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Jamie Metzl
Technology and Healthcare Futurist; Global Affairs Specialist; Science Fiction Novelist; Genetic Engineering Expert
Technology and healthcare futurist Jamie Metzl helps audiences understand how AI, genetics, biotechnology, and other emerging technologies are transforming our lives, work, and world. An eight-time author and former U.S. national security official, he brings a global perspective to science, technology, healthcare, and global affairs.
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Jamie Metzl is one of the world’s leading technology and healthcare futurists and strategists, Founder and Chair of the global social movement OneShared.World, a Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council, a faculty member of NextMed Health, and a Singularity University expert.
He appears regularly on national and international media and his syndicated columns, podcasts, and interviews on AI, science, technology, and global affairs have reached hundreds of millions of people across the globe.
Jamie is the author of eight books, including The AI Ten Commandments: A New Moral Code for Humanity, Superconvergence: How the Genetics, Biotech and AI Revolutions Will Transform Our Lives, Work, and World, Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity, and the novels Virtuosa (exploring the intersection of AI, robotics, creativity, and classical music), Eternal Sonata (exploring the science of human life extension), Genesis Code (exploring human genetic engineering), and The Depths of the Sea.
Jamie previously served in the U.S. National Security Council, State Department, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with the United Nations in Cambodia, and on the World Health Organization expert advisory committee on human genome editing.
A former partner in a global private equity firm, he sits on advisory boards for multiple biotechnology and other companies and co-established the WisdomTree BioRevolution Exchange Traded Fund.
Jamie holds a Ph.D. from Oxford, a law degree from Harvard, and an undergraduate degree from Brown and is an avid ironman triathlete and ultramarathon runner.
Since a “pause” on the development of artificial intelligence is a non-starter, we should devote our resources to preparing for the social and economic displacements that we know are coming. The key will be to let AIs and humans each do what they do best, and to figure out how AI and humans can best work together on everything else.
Q&A Interview with Jamie Metzl: We need a global OS upgrade
In this Q&A, leading technology and healthcare futurist Jamie Metzl discusses a range of topics and trend lines that will unfold over the next several decades: whether a version of Moore's Law applies to genetic technologies, the ethics of genetic engineering, the dangers of gene hacking, the end of sex, and much more.
The Future, According to Jamie Metzl
In a coffee shop near New York's Central Park, where Metzl trains for ultramarathons, Brunswick Partner Raul Damas talked with Jamie about the next stage of human reproduction, and why storytelling can help leaders of business prepare for a radically transformed future.
The Metaverse Could Become an Oppressive Dystopia. It Needs a Congress.
Jamie shares his insights on how since the future of the Metaverse is not predetermined, the difference between these utopian and dystopian futures is still up for grabs.
Stifling debate on the virus makes another one more likely
A number of people have asked whether the recent increase in attention to the pandemic origins has felt like vindication for the small number of us who have been pushing against the tide since early last year by raising essential questions challenging the dominant narrative and calling for a full investigation into all credible hypotheses. The answer is not really or, perhaps, not yet. Our goal is not attention or media interviews but a full investigation, with China's involvement if at all possible but without that if not, to help us understand what went wrong and address our greatest vulnerabilities.
As the pandemic rages on, we must demand accountability from the World Health Assembly
You may have never heard of the World Health Assembly, an annual meeting of health ministers from around the world that opens Monday, but your safety and that of future generations may well depend on what happens in this previously obscure international gathering.
What happened in Wuhan? Why questions still linger on the origin of the coronavirus
A lack of transparency from Chinese officials and looming geopolitical consequences have damaged the credibility of a WHO-led inquiry into how the virus that causes COVID-19 originated. Lesley Stahl reports.
Miraculous mRNA Vaccines are only the Beginning | Opinion
The Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines now being administered across the United States and the globe aren't just providing the first glimmers of hope in our struggle against COVID-19. They are also offering an early look at how the miraculous tools of the genetics revolution will transform our health care and our world over the coming years. But unless we can develop better ways to reap the great benefits while avoiding the potential harms of our Promethean technologies, our moment of triumph could set us on a path to disaster.
Assembly keynote speaker says ministry must help lay right foundation for nation's rebuilding
Futurist Jamie Metzl says systemic reform is needed to protect the most vulnerable
OneShared.World Seeks a New Global Operating System
Like the prophets of old, Jamie Metzl bemoans a world wracked by oppression, destruction, poverty and social injustice. This March, as the coronavirus spread its furious tentacles across the world, Metzl had a revelation...
