The same principles that allowed cells to cooperate and form bodies can help us build AI that actually helps humans flourish. I had a great conversation with David Sloan Wilson on Evolving Alignment Podcast about what cooperation science can teach us about the future of AI.

Athena Aktipis with David Sloan Wilson - Evolving Alignment Podcast

YouTube video by Human Energy

youtube.com

New on Not for Peer Review: why does serendipity feel so real, even though it doesn’t seem to make scientific sense?

First up this morning: ISEEC President @athenaaktipis.bsky.social on cancer-like phenomena in AI. Her substack is athenaaktipis.substack.com

Why is lower wealth often associated with greater empathy? New work at SPPS w @jessicadayers.bsky.social Yul Kwon Peter Todd @athenaaktipis.bsky.social shows lower wealth cultivates empathy via challenges and helping - but only among moderate helpers🧵https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506261449280

Helping People in Times of Need Cultivates Empathy Over Time - Diego Guevara Beltran, Jessica D. Ayers, Jung Yul Kwon, Peter M. Todd, Athena Aktipis, 2026

Why is lower social class often associated with greater empathy? We test whether less wealthy people experience more challenges, thereby motivating them to help...

doi.org

The Cooperative Futures Institute and Frontier Tower present an evening salon with Geoffrey Miller, Emmett Shear, and myself discussing this pivotal moment in time with AI and evolving a cooperative future with it.

Excited to be talking about ideas related to this post - about how replicator dynamics and hijacking evolve in AI systems - at the International Society for Evolution, Ecology, and Cancer meeting this week in Crete. open.substack.com/pub/athenaak...

This morning I’ll be talking about the Cooperation Benchmark and what biology can teach us about building AI. Most benchmarks measure what a system can do on its own. What we’re asking is what does it look like when AI actually shows up for you? See you at 10am! @humantechweek.bsky.social

This was in Greece last summer. I’m excited to return, this time for ISEEC! You still have time to register and submit your breaking abstracts. Check it out: www.eventbrite.com/e/2026-iseec...

I'm speaking at Human+Tech Week in San Francisco next week. It's not a conference. It's an offsite for people building what comes next across health, work, and cities, with the human stakes kept front and center.

Cooperative Futures Academy is happening this June in SF! Join us for a four-day intensive that applies cooperation science and evolutionary theory to intelligence, health, AI alignment, and system design.

TONIGHT! Hear from Devinder & Alexia from Frontier Tower in San Francisco about how to cultivate community, arts and coworking - and making it a viable model that can be duplicated. It all starts at 5:30 PM tonight at The Dark Side in Tempe. See you soon!

Recursion is the original algorithm. It’s why we have life, cognition, computation. Much of what makes brains so powerful comes from recursion and the positive feedback loops that recursion makes possible. Those loops let systems respond quickly, adapt, and learn. substack.com/@athenaaktip...

Evolution Will Happen Inside AI Whether We Like It or Not

The Inevitable Rise of the Replicons

substack.com

Just yesterday, Eörs Szathmáry and colleagues published this paper in PNAS: Evolvable AI: Threats of a new major transition in evolution. If you’re interested in what is going on in the AI evolution space, I highly recommend taking a look! doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

We are currently moving into the era of Web 4.0, in which digital entities have an unprecedented ability to process information and behave autonomously. Read my latest Substack post “The Digital Cambrian: Evolution, Autonomy, and the Rise of the Agentic Web”. substack.com/@athenaaktip...

I helped build Facebook. I watched it become a machine for addicting people. Because addiction was more profitable. Now the same logic is driving AI. I wrote about what we do about it. 🧵

Nobel Prize winner, Geoffrey Hinton, has suggested that making AI “love us like a mother” could help keep it safe.   It’s an intuitive idea. But evolution tells a more complicated story.

I’ll be giving a keynote at the upcoming symposium “Organisms, Algorithms, and Alignment” at the Bielefeld University in Germany on March 24.   The alignment problem is not new.

I’ll be giving a keynote on Sunday at 3:50pm at the Funding the Commons SF: Intelligence at the Frontier main stage. Topic: From Multicellularity to Multi Agent AI: Evolution’s Lessons for Scaling Cooperation

I’ve been putting a lot of my heart and soul - along with my brains - into writing substack posts these last few month so it’s really exciting to see that it’s having impact. It’s at #14 Rising in Science!

Agentic AI has crossed a threshold. We can now plug AI directly into our communication and coordination systems. From an evolutionary perspective, that is profound.

Access Granted

Communication Is Built on Trust. What Happens When AI Enters the System?

athenaaktipis.substack.com

I love that I was still able to sneak in some exercise and cross country ski while in Davos! The scenery was insanely beautiful. #Davos #WEF #WEF2026 🎿

Los Angeles friends and colleagues - we are doing a private showing of our in-development Surviving AI show in LA this weekend, hot off the Davos train! (Yes, we literally had the last Surviving AI show in a train at Davos, more on that later.)

Surviving AI · Luma

Surviving AI is a comedy show that blends humor with thoughtful exploration of how humans relate to artificial intelligence and how we might build a more…

luma.com

AI is becoming social, but current evaluations miss a key dimension: real cooperation. In my new Substack post I explain why developing benchmarks for AI cooperation and friendship is essential if we want systems that genuinely contribute to human flourishing. substack.com/home/post/p-...

Why We Need Benchmarks For AI Cooperation And Friendship

How engagement-optimized systems exploit social cues, and why cooperation science must shape the next generation of AI

substack.com

Excited to share that I’ll be in Davos this week for the World Economic Forum.

From dodging cows on snowy backroads to proving humans help each other in crisis, my Reed Magazine feature dives into the science behind cooperation, catastrophe, and why fun matters in wild times.

How to Thrive in Wild Times

According to cooperation theorist Athena Aktipis ’02, the one thing we really need? Each other.

reed.edu

Reminder that abstract submissions for EvoCancer close tomorrow. If you’re working at the intersection of cancer, evolution, and ecology, this is a great community to plug into. Details here: www.evocancer.com

ISEEC

The International Society for Evolution, Ecology and Cancer

evocancer.com

As I did last year, I thought I'd start the new year by highlighting five writers I enjoy reading, along with a recent post from each that grabbed my attention. Happy 2026! www.futureofbeinghuman.com/p/five-voice... @athenaaktipis.bsky.social @athenedonald.bsky.social @bnerlich.bsky.social

Five voices worth reading in 2026

As I did last year, I thought I'd highlight five writers I enjoy reading, along with a recent post from each that grabbed my attention.

futureofbeinghuman.com

Since it cost a lot to win And even more to lose You and me bound to spend some time Wondering what to choose This line from the Grateful Dead’s Deal has been on my mind as the new year begins - not as a metaphor about gambling or fate, but as a statement about choice under uncertainty.

For most of our evolutionary history, alcohol looked nothing like today’s Bud Lights, Margaritas, or White Claws.

I’m delighted to share that I’ll be hosting at Human Tech Week in SF this Spring.