Uploaded December 2019 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Sean Gourley (@sgourley) is a physicist, founder and CEO of AI company, Primer, an expert on the mathematics of war, TED Fellow, speaker and political advisor.
Before that, he was CTO and co-founder of Quid, an augmented-intelligence company and also worked on self-repairing nano-circuits at NASA. Sean was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford focused on complex systems and the mathematical patterns underlying modern war which was published on the cover of Nature.
He has served as a political advisor, briefed USCENTCOM at the Pentagon and addressed the United Nations in Vienna, serves on the Board of Directors at Anadarko (NYSE:APC).
Sean is also a two-time New Zealand track and field champion and sits on the Knight Commission focused on reforming collegiate athletics.
Full Episode: https://disruptors.fm/163-the-mathematics-of-war-and-future-of-us-china-relations-plus-ai-automation-and-mutually-assured-destruction-sean-gourley
In today's episode we discuss:
- The future of the US-China relationship, and possible war
- What differentiates AI creativity from humans
- The automation law that ALWAYS leads to occasional epic consequences
- Should we develop autonomous weapons? Will we
- What are the biggest predictors of war and civil strife
- Why San Francisco is anything but a model city
- Are cyborgs and genetic superhumans inevitable
- How long until we have human-level AI
- Why economic war creates the conditions for actual fighting
- What works well with mutually assured destruction
- How to engineer equality into our economy
- Why Sean is worried about deep fakes breaking democracy
- How to think about dynamic geopolitical decisions
- The importance of education and what its future holds
VISIT THE DISRUPTORS FOR TONS MORE INTERVIEWS, TOPICS & GUIDES
https://disruptors.fm
SUBSCRIBE TO PODCAST ON iTUNES
https://disruptors.fm/itunes
SUBSCRIBE TO PODCAST ON ANDROID (Any Podcast App)
https://disruptors.fm/android
JOIN OUR NEWSLETTER + GET FREE AUDIOBOOK
https://disruptors.fm/join
SUPPORT US WITH TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATION ON PATREON
https://disruptors.fm/patreon
Sean Gourley (@sgourley) is a physicist, founder and CEO of AI company, Primer, an expert on the mathematics of war, TED Fellow, speaker and political advisor.
Before that, he was CTO and co-founder of Quid, an augmented-intelligence company and also worked on self-repairing nano-circuits at NASA. Sean was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford focused on complex systems and the mathematical patterns underlying modern war which was published on the cover of Nature.
He has served as a political advisor, briefed USCENTCOM at the Pentagon and addressed the United Nations in Vienna, serves on the Board of Directors at Anadarko (NYSE:APC).
Sean is also a two-time New Zealand track and field champion and sits on the Knight Commission focused on reforming collegiate athletics.
Full Episode: https://disruptors.fm/163-the-mathematics-of-war-and-future-of-us-china-relations-plus-ai-automation-and-mutually-assured-destruction-sean-gourley
In today's episode we discuss:
- The future of the US-China relationship, and possible war
- What differentiates AI creativity from humans
- The automation law that ALWAYS leads to occasional epic consequences
- Should we develop autonomous weapons? Will we
- What are the biggest predictors of war and civil strife
- Why San Francisco is anything but a model city
- Are cyborgs and genetic superhumans inevitable
- How long until we have human-level AI
- Why economic war creates the conditions for actual fighting
- What works well with mutually assured destruction
- How to engineer equality into our economy
- Why Sean is worried about deep fakes breaking democracy
- How to think about dynamic geopolitical decisions
- The importance of education and what its future holds
VISIT THE DISRUPTORS FOR TONS MORE INTERVIEWS, TOPICS & GUIDES
https://disruptors.fm
SUBSCRIBE TO PODCAST ON iTUNES
https://disruptors.fm/itunes
SUBSCRIBE TO PODCAST ON ANDROID (Any Podcast App)
https://disruptors.fm/android
JOIN OUR NEWSLETTER + GET FREE AUDIOBOOK
https://disruptors.fm/join
SUPPORT US WITH TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATION ON PATREON
https://disruptors.fm/patreon