OneShared. World Seeks a New Global Operating System
Published in Hadassah Magazine, September 2020, Jamie's article starts with his revelation, “I realized that our biggest problems are global—but the way we are organized is national."
Think this coronavirus crisis is bad? The next could be worse — if we don't act now
As the coronavirus pandemic, today grows ever-more dangerous, we must not only rise to meet this crisis but also step up our efforts to prepare for even more dangerous pathogens — either naturally emerging or synthetically engineered — that are very likely to follow.
Covid-19 offers a chance to build a better world. We must seize it.
(CNN)The coronavirus alone didn't itself break our world. It just exposed a world that was already breaking.
Polymath Jamie Metzl on AI, Genetics, and the Future
Where humanity is heading from a tech futurist and geopolitical expert's view.
Jamie Metzl on the Future of Genetics – The Joe Rogan Experience MAY 21, 2019
People have been manipulating life for a very long time and our power to manipulate it will only continue to grow. “Our model of what is normal is just going to change”
His new book "Hacking Darwin" is available...Jamie Metzl by The Joe Rogan May 10, 2019 Experience
Podcast with Joe Rogan on Jamie's new book, "Hacking Darwin."
Ten steps to prepare for an exponential future
1. Do what you can to preserve your youth 2. Quantify and monitor your health 3. Freeze your essential biological materials 4.If you plan on ever having children, freeze your eggs or your sperm 5.Manage your public identity 6.Learn the language of code 7.Become multicultural 8.Become an obsessive learner 9.Invest in physical community 10. Don't get stuck in today
Polymath Jamie Metzl on AI, Genetics, and the Future
Where humanity is heading from a tech futurist and geopolitical expert's view.
Ten steps to prepare for an exponential future
It took around 12,000 years to move from the agrarian to the industrial revolution but only a couple of hundred years to go from the industrial to the information revolution that's now propelling us in a short number of decades into the artificial intelligence revolution.
Profile of Jamie from Psychology Today
Kim Jong Un Has No Intention of Giving Up His Nukes
Kim Jong Un has no intention of giving up his nukes.
Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, Made for Each Other?
Jamie Metzl, a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council, has served as a director on the US National Security Council, at the State Department and on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff. He also served with the United Nations in Cambodia and is author of "Eternal Sonata" and three other books. The views expressed in this commentary are his own.
Trump Has Made a Bad North Korea Situation Even Worse
North Korea's Kim is less constrained by his government institutions than is Trump, but we do not yet fully know how effectively America's governance culture and institutions can moderate the dangerous, destabilizing, and mercurial impulses of the US President.
A Modern Day Renaissance Man Shares Lessons On Happiness, Habits, And Health
This Huffington Post interview with Jamie went viral and even inspired a new musical score based on its themes
Homo Sapiens 2.0: We Need a Species-Wide Conversation on the Future of Human Genetic Engineering
After 4 billion years of evolution by one set of rules, our species is about to begin evolving by another. Overlapping and mutually reinforcing revolutions in genetics, information technology, artificial intelligence, big data analytics, and other fields are providing the tools that will make it possible to genetically alter our future offspring should we choose to do so. For some very good reasons, we will. As the genetic revolution plays out, it will raise fundamental questions about what it means to be human, unleash deep divisions within and between groups, and could even lead to destabilizing international conflict..
It's Time for the United States to Talk About Genetics
This Washington Post editorial calls for a wide-ranging and structured national and international dialogue on the rapidly unfolding genetics revolution
The Revolution in DNA Science -- And What To Do About It
In the Twilight Rise Up Monsters: Why the Trump Foreign Policy Undermines US and World Security
The United States is facing perhaps the most dangerous moment since the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack or the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. This danger does not stem from terrorism, immigration, or Islamic extremism but instead from the rapid deterioration of the post-World War Two international order. The Trump administration did not create this crisis but is contributing to it massively. Unless this changes, the ensuing conflict will likely destabilize the world and undermine America’s security.
Uncovering a Global Health Conspiracy in Jamie Metzl's Near-Future Thriller
Interview with WNYC's Leonard Lopate
The Coming Collapse of North Korea
Those predicting North Korea's imminent collapse have continually been proven wrong. But today, the North Korean madness may well be nearing its endgame.
