u/JMarty97

Podcast episode with Isabelle Boemeke, the world’s first nuclear energy influencer, and author of Rad Future, a book that makes the case for nuclear in language anyone can follow.

Covers:

• How nuclear's reputation was built not on its safety record but on its origins: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Cold War drills, and a near-meltdown movie
• What the actual death toll data looks like across energy source, from nuclear to renewable sources to fossil fuels, including the deadliest energy accident in history almost no one knows about
• Why nuclear waste may be the most responsibly managed industrial waste humans produce
• What growing up without reliable energy in rural southern Brazil taught Isabelle about energy abundance, and why she thinks "degrowth" is not a credible answer to the climate problem
• How Isabelle went from over a decade as a model to becoming one of nuclear energy's most visible advocates, and why she decided the communication gap was the problem worth solving

What does a future where AI went well look like in practice? At Existential Hope, we're running the AI Futures Challenge 2026 with a $10K prize pool to find out.

Take our free 1.5hr Udemy course, build a grounded, hopeful world set in 2035 where AI shaped society for the better, and submit it by 30 June. No prior knowledge needed, just imagination and curiosity.

$5K grand prize + 5 x $1K bounties for best visuals, most inspiring vision, best institution, and more.

Build a grounded vision of a future where AI went well and win up to $5K

What does a future where AI went well look like in practice? At Existential Hope, we're running the AI Futures Challenge 2026 with a $10K prize pool to find out.

Take our free 1.5hr Udemy course, build a grounded, hopeful world set in 2035 where AI shaped society for the better, and submit it by 30 June. No prior knowledge needed, just imagination and curiosity.

$5K grand prize + 5 x $1K bounties for best visuals, most inspiring vision, best institution, and more.

https://worlds.existentialhope.com/#AIFutures

Podcast episode with Jaron Lanier, pioneer of virtual reality and scientist at Microsoft Research. He proposes a radically different way of thinking about AI, and unpacks its consequences from AI safety to the future of the economy.

Highlights:

• The case for thinking of AI not as an alien intelligence, but rather as a collaboration of human data
• How this reframe helps you understand the failures of current AI systems, and why so many of the industry's most powerful figures seem to be losing their grip on reality
• A practical approach to AI safety inspired by multi-factor authentication in cybersecurity
• Why universal basic income is unstable, and why a creativity economy (where people earn from their contributions to AI) could be a better way of distributing the benefits of AI
• How to be an optimist about technological progress while acknowledging the risks and being critical of certain developments
• Why history gives us the most rational grounds for optimism about our future with AI

Podcast episode with David Baker, 2024 Nobel laureate in Chemistry and head of the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington, whose lab pioneered the field of computational protein design. 

Covers:

• How David went from not knowing what proteins were in college to winning the Nobel Prize for designing them from scratch 
• The incredible power of designing brand-new proteins for innovative medicines, new materials and environmental cleanup.
• The vision of protein-based nanomachines that could circulate in your body and repair damaged tissue, powered by your diet
• How David's lab went from no machine learning at all to developing world-leading AI tools for protein design in just a few years
• How AI is speeding up scientific discovery vs. what is overhyped about AI for science, and what we can learn from the success of AlphaFold
• Why fostering a great community in a lab can lead to better science, and his career advice for people wondering what to do next