Forecast 2050

Nebular

Interviewing the thinkers and doers shaping the world of 2050. Hosted by Nebular General Partner, Finn Murphy.

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S2 · E3
Thursday · 1 hr
We Need Revolutionary Military Change | Ex-CIA Chief David Petraeus
General David Petraeus believes we need draconian change to prepare for the age of autonomous warfare. A retired four-star general, Gen. Petraeus commanded U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and led U.S. Central Command before serving as director of the CIA. I sat down with Gen. Petraeus to discuss the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran, how autonomous drones and weapons will fight the wars of the future, and the new big ideas we need to keep the world stable for the next 25 years. Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:57 Commanding Autonomous Systems 04:55 Revolution, Not Reform 11:21 Inside the Death Zone 19:17 America Is Unprepared for Future Wars 23:41 A New AI Military Service Branch 35:12 The UK Will Lead Military Innovation 42:02 The War for Truth 49:19 The Big Ideas for the Next 25 Years 54:15 The Leaders of the Future David Petraeus is a former CIA Director who commanded U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and is now a partner at KKR and the Chairman of its Global Institute. General Petraeus on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidpetraeus/ Thanks to the Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project for the maps in the interview: www.understandingwar.org and www.criticalthreats.org. Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next. Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12 Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/ Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City. Head to nebular.vc for more info.
S2 · E2
October 1 · 52 min
Can AI Talk To Whales? | Project CETI Founder David Gruber
The real reason AI was given to humans is to communicate with animals, according to David Gruber. A marine biologist and National Geographic Explorer, he is the founder of Project CETI, a global effort of more than 50 scientists across eight disciplines working to decode the communication of sperm whales. In this episode of Forecast 2050, I sit down with David to discuss the prospect of an interspecies dialogue and the seismic implications it will have for all of us, whales included. Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/can-ai-talk-to-whales-project-ceti Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:48 David's Journey 12:30 An Interspecies Dialogue 17:14 Sperm Whale Language & Culture 23:48 The Breakthroughs Yet to Come 27:49 The Whales Are Yappers 31:03 Sperm Whales Have Accents 39:47 Verifying a Whale Translation 42:13 What Success Looks Like 47:32 Saving the Whales David Gruber is a marine biologist and National Geographic Explorer who founded Project CETI, a team of more than 50 scientists using AI to decode how sperm whales communicate. David on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-gruber-b003871/ Project CETI on X: https://x.com/ProjectCETI Project CETI on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/projectceti/ Project CETI Website: https://www.projectceti.org/ Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next. Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12 Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/ Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City. Head to nebular.vc for more info.
S2 · E1
September 24 · 1 hr 9 min
'Claude's Priest': Fr. Brendan McGuire on Shaping AI for the Common Good
Fr. Brendan McGuire believes that we still have an opportunity to align AI for the common good, though time is running out. A Silicon Valley executive turned Catholic priest, Fr. Brendan has spent decades as a confidant to the people building frontier technology, and was one of the external contributors to Anthropic’s Claude Constitution. In this episode of Forecast 2050, Nebular General Partner Finn Murphy sits down with Fr. Brendan to discuss Pope Leo XIV's encyclical about AI, Magnifica Humanitas, why AI needs to learn forgiveness, whether AIs have souls, and why we probably have less than a year before recursive self-improvement to ensure these models benefit humanity. Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/father-brendan-mcguire-claudes-priest Transcript: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/forecast-2050-episode-11-fr-brendan Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:45 Silicon Valley Tech Exec to Man of the Cloth 08:10 We Need Smart AI Regulation 11:46 The Pope's Warning: Don't Build a New AI Tower of Babel 19:10 Why AI Needs to Learn Forgiveness 27:26 What Hugging Face Shows About AI Morality 31:56 Do AIs Have Souls? Would We Baptise An Alien? 40:06 Watching Others Die Puts the AI Doomers In Perspective 44:20 Why Anthropic Asked the Church for Help 53:39 AI Doesn't Have to Be Winner-Takes-All 58:23 We Have Less Than a Year to Shape AI's Morality before RSI 01:02:23 Tolkien Morality vs Game of Thrones Brutality Fr. Brendan McGuire is an engineer turned Silicon Valley executive turned Catholic priest at St. Simon Parish in Los Altos, CA. He is an external contributor to Anthropic's Claude Constitution. Fr. Brendan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frbrendanmcguire/ St. Simon Parish: https://stsimon.church/ Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next. Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12 Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/ Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City. Head to nebular.vc for more info.