- 2026 The AI Ten Commandments: A New Moral Code for Humanity
- 2024 Superconvergence: How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions will Transform Our Lives, Work, and World
- 2019 Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity
- 2017 Homo Sapiens 2.0: We need a species-wide conversation about the future of human genetic enhancement
- 2016 Eternal Sonata
- 2014 Genesis Code
- 2004 The Depths of the Sea
- 1997 Western Responses to Human Rights Abuses in Cambodia
Keynotes
Featured Keynote
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Navigating the Radical Future: Finding Opportunity in a World Being Remade
We are entering an age of superconvergence, in which dizzying advances in artificial intelligence, genetics, biotechnology, automation, advanced materials, energy systems, and other transformative technologies are converging, accelerating one another, and rapidly expanding what humans and our organizations can achieve. At the same time, geopolitical fragmentation, populism, and shifting social expectations are reshaping the world in which these technologies will be developed, governed, and deployed.
Drawing on the ideas in Superconvergence and his decades of work at the intersection of technology, healthcare, geopolitics, business, and public policy, Jamie Metzl brings these forces together into a single frame in this exciting keynote. Rather than treating AI, biotechnology, global competition, demographic change, and institutional disruption as separate trends, he shows how they interact, reinforce one another, and reshape the strategic landscape in ways that are easy to miss when each is viewed in isolation.
Jamie connects these dots to help leaders see around corners, identify opportunities and risks before they become obvious, and make smarter strategic choices about where to invest, what to build, and how to position their organizations to ride the wave of accelerating change rather than be overwhelmed by it.
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From Predictive to Preventive: Technology, Humanity, and the Exciting Future of Healthcare
From Predictive to Preventive: Technology, Humanity, and the Exciting Future of Healthcare
For most of human history, medicine has been reactive. We waited for people to get sick and then tried to make them better. As artificial intelligence, genomics, biotechnology, sensors, imaging, and increasingly rich health data come together, that model is now changing. Healthcare is moving toward a world in which we can understand individual risk more precisely, detect disease earlier, design treatments more intelligently, increasingly intervene before illness takes hold, and even alter our underlying biology.
In this keynote, technology and healthcare futurist Jamie Metzl explores what this extraordinary transformation means for patients, providers, payers, life-science companies, and everyone with a stake in the future of health. Bringing the science vividly to life, he connects the dots across rapidly advancing fields to show not only what is becoming possible, but how these advances are transforming disease detection, drug development, care delivery, and health economics, where the biggest opportunities and risks are emerging, and how today’s choices will shape tomorrow’s outcomes.
By helping audiences see further ahead and understand how these converging technologies will reshape medicine, business models, institutions, and individual lives, Jamie provides a practical framework for navigating this transition intelligently and strategically—and for capitalizing on a new era of medicine focused increasingly on preserving health, extending healthy longevity, and preventing disease before it takes hold.
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Smarter Machines Need Wiser Human: Leadership, Human Flourishing, and the Future of AI
Smarter Machines Need Wiser Human: Leadership, Human Flourishing, and the Future of AI
Artificial intelligence is becoming astonishingly powerful, but much of the debate about its future is still trapped in the misleading idea that intelligence sits on a single ladder, with humans near the top and machines steadily climbing past us. Jamie Metzl offers a very different way of seeing what is coming. Human and machine intelligence are developing along different paths, which means our machines can become vastly better at many consequential tasks without becoming conscious or wise in our way or superior to us at all cognitive tasks. Yet machines do not need to become “generally intelligent” to transform economies, accelerate scientific discovery, reshape work, influence politics, alter the balance of power, and become deeply embedded in our everyday lives.
In this provocative and fast-moving keynote, Jamie explores how the growing speed, scale, connectivity, and autonomy of AI will expand what individuals, organizations, and societies can do while raising profound new questions about judgment, responsibility, agency, trust, and power.
Drawing on The AI Ten Commandments and his broader work on the future of technology and humanity, Jamie takes audiences beyond the usual hype and fear to focus on the choices that will matter most. Where should we rely on machines, and where must humans remain firmly in charge? Which distinctly human capacities become more valuable as AI improves? How should leaders think about responsibility when decisions are increasingly shared between people and intelligent systems? And how can we use these extraordinary new tools to expand human flourishing rather than merely accelerate the systems and incentives already shaping our world?
