burned out. A change of scenery did not erase the behavioral patterns she wanted to change, so she started studying how the brain actually builds and breaks habits. Jamie and Pablos follow that path through coaching, neuroscience and the moment…
Heretical Physics – Danielle Fong 5/5

A wide-ranging close on scientific heresy, experimental evidence, hands-on discovery culture, and using LLMs without surrendering judgment.
Building Deep Tech in Public – Danielle Fong 4/5

Danielle on open technical culture, fundraising geography, and the strange leverage of becoming a niche celebrity in your field.
Lightcell Powered Datacenters – Danielle Fong 3/5

Danielle on data-center power demand, Lightcell’s go-to-market path, and choosing company-building over the academic default.
Sunshine in a Bottle – Danielle Fong 2/5

A technical tour of Lightcell and the bet that heat-to-light conversion can beat conventional energy storage on density and practicality.
Teenage Physicist to Cleantech Crash – Danielle Fong 1/5

Danielle Fong on becoming a physicist early, founding LightSail Energy, and surviving the cleantech bust with harder lessons about capital, timing, and technical conviction.
What is TechBio? – Aneil Mallavarapu

Pablos is joined by Dr. Aneil Mallavarapu, a venture capitalist investing in the frontier of TechBio.
Anti-inflammatory Airpods – Dr. Eric Leuthardt

Pablos is joined by Dr. Eric Leuthardt, inventor and founder at Aurenar.
CreateMe Robots Make Clothes – Cam Myers

Pablos is joined by Cam Myers, founder of CreateMe.
Jensen’s Law

Pablos makes the case for Computational Maximalism.
Newlab is the Deep Tech Epicenter – Scott Cohen

Pablos is joined by Scott Cohen, co-founder of Newlab.
General Solicitation Rules for VC – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about the cloak and dagger marketplace of raising a venture fund.
Classic Rock, the Secret of Roman Concrete – Admir Masic

Admir Masic is the scientist who discovered how the Romans built the Pantheon.
You Must Buy a Ninja Creami – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about the most important kitchen toy.
Robots that See what You Mean – Avi Geiger

Avi Geiger is founder of GroundLight, a toolkit that helps robots understand what humans are telling them to do and connect that to what they see around them.
I’m a Perplexity Junkie – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about how to jettison Google.
Electric Motortoys – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about electric toys you can ride.
Mega SSN Leak – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about the massive leak of social security numbers this week.
Robot Massage is Alive! – Eric Litman

The first robot that can give you a great massage is just coming out of beta testing in NYC. You can book it and try yourself. I did! This is a conversation with Aescape’s founder, Eric Litman.
NVIDIA Math – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about the imminent scale of computation on Earth.
Securing Physical Infrastructure at Idaho National Labs – Wayne Austad

Pablos is joined by Wayne Austad, CTO, National & Homeland Security at Idaho National Labs.
Cremation Diamonds – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about turning your dead relatives into diamonds..
Nuclear Reactor Fuel at the Idaho National Labs – Nicholas Woolstenhulme

Pablos is joined by Nicholas Woolstenhulme, a Nuclear Reactor engineer at Idaho National Labs.
CAD World Game – ØF

Two nerds and an Australian architect bullshitting about turning CAD software into a giant world simulating video game.
Nuclear Reactors at Idaho National Labs – Ahmad Al Rashdan

Pablos is joined by Ahmad Al Rashdan, a Nuclear Reactor engineer at Idaho National Labs.
College Experience Alternatives – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about alternatives to college that would provide some of the same benefits.
Chaos Computer Club of Germany – Frank Rieger

Pablos is joined by Frank Rieger of Germany’s Chaos Computer Club for a conversation about hacking and activism.
LinkedIn is D＆D – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about LinkedIn basically being Dungeons & Dragons for squares..
Massagebot 5000 Part I – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about robots that can give a good massage.
Psychedelics in Science ＆ the Origin of Life – Bruce Damer

Pablos is joined by Bruce Damer, a scientist discovering the origins of life on Earth as well as a pioneer in using psychedelics for science.
Amino Acid Anal Bead Toy for Kids – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about making amino acid Legos that kids can plug together to make proteins. This turned into a completely unrelated conversation about delivering personalized pharmaceuticals.
Genome Sequencing for Kids – Robert Green

Pablos is joined by Robert C. Green, a medical geneticist and physician-scientist, who co-founded Nurture Genomics.
Industrial Ouroboros – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about feeding the output from one industrial process as the input for another.
Hardware is Hard – Dan Shapiro

Pablos is joined by Dan Shapiro, inventor of the game Robot Turtles and CEO at Glowforge, the most advanced desktop laser cutter.
Nuclear Reactor Kickstarter – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about using X-PRIZE and Kickstarter to get nuclear reactors built.
Black T-Shirt Review – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about their search for the ultimate black t-shirt.
A Thousand Words for a Picture – Rob Angel