September 22 · 2 min
Forecast 2050 Season 2 Trailer
Forecast 2050 Season 2 has arrived with a brand new set of conversations with the thinkers, founders, and investors shaping the next 25 years. Hosted by Nebular General Partner Finn Murphy. Guests: Fr. Brendan McGuire David Gruber Gen. David Petraeus Walter Goodwin & Sir Robin Saxby Yi-Ling Liu Laura Kreidberg Patrick McGee Francesco Sciortino Adrian Woolfson Francis Fukuyama Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12 Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/ Forecast 2050 on X: https://x.com/forecast2050 Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City. Head to nebular.vc for more info.
S1 · E10
May 6 · 56 min
Enveda's Radical Vision for the Future of Medicine | Viswa Colluru & Pablo Lubroth
Enveda Founder and CEO Viswa Colluru believes we have been looking for new medicines in the wrong places for decades. In the Season 1 finale of Forecast 2050, I sat down with Viswa and Pablo Lubroth, VP of Special Projects at Enveda, to discuss why 9 in 10 drugs fail in clinical trials despite Big Pharma spending $276 billion in annual R&D, how AI is finally unlocking 99% of nature's chemistry that we've haven't been able to read, why the incentive structure of biotech capital markets is actively bad for patients, why insisting on understanding how a drug works actually slows down drug discovery, why aging may not be inevitable, and why mental health is going to be the defining medical crisis of the next 25 years. Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/3dc95f79-4a7e-4c80-9630-970c1e6e2117 Transcript (with helpful links!): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/beb7222d-efd1-472b-85be-09d7a7faf1a5 Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:09 The Quintessential Problem With Drug Discovery 04:57 Pablo’s Journey to Enveda 06:29 Insisting on Understanding Biological Mechanisms Slows Down Drug Discovery 09:39 Science Has Been Divorced From Human Experience 12:22 Scientific Reductionism Has Not Led to Better Drugs 19:31 Lessons Learned From Big Pharma Missing Out On GLP-1s 22:11 Capital Markets Disinventivize Risk-Taking and Harm Patients 28:12 How to Prioritize Which Illnesses to Cure 33:38 Prediction and Prevention is a Better Strategy Than Treatment 38:27 Drugs to Make Us Limitless Like Bradley Cooper 42:53 Aging is Not Inevitable 43:34 Everyone Has a Chinese Peptide Guy 50:13 The Loon Shots for 2050 52:39 Mental Health Will be The Biggest Challenge for 2050 54:46 The AI Revolution in Medicine Viswa Colluru is the Founder & CEO of Enveda, a clinical-stage biotech company using AI to discover new drugs from nature. He built Enveda from $55K of personal savings into a unicorn with over $500M raised and multiple assets in clinical trials. Before founding Enveda, Viswa was the first Innovation Scientist and Product Manager at Recursion Pharmaceuticals. He holds a PhD in immuno-oncology from UW-Madison. Pablo Lubroth is a VP of Special Projects at Enveda and the Co-Founder & Editor of Decoding Bio. He previously built and led the biotech practice at Hummingbird Ventures and co-hosts the annual AI x Bio Summit at the NYSE. Pablo holds degrees in Neuropharmacology and Biochemical Engineering from UCL and an MPhil in Bioscience Enterprise from the University of Cambridge. Viswa on X: https://x.com/viswacolluru Pablo on X: https://x.com/pablolubroth Enveda: https://enveda.com Decoding Bio: https://www.decodingbio.com Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next. Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12 Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/ Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City. Head to nebular.vc for more info.
