Originally published: 05 November 2025

Guest: Dr Simon Longstaff  | Philosopher | Officer of the Order of Australia | Adjunct Professor, UNSW Business School | Honorary Professor, Australian National University

Dr. Simon Longstaff is a philosopher trained at Cambridge with over 34 years of experience in applied ethics. He works with CEOs, boards, and government leaders on questions of ethics, human flourishing, and what it means to makedecisions that are good and right. His recent work explores AI's relationship to human nature and what distinctive aspects of being human must be preserved as artificial intelligence advances.

Topic: What Makes Us Human in the Age of AI

In this episode, we explore:

•Transcending animal nature: Why humans are distinctive not because we lack instincts and desires, but because we can choose to go beyond them—staying steadfast to promises even in danger, refusing food that isn't ours even when starving, putting abstract commitments above survival imperatives

•The analog-digital divide: How AI systems exist in a fundamentally different world than humans do, and what information or understanding might be lost when we try to capture human experience through digital systems—including insights embedded in indigenous knowledge systems that arise from direct engagement with the analog world

•Simulation versus authenticity: The philosophical difference between an AI that can perfectly replicate a consoling touch and a human who actually understands mortality; between an AI companion that performs empathy token-by-token and a friend who genuinely feels concern—and what we risk losing if we accept simulation as equivalent to the real thing

•Two versions of capitalism: How Adam Smith's original conception of free markets included ethical restraints, sympathy, and the requirement that markets increase common good—versus the rapacious, power-driven capitalism that Marx criticized and that we often see today—and why choosing the former isn't inevitable but is possible

•Who counts: How the major ethical question throughout history has been the expansion of who we recognize as having full personhood—from exclusions based on race, gender, and religion to current questions about sentient beings and even elements of the natural world in indigenous frameworks

"The thing that worries me most is that the societies in which we live are not preparing and certainly not being open in their preparations for the major transition that will take place. When societies are profoundly challenged, they can easily go wrong very quickly when people get angry and frustrated and scared." – Dr. Simon Longstaff

Episode length: 58 minutes

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