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Can Machines Be Creative?: AI, Art, and What Remains Uniquely Human
Can Machines Be Creative?: AI, Art, and What Remains Uniquely Human
Creativity has long felt like one of humanity’s final sanctuaries. Machines might calculate faster and recognize patterns at superhuman scale, but composing a great symphony, writing a profound novel, or creating transformative art seemed to belong to us.
That assumption is now under direct challenge.
Artificial intelligence can already generate music, images, stories, designs, and scientific insights of astonishing sophistication. As machines become collaborators, competitors, and creators in their own right, we face deeper questions: What is creativity? Does it require consciousness or lived experience? Can something without a body, childhood, mortality, longing, or love create art of lasting human significance?
Jamie Metzl is uniquely positioned to explore these questions. A leading futurist and specialist in emerging technologies, he is also a novelist who has spent years imagining the human consequences of worlds that do not yet exist. Drawing on his novel Virtuosa and developments across AI, neuroscience, robotics, mathematics, music, and the arts, Jamie explores how creative machines may transform culture, originality, genius, and our understanding of what remains uniquely human. The deeper opportunity is to use this extraordinary moment not only to understand what machines can create, but to discover more clearly what human creativity is, why it matters, and how we can cultivate it to enrich our lives and expand what is possible for humanity.
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Beyond the Blue Zones: How Science and Technology Are Redefining Healthy Longevity—and What It Means for You
Beyond the Blue Zones: How Science and Technology Are Redefining Healthy Longevity—and What It Means for You
Most people already know the foundations of healthy longevity: exercise, nutrition, sleep, meaningful relationships, and stress reduction. But beneath the hype about “hacking” aging and living forever, something genuinely important is happening. Advances in artificial intelligence, genetics, biotechnology, diagnostics, and preventive medicine are giving us powerful new ways to understand individual risk, intervene earlier, protect our health, and potentially extend both healthspan and lifespan.
In this eye-opening, optimistic, and highly practical keynote, technology and healthcare futurist Jamie Metzl—who has completed 60 marathons, 40 ultramarathons, and 13 Ironman triathlons—separates credible science from wishful thinking and explores what the emerging science of longevity means for our lives and our society. He shows what individuals can do today to live healthier and more resilient lives, how to position ourselves to benefit from the next generation of predictive and preventive medicine, and how longer, healthier lives could reshape careers, retirement, healthcare, insurance, productivity, public policy, and society itself.
The opportunity is not to chase immortality, but to use the best available science to live better now, prepare intelligently for what is coming next, and ultimately gain more of life’s most precious resource: healthy, meaningful time.
Topics
Jamie's fabulous presentation on genetic engineering – past, present and future -- was at once thought provoking, inspiring, frightening and enlightening. It was simply the best presentation I ever have heard in all my 71 years. I look forward to the publication of Hacking Darwin and can't wait to get my hands on it.
David Parker - Board Member, Brown University Hillel
“A page-turning journey through space and time that shows us how our lives will be changed by imminent technological advances we once only dreamed of.”
David Sinclair, Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, and author of Lifespan: Why We Age―and Why We Don't Have To
“San Jose State thinks a great deal these days about how to approach healthcare studies with our students, how that interacts with technology and the humanities, and the complexity of programs we need to create that will allow us to think differently about our place in an ever changing world, as well as how we can have a positive impact. At our event, Jamie was exceptionally engaged with the students, and in both sessions before the lecture, everyone one came up with him afterwards to talk further with him. He offered thoughtful insights into these issues in an engaging, entertaining way that I know is going to generate a great deal of discussion and debate among our students and staff. He reminded us that the future is already here and we should engage with it actively and in the spirit of our values”
Dr. Mary A. Papazian, President, San Jose State University
I was fortunate to host Jamie for both a small group dinner with several high value clients and then have Jamie present for 30 minutes followed by a 45 minute fireside discussion at our firm's annual Macro Conference with over 250 attendees. I can say Jamie's depth and breadth of knowledge about biology, history, genomics., AI/technology, biotechnology, agriculture, and food is astounding with instant recall. Additionally, his time spent with our government and other major global organizations provided him with broad and excellent real world know-how not just theory in how we can leverage these technologies and end goals to improve the US and world at large. Jamie engaged the small group at dinner who were also fascinated with how he leveraged AI to help draft his science fiction novel. We also covered a lot of ground on man+machine vs. man against machine and how we can leverage our best skills with targeted roles and goals for AI to improve and expedite the process. So we won't be replaced by machines. At our conference with our larger group Jamie walked through the history and natural 'genomics' process and how AI and biotechnology can accelerate that to move us from general healthcare to predictive medicine was fascinating. We covered his role in the Covid lab leak vs. wet market and how we can leverage mRNA technology for so many health issues along with CRISPR and cell genomics. But, aside from Jamie being a great speaker and storyteller to engage the audience, he is also a wonderful person and a pleasure to spend time with in discussion about anything frankly. In preparation for our event I read Superconvergence and am now about to tackle Hacking Darwin, his earlier book. I hope that our paths will cross again in the near future.