S1 · E9
April 29 · 41 min
Building the Next Great American City | Esmeralda CEO Devon Zuegel
Devon Zuegel believes America has been building cities wrong for decades. She grew up spending summers in Chautauqua, an intellectual community in western New York where four generations of her family shared a household and she knew her neighbors better than the ones at home in California. Now she's building a village called Esmeralda 90 minutes north of San Francisco to prove that formula can be replicated. I sat down with Devon in San Francisco to talk about harnessing urban planning as a powerful technological force for good, age-segregation in America and the impending population crisis, and why we need more incredible cities popping up across the country over the next 25 years. Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/8bcb1293-d2f5-4c6c-a133-8a6d0826b839 Transcript (with helpful links!): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/forecast-2050-episode-7-devon-zuegel?r=25ihqz&triedRedirect=true Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:07 Chautauqua Inspires Esmeralda 03:02 Cities Are A Technology 06:33 The Autonomous Vehicle Takeover 10:02 The New Multigenerational Society 13:29 American Colleges Make the Economy Dynamic, but Break Up Families 17:39 Remote Work and the Expansion of the Metropolis 19:55 A Real Alternative to the Suburb/City Dilemma 22:21 Real Life Is The Classroom 26:04 Esmeralda’s Open Door Policy 27:59 Making Cities Worth Living In 32:51 The NIMBY Problem 35:10 The Digital-Physical Divergence 38:29 The Cities That Have Gotten It Right Before Devon Zuegel is the founder and president of the Esmeralda Institute, where she is building Esmeralda, a village of the future just 90 minutes north of San Francisco envisioned as a Chautauqua for Silicon Valley. Devon on X: https://x.com/devonzuegel Devon’s Personal Site: https://devonzuegel.com/ Esmeralda Institute: https://esmeralda.org/ Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next. Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12 Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/ Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City. Head to nebular.vc for more info.
S1 · E8
April 22 · 41 min
Rule Britannia? How the UK Wins the AI Era | Matt Clifford & Ian Hogarth
Matt Clifford and Ian Hogarth believe Europe is roughly a decade behind the United States in building the technology companies that will define the next era. But they also believe that the gap can be closed, and that the UK and Europe could even leapfrog America, if political leaders and the public make fundamentally different choices. I sat down with Matt, co-founder of Entrepreneurs First and architect of the UK Government's AI strategy, and Ian, co-founder of Plural and Chair of the UK's AI Foundation Model Taskforce, to talk about what Europe needs to do to save itself from stagnation. We get into why Europe's risk aversion is a bigger threat than American superiority, why career politicians won't survive in the new multipolar world, and why the pro-growth movement is losing the culture war — and how to win it back. Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/2dc713af-826a-43dc-a2ad-91ad00ee6134 Transcript (with helpful links!): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/00092f0e-3f30-473f-a773-d560724b3dc5 Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:01 The Compounding Effect: Why the US Is Winning 03:50 Jumpstarting European Growth 06:48 We Must Risk Failure to Succeed 09:30 Crisis as Catalyst 12:21 The Multipolar Moment 14:31 AI Nationalism 18:41 Career Politicians Won’t Survive the New Global Order 21:32 The Apollo Moonshot for the UK 25:26 The UK Has a De-Growth Cultural Problem 28:32 Growth ≠ Good 33:55 Prediction Markets as Gambling Companies 36:23 Political Leaders Should Not Be Neutral About the Good Life 37:41 UK and Europe: Geography as Destiny 39:33 The Next Pendulum Swings for Europe Matt Clifford is the co-founder and Chair of Entrepreneurs First, the world's leading talent investor, and Chair of ARIA, the UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency. He authored the UK Government's AI Opportunities Action Plan and served as the Prime Minister's Adviser on AI. He was named to the TIME100 list of most influential people in AI and was awarded a CBE for services to AI in 2024. Ian Hogarth is co-founder and partner at Plural, an early-stage venture capital firm, and served as Chair of the UK Government's AI Foundation Model Taskforce. He co-founded Songkick and was named to the TIME100 list of most influential people in AI in 2023. Matt on X: https://x.com/matthewclifford Ian on X: https://x.com/soundboy Matt's Website: https://www.matthewclifford.com/ Ian's Website: https://www.ianhogarth.com/ Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next. Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12 Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/ Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City. Head to nebular.vc for more info.
