Show Notes
Somewhere around the Enlightenment we decided that thinking was what made us human. We built our schools, careers, and sense of worth at the altar of intelligence. Now machines are passing us on that rubric, which leaves two possibilities: we were replaceable all along, or we picked the wrong standard to live by.
In this episode, Arianna Huffington, founder & CEO of Thrive Global, argues the latter, saying even our name, sapiens, never meant intelligent: it means wise. She calls this rightsizing of intelligence the fourth dethronement, after Galileo, quantum physics, and Freud. What takes the throne now is the part of us she would simply call the soul.
Subscribe to Futurology on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@Futurologypod
Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921
Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk
Mentioned in this Episode:
"AI's Greatest Gift To Humanity" — Arianna Huffington (Essay, 2026)
The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time — Arianna Huffington (Book, 2016)
Picasso: Creator and Destroyer — Arianna Huffington (Book, 1988)
Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder — Arianna Huffington (Book, 2014)
The Fourth Instinct: The Call of the Soul — Arianna Huffington (Book, 1994)
After Reason — Arianna Huffington (Book, 1978)
The Survival of the Wisest — Jonas Salk (Book, 1973)
Where to find Arianna Huffington:
Website: https://www.ariannahuffington.com
Thrive Global: https://www.thriveglobal.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ariannahuffington
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ariannahuff
X: x.com/ariannahuff
Facebook: facebook.com/AriannaHuffington
Show ideas and feedback? Email:
Learn more about the Berggruen Institute
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: Kyle Scott Wilson
Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.
More from Futurology
Hypocrisy, the old line goes, is the tribute vice pays to virtue. For eighty years, the powerful at least bothered to pay it, citing human rights, national security, and democracy as reasons for starting wars and undercutting liberties. Now the veneers have been stripped, and the next generation is not accepting business as usual.
Machines are starting to act like humans. Does that mean they’re conscious? The problem is we haven’t been able to prove how or why humans are conscious yet either. So why would we be able to offer any answers about AI?
Democracy counts people, not plants. Humans are only a sliver of life on this planet, but today, we're the only ones who get a vote. What if we gave rights to rivers and standing to trees?
Relying on machines to coordinate our lives was just one step toward decentering humanity’s role in the world. Flights, banking, trade, food production... But as we start merging our actual decision-making with digital entities, exactly which pieces of humanity are we leaving behind? And how might we bring those pieces back?
Technologists have feared (or prayed for) the singularity as a rapture-like inevitability for nearly 70 years. In an instant, they believed, our machine intelligence will overtake us and race ahead. Kevin Kelly says that moment has passed. Human intelligence is already receding to a speck in the rearview mirror of robots imbued with God-like powers. But we’re still here.