Investment Banking Client
“Provocative, challenging, wonderful, exciting and a bit scary are just a sampling of the reactions from the nearly 1500 attendees at Jamie Metzl's talks we hosted in advance of the debut of his book Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity. Jamie's fast pace and vast knowledge kept audiences of all ages and persuasions locked on.”
John Carney, CEO, Center for Practical Bioethics
We invited Jamie to give a keynote address to 500 doctors at a major medical convention. His brilliant talk simply blew people's minds and made them think differently about where medicine is heading and what that means for all of us. With tremendous thoughtfulness, energy, creativity, and skill, Jamie helped participants imagine how they might ride the wave of exponential change toward greater success rather than be crushed by it. The positive response was overwhelming. Jamie is a superstar.
Joshua Abram, Co-Founder and CEO, TMRW Life Sciences
- "If you can only read one book on the future of our species, this is it." - Sanjay Gupta - "a must-read book." - Siddhartha Mukherjee - "an outstanding guide to the most important conversation of our lives." - Ray Kurzweil - "an intellectual masterbatortium-at once stimulating and consummately satisfying." - Dan Buettner - "important and thought-provoking." - George Church - "a critical journey through opportunities and obstacles on humanity's greatest expedition: the exploration and re-imagining of what it means to be human." – Mayor Eric Garcetti - "essential reading if you want to understand what will be seen as the most important thing happening in this epoch." - Richard A. Clarke
Praise for Jamie's book Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity
“During the 25 years I have known Jamie Metzl, he has always been ahead of the curve. There is no one better to help us understand and prepare for the fast approaching technological revolutions. Superconvergence is brilliant. I can't recommend it more strongly.”
Sanjay Gupta MD, bestseller author, neurosurgeon, and Emmy-award winning chief medical correspondent (CNN)
“In Superconvergence, Jamie Metzl takes readers on a magical journey through the science of the intersecting genetics, biotech, and AI revolutions, deeply explores the implications, and challenges us to think creatively and proactively about what comes next. Very few books are absolute must-reads. This is one.”
Siddhartha Mukherjee, assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and author of The Gene: An Intimate History
“Jamie was the closing keynote at our global CEO conference. He had an uncanny way tying together all of the themes from the previous sessions, into a masterful and thought provoking closing. No canned script, no death by PowerPoint, but an engaging, entertaining and intelligent talk worthy of our audience. Jamie's keynote had the energy and enthusiasm of a rock star, and left our audience wanting more. I would most certainly book Jamie again for another YPO event!”
Stephen Forte, President, Silicon Valley YPO
Jamie Metzl is one of America's foremost experts on China. His captivating presentation at the Vail Symposium provided the story behind the headlines and walked deftly the audience through the amazing complexity of China's economic transition. The mark of a truly great speaker is being able to present a complicated topic in a way the audience can understand and absorb. Jamie's brilliant talk explained the difficult choices China's leaders face as they struggle to move their economy to a new development phase and maintain growth in extremely challenging circumstances. It's hard to imagine a better or more engaging speaker on China's economy, politics, and geopolitics than Jamie Metzl.
Attendee, Vail Symposium
Jamie is a fantastic authority and resource on all things related to China. I hired Jamie as a panelist and keynote speaker in 2016 after hearing Jamie speak at an Atlantic Council event. He was extremely knowledgeable, flexible and a pleasure to work with on our event programming. I was particularly impressed by Jamie's presence and command of the topics and his ability to engage with the engage the audience in a meaningful way. Throughout our preparation, Jamie was always accessible and provided constructive ways to improve our program. