Maintaining Human Intelligence in the AI Era | David Krakauer (President of the Santa Fe Institute)

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David Krakauer is a leading complex systems researcher and the president of the Santa Fe Institute, a unique institution dedicated to studying complex systems across disciplines. In this episode, David challenges conventional wisdom about AI, arguing that large language models pose a more immediate threat to humanity than commonly discussed existential risks—not by destroying us directly, but by eroding our cognitive capabilities through addictive, low-quality information.

We explore:

• Why David believes LLMs aren't intelligent at all and how the AI community misunderstands emergence

• The three dimensions of intelligence: inference, representation, and strategy—and which one LLMs lack

• How AI acts as a "competitive" rather than "complementary" cognitive technology, atrophying our thinking abilities

• What makes great minds unique, from analogical reasoning to the cultivation of unconscious creativity

• How Cormac McCarthy's approach to knowledge and creativity offers lessons for the AI age

• Why David believes the greatest threat from AI isn't existential risk but cognitive atrophy

• How to protect your mind against AI's addictive pull and maintain cognitive autonomy

Explore the episode

Timestamps

(00:00) Intro

(04:39) The Santa Fe Institute’s approach to complex systems

(06:45) Murray Gell-Mann’s ‘Odysseus vs. Apollonian’

(10:35) How SFI was shaped by the legacy of Los Alamos

(12:45) Traits David looks for in great minds

(14:43) Cormac McCarthy on naivety and how thoughtful people treat knowledge

(19:24) A simple explanation of complexity science

(22:50) Why vantage point doesn’t matter when studying systems

(24:36) Aesthetic preferences among complexity scientists

(26:07) Films and directors with complexity science themes

(29:57) Why David argues LLMs are not intelligent

(32:10) What’s missing in the study of LLMs

(36:40) The three qualities of intelligence and how LLMs measure up

(42:19) Lessons from "The Glass Bead Game"

(44:00) David’s perspective on reinforcement learning

(45:38) The greatest threat of LLMs: overreliance and the decline of thinking

(47:40) Competitive vs. complementary cognitive artifacts

(51:55) Why exposing yourself to quality ideas matters

(54:00) How to derisk LLM use

(58:32) Cormac McCarthy’s legacy at SFI and beyond

(1:02:40) The Kekulé Problem: cultivating the unconscious

(1:05:01) Why David and McCarthy were inspired by Wittgenstein

(1:09:00) What Cormac McCarthy liked to talk about

(1:12:20) David’s questions to a higher being

(1:14:46) Final meditations

Follow David Krakauer

Website: https://davidckrakauer.com/

Resources and episode mentions

Books

• “The Hedgehog and the Fox”: https://www.amazon.com/Hedgehog-Fox-Tolstoys-History-Second/dp/069115600X

• The Birds and The Frogs: https://www.amazon.com/Aristophanes-Frogs-Birds/dp/B000QBPUTY

• The Glass Bead Game: https://www.amazon.com/Glass-Bead-Game-Magister-Novel/dp/0312278497

• Frankenstein: https://www.amazon.com/Frankenstein-Mary-Shelley/dp/0486282112

• Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West: https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Meridian-Evening-Redness-West/dp/0679728759

• Stella Maris: https://www.amazon.com/Stella-Maris-Cormac-McCarthy/dp/0307269000

• The Passenger: https://www.amazon.com/Passenger-Cormac-McCarthy/dp/0307268993/

• Pale Fire: https://www.amazon.com/Pale-Fire-Vladimir-Nabokov/dp/0679723420

• Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: https://www.amazon.com/Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus-Routledge-Classics-123/dp/0415254086

• Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius: https://www.amazon.com/Ludwig-Wittgenstein-Genius-Ray-Monk/dp/0140159959

• Ellmann's Joyce: The Biography of a Masterpiece and Its Maker: https://www.amazon.com/Ellmanns-Joyce-Biography-Masterpiece-Maker/dp/0674248392

• Moby Dick: https://www.amazon.com/Moby-Dick-Herman-Melville/dp/1503280780

• Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World: https://www.amazon.com/Hyperobjects-Philosophy-Ecology-after-Posthumanities/dp/0816689237

• The Anatomy of Melancholy: https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Melancholy-Review-Books-Classics/dp/0940322668

• The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion: Volume I: https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Bough-Vol-Study-Religion/dp/1480131466

• Three Critiques: https://www.amazon.com/Three-Critiques-3-Set-Practical/dp/0872206297

• The World as Will and Representation: https://www.amazon.com/World-Will-Representation-Vol/dp/0486217612/

People

• Cormac McCarthy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormac_McCarthy

• Murray Gell-Mann: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Gell-Mann

• Archilochus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archilochus

• Fyodor Dostoevsky: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoevsky

• Leo Tolstoy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy

• Aristophanes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristophanes

• Hesiod: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesiod

• Homer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer

• Eugene Wigner: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Wigner

• Leo Szilard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Szilard

• John von Neumann: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann

• Michel de Montaigne: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_de_Montaigne

• Melanie Mitchell’s website: https://melaniemitchell.me/

• Ingmar Bergman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingmar_Bergman

• Akira Kurosawa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_Kurosawa#Legacy_and_cultural_impact

• Andrei Tarkovsky: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Tarkovsky

• John Henry Holland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_Holland

• Christopher Nolan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Nolan

• Jonathan Nolan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Nolan

• Henry James: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_James

• Vladimir Nabokov: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Nabokov

• Frank Lloyd Wright: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Lloyd_Wright

Other resources

• The Santa Fe Institute: https://www.santafe.edu/

• The Cormac McCarthy I Know: https://davidckrakauer.com/artifacts/2022-the-cormac-mccarthy-i-know

• Michel de Montaigne’s quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/6873908-we-can-be-knowledgeable-with-another-man-s-knowledge-but-we

• The Seventh Seal: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050976/

• Rashomon: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042876/

• Stalker: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079944/

• Solaris: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069293/

• The Exterminating Angel: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056732/

• 2001: A Space Odyssey: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/

• Large Language Models and Emergence: A Complex Systems Perspective: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2025arXiv250611135K/abstract

• Kind of Blue: https://www.amazon.com/Kind-Blue-Miles-Davis/dp/B000002ADT

• Why neural net pioneer Geoffrey Hinton is sounding the alarm on AI: https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/why-neural-net-pioneer-geoffrey-hinton-sounding-alarm-ai

• Why the Real Computer Revolution Never Happened | Alan Kay & Anjan Katta: https://www.generalist.com/p/why-the-real-computer-revolution-never-happened

• Zettelkasten: https://zettelkasten.de/overview/

• ImageNet: https://www.image-net.org/

• The Kekulé Problem: https://nautil.us/the-kekul-problem-236574/

• Robert Frost’s quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/71609-writing-free-verse-is-like-playing-tennis-with-the-net

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