S1 · E7
April 15 · 48 min
Dimming the Sun to Save the World | Stardust CEO Yanai Yedvab on Solving Climate Change by 2050
Yanai Yedvab thinks we need to completely overhaul the infrastructure of humanity to avoid a climate disaster, and we can't afford to wait the 70 years it’ll take to wean off fossil fuels. Before founding Stardust, Yanai spent nearly three decades in Israeli nuclear research, ending up as deputy chief scientist at the Israel Atomic Energy Commission. Stardust is developing reflective particles to disperse into the upper atmosphere that will buy us the several decades we need to transition into a low-carbon economy. We sat down in New York to talk about how the technology works, the dangers at stake if we do nothing, and Yanai's radical optimism in spite of everything. Stardust Publication on Safety: https://www.stardustsolutions.com/science Stardust Publication on Ethics: https://www.stardustsolutions.com/guiding-principles Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/191c8d8c-50a1-42d4-a44e-03e618b9d359 Transcript (with helpful links!): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/c04e6ebb-d1e8-4cbf-97d3-fee104f21536 Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:10 From Nuclear Physics to The Climate Crisis 04:01 The Failure of Climate Activism 05:28 How Solar Reflective Technology Works 09:12 The 1991 Eruption of Mount Pinatubo 12:01 The Montreal Protocol and How to Negotiate in a World at War 16:03 Buying Time: Weaning off Fossil Fuels Will Take 50-70 Years 18:55 Data Centers, Fission, and Fusion 19:59 Preparing for Emergencies the Israeli Way 23:40 Radical Transparency: The Only Way To Gain Trust 27:05 Persuading the Policymakers 33:05 Unlimited Ambition is What Will Save the World 35:10 Stardust Will Unlock Quantum Leaps in Weather Prediction 36:54 Stardust in 2050 40:20 Why Stardust Has to Be a Private Company 45:32 Optimism for the Future is Rational Yanai Yedvab is a nuclear physicist, former deputy chief scientist at the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, and the co-founder and CEO of Stardust, a solar geoengineering company. Stardust: https://www.stardustsolutions.com/ Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next. Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12 Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/ Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City. Head to nebular.vc for more info.
S1 · E6
April 8 · 52 min
The Technologies That Will Remake Civilization by 2050 | Casey Handmer
Casey Handmer thinks we're living through the most consequential 25 years in human history, and that human civilization is just getting started. I sat down with Casey in Los Angeles to discuss how China's dominance in solar energy deployment should be a wake-up call for the West, why antimatter is the only rocket fuel that makes interstellar travel possible, and how slowing down aging may be the best solution to plummeting birthrates across the planet. For Casey, the balrog in the deep isn’t demographic decline, but a climate catastrophe that swallows every coastline on Earth. Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/6c52cb7a-572b-4f5f-8bf9-70fdaf14cf98 Transcript (with helpful links!): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/17c9604e-f38b-41a3-9068-eaf69d9f5575 Chapters: 00:00 Intro 00:53 The Solar Revolution 03:43 AI is a Supersonic Tsunami 06:00 Civilization Is Just Getting Started 08:46 Intelligent Life in the Universe 12:03 The $40 Trillion Ticket to Space: Antimatter 20:57 Space Exploration by 2050 22:09 Mitigating The Climate Catastrophe 27:53 Terraforming Mars vs Terraforming Venus 35:00 Solving the Birthrate Crisis: Humans Will Become Like The Elves in LOTR and Live Indefinitely 42:07 China Is Losing Sleep Over Their Problems As Much as We Are 44:46 Governments Are Lying About Their Population Sizes 46:11 The 2050 Moonshots That Will Save The World 52:45 Easter Egg :) Casey Handmer is a physicist, entrepreneur, and the founder of Terraform Industries, working on making cheap natural gas from sunlight and air. Casey on X: https://x.com/CJHandmer Casey's Website: https://www.caseyhandmer.com/ Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next. Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12 Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/ Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City. Head to nebular.vc for more info.
