New on Not for Peer Review: why does serendipity feel so real, even though it doesn’t seem to make scientific sense?

First up this morning: ISEEC President @athenaaktipis.bsky.social on cancer-like phenomena in AI. Her substack is athenaaktipis.substack.com

Why is lower wealth often associated with greater empathy? New work at SPPS w @jessicadayers.bsky.social Yul Kwon Peter Todd @athenaaktipis.bsky.social shows lower wealth cultivates empathy via challenges and helping - but only among moderate helpers🧵https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506261449280

The Cooperative Futures Institute and Frontier Tower present an evening salon with Geoffrey Miller, Emmett Shear, and myself discussing this pivotal moment in time with AI and evolving a cooperative future with it.

Excited to be talking about ideas related to this post - about how replicator dynamics and hijacking evolve in AI systems - at the International Society for Evolution, Ecology, and Cancer meeting this week in Crete. open.substack.com/pub/athenaak...

This morning I’ll be talking about the Cooperation Benchmark and what biology can teach us about building AI. Most benchmarks measure what a system can do on its own. What we’re asking is what does it look like when AI actually shows up for you? See you at 10am! @humantechweek.bsky.social

This was in Greece last summer. I’m excited to return, this time for ISEEC! You still have time to register and submit your breaking abstracts. Check it out: www.eventbrite.com/e/2026-iseec...

I'm speaking at Human+Tech Week in San Francisco next week. It's not a conference. It's an offsite for people building what comes next across health, work, and cities, with the human stakes kept front and center.

Cooperative Futures Academy is happening this June in SF! Join us for a four-day intensive that applies cooperation science and evolutionary theory to intelligence, health, AI alignment, and system design.

TONIGHT! Hear from Devinder & Alexia from Frontier Tower in San Francisco about how to cultivate community, arts and coworking - and making it a viable model that can be duplicated. It all starts at 5:30 PM tonight at The Dark Side in Tempe. See you soon!

Recursion is the original algorithm. It’s why we have life, cognition, computation. Much of what makes brains so powerful comes from recursion and the positive feedback loops that recursion makes possible. Those loops let systems respond quickly, adapt, and learn. substack.com/@athenaaktip...

Just yesterday, Eörs Szathmáry and colleagues published this paper in PNAS: Evolvable AI: Threats of a new major transition in evolution. If you’re interested in what is going on in the AI evolution space, I highly recommend taking a look! doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

We are currently moving into the era of Web 4.0, in which digital entities have an unprecedented ability to process information and behave autonomously. Read my latest Substack post “The Digital Cambrian: Evolution, Autonomy, and the Rise of the Agentic Web”. substack.com/@athenaaktip...

I helped build Facebook. I watched it become a machine for addicting people. Because addiction was more profitable. Now the same logic is driving AI. I wrote about what we do about it. 🧵

Nobel Prize winner, Geoffrey Hinton, has suggested that making AI “love us like a mother” could help keep it safe.   It’s an intuitive idea. But evolution tells a more complicated story.

I’ll be giving a keynote at the upcoming symposium “Organisms, Algorithms, and Alignment” at the Bielefeld University in Germany on March 24.   The alignment problem is not new.

I’ll be giving a keynote on Sunday at 3:50pm at the Funding the Commons SF: Intelligence at the Frontier main stage. Topic: From Multicellularity to Multi Agent AI: Evolution’s Lessons for Scaling Cooperation

I’ve been putting a lot of my heart and soul - along with my brains - into writing substack posts these last few month so it’s really exciting to see that it’s having impact. It’s at #14 Rising in Science!

Agentic AI has crossed a threshold. We can now plug AI directly into our communication and coordination systems. From an evolutionary perspective, that is profound.

I love that I was still able to sneak in some exercise and cross country ski while in Davos! The scenery was insanely beautiful. #Davos #WEF #WEF2026 🎿

Los Angeles friends and colleagues - we are doing a private showing of our in-development Surviving AI show in LA this weekend, hot off the Davos train! (Yes, we literally had the last Surviving AI show in a train at Davos, more on that later.)

AI is becoming social, but current evaluations miss a key dimension: real cooperation. In my new Substack post I explain why developing benchmarks for AI cooperation and friendship is essential if we want systems that genuinely contribute to human flourishing. substack.com/home/post/p-...

Excited to share that I’ll be in Davos this week for the World Economic Forum.

From dodging cows on snowy backroads to proving humans help each other in crisis, my Reed Magazine feature dives into the science behind cooperation, catastrophe, and why fun matters in wild times.

Reminder that abstract submissions for EvoCancer close tomorrow. If you’re working at the intersection of cancer, evolution, and ecology, this is a great community to plug into. Details here: www.evocancer.com

As I did last year, I thought I'd start the new year by highlighting five writers I enjoy reading, along with a recent post from each that grabbed my attention. Happy 2026! www.futureofbeinghuman.com/p/five-voice... @athenaaktipis.bsky.social @athenedonald.bsky.social @bnerlich.bsky.social

Since it cost a lot to win And even more to lose You and me bound to spend some time Wondering what to choose This line from the Grateful Dead’s Deal has been on my mind as the new year begins - not as a metaphor about gambling or fate, but as a statement about choice under uncertainty.

