Terrence Deacon is a professor of anthropology and a member of the Cognitive Science faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. His research combines human evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and the study of language to explore the evolution of human cognition and the emergence of uniquely human capacities. He is the author of The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain and Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter, influential works examining the origins of symbolic thought, language, meaning, and purpose.

How did language transform our ancestors—and what might that tell us about our growing dependence on artificial intelligence? David Sloan Wilson and Terry Deacon discuss major evolutionary transitions, how humans became dependent on language and social cooperation, and how these processes reshaped human biology and culture. Their conversation turns to AI as a new kind of external information system capable of interpreting and acting on its own, asking how humanity might develop an equally powerful evolutionary “immune system” capable of keeping pace with it.

---

This episode is from the podcast, Evolving Alignment.

Evolving Alignment explores one of the central questions of our time: How can humanity and artificial intelligence coevolve in ways that enhance cooperation, creativity, and human flourishing?

Hosted by evolutionary scientist David Sloan Wilson, each episode features leading thinkers from fields including evolutionary biology, cultural evolution, artificial intelligence, economics, psychology, philosophy, complexity science, and the social sciences. Rather than focusing on the narrow technical challenge of aligning AI systems with human interests, these conversations examine the broader evolutionary processes that have enabled living systems to solve problems of cooperation at ever higher levels of complexity, producing increasingly sophisticated forms of biological and cultural organization.

Can we learn from the deep history of evolution to shape a future in which humans and AI cooperate rather than compete, and develop new forms of collective intelligence we can only begin to imagine today? Evolving Alignment brings together many of the world’s leading researchers to explore these questions—and to consider how the choices we make today may influence the future evolution of intelligence itself.

Evolving Alignment is presented by Human Energy, a catalytic hub for evolving collective consciousness. ‍Learn more about Human Energy here, https://www.humanenergy.io/about

Eörs Szathmáry is a professor of evolutionary biology at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest and one of the leading theorists of major evolutionary transitions. With John Maynard Smith, he coauthored the landmark 1995 book The Major Transitions in Evolution, which examined the pivotal transitions through which simpler evolutionary units have combined to form new, more complex levels of organization—from the earliest replicating molecules and cells to multicellular organisms and human societies.

Szathmáry’s research has continued to explore the principles underlying these transitions, including changes in how information is stored, transmitted, and inherited. More recently, he has applied this evolutionary perspective to artificial intelligence, examining the possibility that increasingly autonomous and evolvable AI systems could constitute part of a new major transition. In this conversation, he discusses what earlier transitions can teach us about the opportunities and risks posed by the rapidly evolving technological systems of today.

---

This episode is from the podcast, Evolving Alignment.

Evolving Alignment explores one of the central questions of our time: How can humanity and artificial intelligence coevolve in ways that enhance cooperation, creativity, and human flourishing?

Hosted by evolutionary scientist David Sloan Wilson, each episode features leading thinkers from fields including evolutionary biology, cultural evolution, artificial intelligence, economics, psychology, philosophy, complexity science, and the social sciences. Rather than focusing on the narrow technical challenge of aligning AI systems with human interests, these conversations examine the broader evolutionary processes that have enabled living systems to solve problems of cooperation at ever higher levels of complexity, producing increasingly sophisticated forms of biological and cultural organization.

Can we learn from the deep history of evolution to shape a future in which humans and AI cooperate rather than compete, and develop new forms of collective intelligence we can only begin to imagine today? Evolving Alignment brings together many of the world’s leading researchers to explore these questions—and to consider how the choices we make today may influence the future evolution of intelligence itself.

Evolving Alignment is presented by Human Energy, a catalytic hub for evolving collective consciousness. ‍Learn more about Human Energy here, https://www.humanenergy.io/about

Francis Heylighen is a professor at the Free University of Brussels (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), where he functions as the research director of the Center "Leo Apostel", and the associated research group "Evolution, Complexity and Cognition." His interdisciplinary research explores how complex systems emerge, self-organize and evolve, with particular emphasis on collective intelligence, distributed cognition, cybernetics, and the emergence of a “global brain” connecting people and technology.

How do living systems develop goals and values—and what does that tell us about artificial intelligence? David Sloan Wilson and Francis Heylighen discuss the evolutionary origins of agency, purpose and values, and why today’s AI systems differ fundamentally from living organisms. Their conversation expands from individual organisms to collective intelligence and the noosphere, exploring how humans and increasingly intelligent technologies might become parts of a more highly organized global system—and why Heylighen sees reasons for optimism about where that transition could lead.

---

This episode is from the podcast, Evolving Alignment.

Evolving Alignment explores one of the central questions of our time: How can humanity and artificial intelligence coevolve in ways that enhance cooperation, creativity, and human flourishing?

Hosted by evolutionary scientist David Sloan Wilson, each episode features leading thinkers from fields including evolutionary biology, cultural evolution, artificial intelligence, economics, psychology, philosophy, complexity science, and the social sciences. Rather than focusing on the narrow technical challenge of aligning AI systems with human interests, these conversations examine the broader evolutionary processes that have enabled living systems to solve problems of cooperation at ever higher levels of complexity, producing increasingly sophisticated forms of biological and cultural organization.

Can we learn from the deep history of evolution to shape a future in which humans and AI cooperate rather than compete, and develop new forms of collective intelligence we can only begin to imagine today? Evolving Alignment brings together many of the world’s leading researchers to explore these questions—and to consider how the choices we make today may influence the future evolution of intelligence itself.

Evolving Alignment is presented by Human Energy, a catalytic hub for evolving collective consciousness. ‍Learn more about Human Energy here, https://www.humanenergy.io/about