S1 · E5
March 30 · 41 min
Space AI, Moon Resorts, and Interstellar Calamity | Starcloud CEO Philip Johnston on 2050
Starcloud Founder and CEO Philip Johnston believes data centers in space are the first step to becoming a Kardashev level civilization. I caught up with Philip at Starcloud’s HQ to talk about his vision for the next 25 years. The conversation covers everything from luxury space tourism, whether Tesla’s Optimus robot will become a self-replicating galactic probe, the hard problem of consciousness, whether the world is a simulation, Mars becoming the next America, and Philip’s greatest concern for our long-term future. Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/data-centers-in-space-moon-resorts Transcript: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/forecast-2050-episode-iv-transcript Chapters: 00:00 Intro 00:59 Why the Space GPU Skeptics are Wrong 03:12 Elon Will Bring Launch Costs Down with Starship 06:50 The 2050 Space Economy: Moon Hotels, Asteroid Mining and Manufacturing 16:37 The 2050 Martian Colony: A Stepping Stone for Exploring the Universe 26:32 The Kardashev Scale of Civilization 28:44 We Live in a Simulation: The Fermi Paradox & The Great Filter 34:52 Cracking the Hard Problem of Consciousness 37:46 There is a Calamitous Event Waiting for Us 39:04 Mars is the Next America Philip Johnston is the co-founder and CEO of Starcloud, a space technology company building orbital data centers powered by solar energy to run AI and compute infrastructure in space. Philip on X: https://x.com/PhilipJohnston Philip on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-johnston/ Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next. Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12 Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/ Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City. Head to nebular.vc for more info.
S1 · E4
March 25 · 1 hr 2 min
Conflict and Diplomacy in an Era of Recklessness | Sir Malcolm Rifkind on 2050
Sir Malcolm Rifkind served as Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom from 1995 to 1997 and as Defence Secretary before that. He has sat across from Soviet ministers while a KGB double agent secretly briefed both sides, watched the Berlin Wall fall when nobody saw it coming, and has been banished from Russia by Putin personally for his criticism of the invasion of Crimea. I sat down with Sir Malcolm in London this January to talk about the next 25 years of conflict and diplomacy, and how to navigate a world where nobody cares about the old rules anymore. Extended Show Notes: https://substack.com/home/post/p-192033568 Transcript: https://substack.com/home/post/p-192033862 Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:05 Why Politicians Can’t Predict the Future 03:37 The Power of Double Agents in Spycraft 04:38 Social Media Diplomacy Was Inevitable 12:46 Soft Power is Dead 16:25 The Cult of Youth in Global Leadership 18:54 The West Must Think Long-Term to Survive 27:43 Technological Innovation Will Hurt Old People 30:58 The Chinese Will Eat Their Rich 38:11 Meeting Gorbachev and His Philosopher Wife 44:32 There Are No Good Guys and Bad Guys 46:46 Ukraine will Freeze Up like Korea, Kashmir, and Cyprus 47:55 Taiwan is More Important than Iran 53:23 How Smaller Countries Operate without Pax Americana 55:09 “The Chinese and the Russians Cannot Believe Their Luck” - on NATO Collapse 59:59 America May Not Be the Main Character in the Future Sir Malcolm Rifkind is a British statesman who served as Defence Secretary and then Foreign Secretary under Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major, and later chaired the UK Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee. Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next. Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12 Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/ Nebular is venture capital firm based in New York City. Head to nebular.vc for more info.
S1 · E3
March 18 · 39 min
Artificial Wombs, IVF & Robot Nannies | Noor Siddiqui on Family in 2050
Noor Siddiqui is building a future free of inherited disease. As Founder & CEO of Orchid, she has developed embryo screening technology that reads 99% of an embryo's DNA - 100 times more information than legacy tools. In this episode of Forecast 2050, Nebular General Partner Finn Murphy sits down with Noor in San Francisco to discuss why embryo screening and artificial wombs may become the default way humans reproduce, what's really driving falling birth rates, the moonshot nobody is funding, and why a generation of young people with world-changing energy has been left with nowhere to put it. Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/sex-is-for-fun-orchid-ivf-is-for Transcript (with links): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/forecast-2050-transcript-episode Chapters: 00:00 Intro 00:50 Rolling the Dice No More: The Embryo Screening Revolution 05:27 Artificial Wombs Are the Tech Challenge of Our Time 07:47 Why Aren't We Having Kids? 17:03 The Broken Generational Contract 18:56 Nature Beats Out Nurture 21:45 AI & Genetic Technology Could Give Us Superhuman Powers 30:54 Noor’s Plan for 2050 37:10 What We Lose When Old People Run Everything Noor Siddiqui is the Founder & CEO of Orchid, the world's first whole genome embryo screening company. Noor on X: https://x.com/noor_siddiqui_ Orchid: https://www.orchidhealth.com/ Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next. Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12 Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/ Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City investing in early-stage companies. Head to nebular.vc for more info.