For most of our evolutionary history, alcohol looked nothing like today’s Bud Lights, Margaritas, or White Claws.

I’m delighted to share that I’ll be hosting at Human Tech Week in SF this Spring.

Join me Tuesday with authors J. Arvid Agren and Manus M. Patten for the launch of their book The Paradox of the Organism: Adaptation and Internal Conflict.

The AI safety conversation focuses on alignment, making powerful systems do what we want. But what if that’s the wrong question? What if the issue isn’t controlling one system, but cultivating healthy ecosystems?

You’re sitting down to eat some greasy pizza - what sounds good to drink with it? If you’re thinking about reaching for a beer, you’re not alone. Beer and pizza go together like… well, beer and pizza.

Right now the AI ecosystem looks like fast colonization of a new habitat: resources suddenly opened up, competition intense, survival uncertain, and the whole landscape reshaped faster than anyone can track.

The AI safety conversation focuses on alignment, making powerful systems do what we want. But what if that’s the wrong question? What if the issue isn’t controlling one system, but cultivating healthy ecosystems? substack.com/home/post/p-...

The full Human Energy Global Salon Series “Alignment for a Major Evolutionary Transition: The Future of Humanity and AI” is now on YT: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kmv... We had an incredible discussion and hope you weigh in as well! 👇

AI systems - especially self-training systems - are built on recursion. They update themselves based on feedback. They generate variation. They propagate internal patterns across training cycles. In other words, they provide everything evolution needs to get going.

I talked to Human Energy about the topics I’ll be discussing this evening during the Global Salon Series panel. Check out the link to join the conversation that starts at 7 pm pst! www.youtube.com/live/73om6Pw...

I'm thrilled to share that I'll be joining the Global Salon Series tonight in San Francisco for a panel discussion titled “Alignment for a Major Evolutionary Transition: The Future of Humanity and AI.” Livestream starts at 7pm pst: youtube.com/live/73om6Pw...

I’ve spent my career studying cooperation and looking for general principles that apply across systems. Lately, I’ve been turning my attention to AI, thinking about the ways that cooperation science can help us navigate what is probably the most critical challenge of our time.

I started a Substack called Not For Peer Review. I’ve filled my notebooks with ideas, many of which have inspired my articles and books. But there are so many ideas that I haven’t published, and, if I’m being honest with myself, I know I will never publish through the traditional peer review system.

I’m honored to share that I’ll be joining the Global Salon Series this Tuesday in San Francisco for a panel discussion titled “Alignment for a Major Evolutionary Transition: The Future of Humanity and AI.”

💞 Friendship isn’t about keeping score. It’s about helping when it counts. In our new The Conversation article, @jessicadayers.bsky.social & I explore why true friendship works like risk-pooling, not exchange. Read here 👉 doi.org/10.64628/AAI... #Friendship #Psychology

🧠🔥 Join us at #ZAMM2025! Got a theory too wild for peer review? A study too ambitious to fund? Pitch it at Extreme Experiments & Unhinged Hypotheses — 5-min lightning talks where imagination rules. Submit here 👉 docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

🚨 Call for Wild Ideas 🚨 Got a theory too bold for a grant? A study so extreme it borders sci-fi? Pitch it at Extreme Experiments & Unhinged Hypotheses—5-min lightning talks at #ZAMM2025. Submit here 👉 docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... More info: zombiemed.org

🚨 Antibiotic resistance isn’t inevitable. National-level action works, but it has to be consistent and well-supported. Our study shows that even incremental improvements can reduce antibiotic resistance trends. journals.plos.org/globalpublic... #PublicHealth #HealthPolicy #AMR

The next Research Ideation Lunch: Apocalypse Pop-Up Café is Mon, Nov 17. We’ll explore the future of AI in business, education, health, supply chains & finance. Apocalypse Cafés = playful spaces to spark ideas, build trust & collaborations. #AI #Research #Collaboration #WPCResearch

🔍 We review how organisms—from bacteria to parasites—interfere with pain systems, and what it means for: ⚕️ Public health 🧪 Infectious disease 💊 Pain treatment and management onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... #Neurobiology #GlobalHealth

What happens when everything falls apart? 🌍 Join me for the W. P. Carey Research Ideation: Apocalypse Pop-Up Café on Sept 9, 11:30–1:00 @ ASU. Let’s rethink business + resilience in uncertain times. RSVP 👉 www.eventbrite.com/e/research-i...

Can shared faith help people cooperate on something as complex as health care? In the U.S., health care sharing ministries (HCSMs) offer a powerful real-world example of how religion can facilitate cooperation. www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1... #Religion #Cooperation #HealthCare

Fitness interdependence can unify insights from psychology, anthropology, and evolutionary biology—offering a framework to solve long-standing puzzles of human cooperation. #Cooperation #HumanSociality #EvolutionaryTheory