John Smart - Evolution from Cells to Super-intelligence (Worthy Successor, Episode 21)

About this episode

An interview with John Smart discussing the evolution of intelligence through developmental stages.

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with John Smart, Director of the EvoDevo Institute and a longtime futures theorist whose work spans accelerating change, developmental systems, and the long-term trajectory of intelligence. In this episode, we go deep on John’s view that intelligence does not evolve randomly, but instead progresses through constrained developmental stages - from chemistry to biology to nervous systems to digital cognition. He frames AGI as a...

People in this episode

Host: Daniel Faggella

Guest: John Smart

Topics covered

• intelligence evolution
• futures theory
• developmental systems
• artificial general intelligence
• accelerating change

Keywords

• intelligence
• evolution
• AGI
• developmental stages
• futures theory

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: EvoDevo Institute

More episodes of The Trajectory

• Henry Shevlin – The Life Force Beyond Biology (Worthy Successor, Episode 31) · June 5, 2026 · 1h 32m
• Benjamin Bratton - Planetary Computation and the Future of Life (Worthy Successor, Episode 30) · May 22, 2026 · 2h 9m
• Terrence Deacon - AI Is a “Deep Fake of Intelligence” (Worthy Successor, Episode 29) · May 8, 2026 · 1h 52m
• Vincent C. Müller - AI Is Accelerating - But Toward What? (Worthy Successor, Episode 28) · April 24, 2026 · 2h 14m
• Lee Spector - The Next Phase of Evolution Is Artificial (Worthy Successor, Episode 27) · April 17, 2026 · 1h 42m
• Aza Raskin - Why AGI Demands New Global Coordination (AGI Governance, Episode 12) · April 3, 2026 · 1h 38m