What really drives human progress? What is innovation, and why is innovation not just a feature of modern society but a law of life? How do energy, cooperation, and culture shape the way we create new ideas?
These are ideal questions with which to launch our new podcast season on the beauty and burdens of innovation, and I can’t think of anyone better suited to address them than my guest today.
Dr. Michael Muthukrishna is joint Professor of Economic Psychology at the London School of Economics and Professor of Psychology at NYU (from January 2026). At LSE, he is also Affiliate of the Data Science Institute and STICERD Developmental Economics Group. Michael is co-founder and Technical Director of The Database of Religious History (religiondatabase.org), founder of the LSE Culturalytik project (culturalytik.com), London School of Artificial Intelligence (lsai.org.uk), and Center for Human Progress (humanprogress.center), Research Lead of Cities, Culture, and Technology at the African School of Economics’ Africa Urban Lab (aul.city), and Scientific Advisor at the AI startup Electric Twin (electrictwin.com). Michael’s research applies an evolutionary framework to understand human cooperation, tackling key topics, including: the barriers to cooperation, particularly how different mechanisms of cooperation (such as family ties versus impartial institutions) can potentially undermine each other; the impact of cultural differences on psychology and behavior; the processes of social learning; and how these learning processes drive innovation and cultural change. His research and interviews have appeared in outlets including CNN, BBC, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Scientific American, PBS, Vice, Newsweek, Time, New York Magazine, Nature News, Science News, The Times, The Telegraph, and The Guardian. Michael’s research is informed by his educational background in engineering and psychology, with graduate training in evolutionary biology, economics, and statistics, and his personal background living in Sri Lanka, Botswana, Papua New Guinea, Australia, Canada, United States, and United Kingdom. He is the author of A Theory of Everyone: The new science of who we are, how we got here, and where we’re going (MIT Press / Basic Books).
In this episode, we talk about:
1. Michael’s encounter with beauty in Botswana
2. The impact of culture on bad foreign policy and global problems
3. The “four laws of life” that underlie human progress
4. Difference between cooperation and competition
5. How innovation really happens through the “collective brain”
6. The compass model and the adjacent possible zone
7. How to solve the paradox of diversity
8. Three ingredients of evolution: Variation, transmission, selection
9. The promise and pitfalls of AI - The Second Enlightenment
10. The promise of AI to create abundance
11. How society is structured through religion
12. Innovation in any domain only happens in the free flow of ideas
To learn more about Michael’s work, you can find him at:
https://www.michael.muthukrishna.com/
Links Mentioned:
A Theory of Everyone by Michael Muthukrishna -
https://www.atheoryofeveryone.com/
This season of the podcast is sponsored by Templeton Religion Trust
