How AI Is Forcing Us to Rethink Who We Are and the Future We Want with Jeff Burningham

Smart People Podcast

Smart People Industries

Business, Education, Society & Culture

4.6 • 736 Ratings

🗓️ 20 August 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What if the biggest challenge with AI isn’t the technology, but what it’s revealing about us? Jeff Burningham has built companies, invested in hundreds of startups, and even run for governor — but his most urgent message comes in his new book The Last Book Written by a Human: Becoming Wise in the Age of AI. He believes AI is a mirror, reflecting our values, flaws, and potential, and the real question is whether we’ll grow wise enough to handle it. In this conversation, Jeff draws on his experiences in business, politics, and personal transformation to explore the choice between the “old game” of power and greed and the “new game” of connection and compassion — and why the next decade could determine our future. Jeff's book, The Last Book Written by a Human: Becoming Wise in the Age of AI, is available now wherever books are sold! Learn more about Jeff Burningham at jeffburningham.com. Support the Show - Become a Patron! Help us grow and become a Patron today: https://www.patreon.com/smartpeoplepodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Smart People Podcast, a podcast for Smart People, where we talk to smart people, but not necessarily done by smart people.
0:14.9	What if the real challenge with AI isn't the tech but us?
0:20.1	Hello and welcome to Smart People podcast, conversations that
0:23.8	satisfy your curious mind. I'm Chris Stemp. Thanks for tuning in. My guest today, Jeff
0:29.0	Birmingham, has spent decades at the top of the business world, building companies,
0:34.0	investing in hundreds of startups, even running for governor. Now he's sounding the alarm
0:39.2	on something bigger, the human side of artificial intelligence. In his new book, the last book
0:46.6	written by a human, Jeff says AI is a mirror, reflecting who we are, what we value, and what we'd rather not see. The real question
0:56.5	isn't how smart will AI get, but will we get wise enough to handle it? We talk about why AI
1:05.0	could be the most beautiful thing to happen to humanity, or the most dangerous, depending on whether we keep playing the old
1:13.0	game of power and greed, or shift to the new game of connection, compassion, and being.
1:20.4	If you've ever wondered not just where AI is going, but where we are going because of it,
1:26.4	this is a conversation you won't want to miss.
1:29.8	Enjoy.
1:37.3	Tell us when you first became aware of how insane, how impactful and how potentially world-changing AI is, and was it in
1:51.2	your role as venture capital?
1:53.2	Yeah, that's a great question.
1:54.4	It was probably a decade ago when it first kind of came on my radar, and I started doing
1:58.8	some preliminary research and digging in some, but
2:02.2	honestly, there weren't a lot of AI companies here. We were mainly focused. I've backed, you know,
2:09.6	several hundred of the fastest up-and-coming startups here in Utah. And there wasn't a lot of
2:14.9	AI action then. So when it really became serious for me,
	...

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