Let's take a grounded look at the state of the AI industry in early 2026 and ask whether we’re actually any closer to artificial general intelligence (AGI) or superintelligence than we were a few years ago. Despite massive valuations for companies like OpenAI and bold promises from AI lab leaders, today’s systems still struggle with hallucinations, common sense, and a genuine understanding of the world.

So join me as I revisit core assumptions behind current AI approaches—especially the ideas that the mind is computable and that scaling up large language models is enough to “solve” intelligence, and why many researchers are now pivoting from the “age of scaling” to an “age of research” into the nature of intelligence itself.

What happens to AI company valuations if superintelligence remains out of reach for the foreseeable future?

And how should we rethink intelligence beyond language, code, and computation?

BREAKING: Demis Hassabis of Google Deepmind now agrees that LLMs are a dead-end on the road to AGI

Substack version of this episode

My 2024 deep dive into the impediments to AGI

What non-ordinary states of consciousness tell us about intelligence

Ilya Sutskever on Dwarkesh

The LLM memorization crisis

On the Tenuous Relationship between Language and Intelligence

Gary Marcus on The Real Eisman (of Big Short fame)

Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs: https://www.worldlabs.ai/blog

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Why is Mark Zuckerberg so obsessed with the Roman Empire?

Why is Peter Thiel so obsessed with the Antichrist?

Why does Sam Altman want $7 trillion dollars for an uncharted course to an unknown destination?

And how can be build AI models and an AI company based on principles of kinship and reciprocity?

In my ongoing exploration of what's rotten in Silicon Valley tech innovation and the ideologies driving it, last time I talked about the pandemic of what I called the Apollonian Mind Virus, a tendency throughout the modern world to favor cold, disembodied hyperrationality and cognitive intelligence over all other ways of knowing and being, over intuition, emotional intelligence, embodiment, and wisdom. This Apollonian orientation toward nature has ushered in what Sam Altman has dubbed the Intelligence Age. "Apollonian" describes the worldview and theories of intelligence behind current approaches to AI.

Today, inspired by Native American thinkers like Jack D. Forbes and Robin Wall Kimmerer, as well as Karen Hao’s work, I explore an adjacent pandemic of the mind or sickness of spirit that is insatiable, extractive, and exploitative: The hungry ghost of the Windigo. I argue that current approaches to AI are largely the result of these two features of the modern, Western ethos—the interwoven helix of the Apollonian Mind and the Windigo soul sickness. I then close this post by beginning to explore whether there is a better way to innovate and evolve, collectively.

Substack version here.

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In this conversation, philosopher Matt Segall and I address the role of philosophy in contemporary culture, emphasizing the need for discernment amidst ideological ferment. We critique transhumanist Silicon Valley ideologies, highlighting their left-hemisphere bias and magical thinking. We also discusses the implications of AI, arguing that while it's a valuable tool, the real danger lies in the extractive, capitalist machine driving its development.

More about Matt, including his Substack, his YouTube channel, and his conversation with Michael Levin.

God Human Animal Machine by Meghan O’Gieblyn https://amzn.to/3IzujNq

Against the Machine, by Paul Kingsnorth https://amzn.to/4ntYp4b

‘Other,’ by R. S. Thomas

The machine appeared

In the distance, singing to itself

Of money. Its song was the web

They were caught in, men and women

Together. The villages were as flies

To be sucked empty.

God secreted

A tear. Enough, enough,

He commanded, but the machine

Looked at him and went on singing.

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Join Chad's newsletter to learn about all new offerings, courses, trainings, and retreats.

Finally, you can support the podcast here.