S1 · E2
March 11 · 50 min
Quantum, Superintelligence, and Reality's Ultimate Nature | Scott Aaronson on 2050
Scott Aaronson thinks that the time to prepare for a post-quantum world isn’t years away - it was yesterday. In the second episode of Forecast 2050 with Nebular General Partner Finn Murphy and Entrepreneur in Residence Tom McCarthy, we explore whether classical AI might eclipse quantum computing, how post-quantum cryptography will upend global security, and why the rise of superintelligence both excites and deeply unsettles Scott. We also debate whether a quantum teleporter would actually be a suicide machine, how advanced AI might help us uncover the fundamental nature of reality, and the disturbing possibility that future superintelligences may compete with one another for dominance, treating humans as collateral. Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/breaking-the-internet-scott-aaronsons Transcript (with links): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/forecast-2050-episode-ii-transcript Chapters 00:00 Intro 02:04 How AI & Quantum Computing Interact Today 10:36 Why Scott Thinks Classical Computing Might Outdate Quantum 18:24 The Post-Quantum World of 2050 27:43 Quantum Computing & Biology 35:46 The Quantum Teleporter as a Suicide Machine 38:52 Superintelligence & The Ultimate Nature of Reality 45:00 The Battle Between Superintelligences Scott Aaronson, the Schlumberger Centennial Chair of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin, is widely recognized as a top researcher in the fields of quantum computing and computational complexity. Thank you to Matt Johnson of Q2B Sillicon Valley and QC Ware for helping us film at the conference! https://q2b.qcware.com/ Scott’s blog, Shtetl-Optimized: https://scottaaronson.blog/ Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next. Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12 Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/ Tom on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-mccarthy-41144779/ Nebular is an early-stage venture capital firm based in New York City. Head to nebular.vc for more info.
S1 · E1
March 4 · 48 min
The surprising truth behind collapsing birthrates | Tyler Cowen on 2050
Tyler Cowen believes we are woefully unprepared for the next 25 years. In the first episode of Forecast 2050 with Nebular General Partner, Finn Murphy, we discuss the real reason behind falling birthrates, what the last human job might be in an AI-dominated economy, how conflict and war could evolve in the next 25 years, whether we will have a "viagra for the mind," why we are experiencing the fastest technological revolution in human history, why humans love stasis and hate change, and why we need faith in long-term thinking. Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/humans-love-stasis-and-hate-change Transcript (with helpful links!): https://substack.com/home/post/p-189726563 Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:03 The real reason behind low birthrates 04:50 Transitioning to a majority-old society 07:49 The future of worldwide immigration 14:55 The 2050 economy will be healthcare dominated 19:23 Corporations have never been so powerful 26:25 There is life on the moons of Saturn 27:07 Elon is wrong: We won't settle other planets 30:00 AIs Will Take Over Society By Trick 30:58 We need faith for long term thinking 32:47 There will be many, many fake jobs 36:29 The future of the UN and global conflicts 40:56 The AIs will build their own superintelligent institutions 45:18 Tyler's greatest concern 47:50 The last profession standing in the AI era Tyler Cowen is an economist, author, and professor known for his work on growth, innovation, and the future of technology. Tyler on X: https://x.com/tylercowen Tyler's Blog: https://marginalrevolution.com/ Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next. Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12 Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/ Nebular is an early stage venture capital firm based in New York City. Head to nebular.vc for more info.
March 3 · 1 min
Introducing Forecast 2050
Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years, and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what lies ahead. Hosted by Nebular General Partner Finn Murphy.

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