Rob Angel is the inventor of Pictionary. You have played this game. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t. He Invented the game in 1985 and started manufacturing it in his studio apartment in Seattle, and then literally went out onto the streets, trying to sell it to people face to face. Since then, 38 million…
YouTube of Alexandria – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about a decentralized YouTube.
Cybersecurity for LLMs – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about adapting cybersecurity to LLMs.
An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything – Garrett Lisi

I’ve got a real soft spot for heretics and people who carve their own path outside of the institutions and societal norms and things that everyone is so pressured into because it creates this echo chamber and there’s these cookie cutter outcomes, it’s not conducive to getting to new ideas, it’s not good for figuring…
E-ink Everywhere – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about E-ink T-Shirts. Recorded on March 13, 2024
Materials for Biomimetic Robots – Rob Shepherd

I’ve gotten to spend a little bit of time with Rob Shepherd over the years. He’s working on soft robotics and all the different kinds of materials advancements that could really help us make robots that are more naturally integrated into the world. Things like polymer colloidal suspensions as inks for 3d printers so they…
Mother of all Tattoos – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about augmented reality tattoos. Recorded on March 13, 2024
3D Printing Meth on the Moon – Lee Cronin

Lee Cronin is a true mad scientist. He’s a professor of chemistry in Glasgow, where he also founded Chemify. This is a company that has invented a new type of approach to accomplish chemistry, very analogous to using the tool chain that we use in computers and then adapting that to chemistry. Recorded on March…
Killer Cap – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about an augmented reality baseball cap. Recorded on March 13, 2024
Mother of all Annotators – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about being able to annotate everything. Recorded on March 13, 2024
New Senses for Humans – David Eagleman

If you ever get the chance to hang out with David Eagleman, first of all do it. The first thing you’re going to notice is that he’s extremely nice, fun, outgoing and very friendly. He’s lit up in the brain and he’s prolific, he’s doing a zillion different things and he’s still somehow nice enough…
Mother of all Bug Trackers – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about a worldwide bug tracker. Recorded on March 13, 2024
Brain Music made with Neuroscience — John Vitale

Music producer & sound engineer John Vitale is creating music to help people optimize brain states. After co- founding Focus@Will, where he designed music and soundscape channels for flow state he moved on to found Brain Music Labs Where he’s crafting new ways to use entrainment based music and media for reducing stress, anxiety, and cravings…
Fingers for Robots – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about robots getting some of mammals’ greatest hits. Recorded on February 4, 2024
Hacking the Brain – Moran Cerf

A true polymath, Moran started out in the Israeli military, in one of their elite intelligence units. Then ended up working as a hacker in computer security. And to this day is still in demand for that, but he had a weird experience when Francis Crick told him to junk hacking and get into working…
Internet Random Mail Reader ＆ Nipple Detection – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about stunts on the internet. Recorded on February 4, 2024
Autopsy of a Failed 3D Printer Company – Riley Knox

Founder breaks down the breakdown of his 3D printing company.
Lashbot5000 ＆ Miyagibot – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about possible robots. Recorded on February 2, 2024
Knowledge Graph vs. LLM – Bryon Jacob

Years ago, I got to be an advisor for this company called data.world, and at the time, they were just getting started on helping figuring out how do you converge all the data sets that are in the world and help people work with them and combine them and share them. They built this thing…
AI Beyond Deep Learning – Ryad Benosman

One of the things that’s on the verge of excitement and annoyance for me is the way that Artificial Intelligence work has all kind of converged around deep learning. Deep learning is amazing and super powerful, and we’ve gotten a lot out of it, but what it has done is, both attracted a lot of…
GyroGlove – ØF

Short episode where Ash & Pablos marvel at this ingenious invention called the GyroGlove that can ameliorate the jittery hands of folks with Parkinson’s disease. If anyone can introduce us to the inventor, Dr. Faii Ong, we want to get him on the podcast! Recorded on February 4, 2024
Postmodernist Cuisine – Chris Young

Well, if you ever got tired of listening to me, talk. Today’s the day when you just get to hear from my buddy, Chris Young, because I wound him up and clicked go, and he just talks, and it’s great. He has so much, interesting experience and amazing insights. So Chris Young, if you don’t…
Mixtapes: a Lightweight Plan to Save the Internet – ØF

Pablos: People are pissed off about social media all the time. They think that Facebook is making people vote for the wrong person. It’s still very difficult to find somebody who thinks they voted for the wrong person because of Facebook, but they think everyone else did. Never mind that, there’s this kind of, uh,…