Artificial Intelligence - In Service of Life? | Frankly 92
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Nate Hagens
4.8 • 552 Ratings
🗓️ 25 April 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What if the most powerful tool humanity has ever created could either help heal the Earth — or accelerate its unraveling?
In this special Earth Week edition of Frankly, Nate delves into what it truly means for a technology or project to be "in service of Life," using the rapidly evolving landscape of Artificial Intelligence as an example. Like any other tool that humanity has created, AI has the potential to either mitigate humanity's impact on our planetary home or deepen the ecological crises we face. Nate speculates on the key metrics that might guide AI and other technologies toward goals that support the abundance and vibrancy of all complex life on Earth.
In an age overflowing with information, could rethinking our relationships and incentive structures offer a clearer path forward? How can we identify goals that are not in service of Life? Finally, how could a shift in social and cultural values play the most critical part in transforming our human system to be aligned with the rest of the biosphere?
(Recorded April 21, 2025)
Watch this video episode on YouTube
Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.
---
Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future
Join our Discord channel and connect with other listeners
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Greetings. This may be a doozy of a frankly. It is that time of year again, Earth Day, an Earth |
| 0:10.7 | Week. Let me start with a story, a real story that's happened in the last week. A friend of |
| 0:16.7 | mine or a new acquaintance of mine who follows the podcast and I met at an event a few |
| 0:24.9 | months ago is an investor in things technologically AI and such. |
| 0:33.1 | And she called me last week and said she's interested in investing in a really cutting edge |
| 0:40.8 | project in artificial intelligence. |
| 0:44.1 | But in order to do so, she wants to make sure that the project is in service of life. |
| 0:49.3 | And would I help her ascertain if this AI project could be in service of life. |
| 0:57.9 | So I'm going to unpack that in today's, frankly. |
| 1:03.3 | By the way, the term in service of life I've been using rather liberally lately. |
| 1:09.7 | One of my franklies I mentioned that my work is B plus in Service of Life as opposed |
| 1:15.3 | to A Plus because I'm just trying. |
| 1:17.3 | I'm directionally thumbing a direction in, I'm hitchhiking in the direction of making things |
| 1:24.2 | better than the default. |
| 1:25.7 | The term in Service of Life I got from Nora Bateson, |
| 1:29.0 | who told me a story of her father, Gregory Bateson, I think Rex Wiler was there like 50 years ago |
| 1:36.4 | when young students had gathered around and said, well, what do we do with our lives? And Gregory |
| 1:42.9 | Bateson said, and I'm paraphrasing, |
| 1:45.0 | I forget the exact story, make sure that it's in service of life. |
| 1:49.0 | And those words meant something to me, |
| 1:52.2 | and I've included them in my vernacular. |
| 1:55.3 | But later on, I'm going to try to define what those things are. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Nate Hagens, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Nate Hagens and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.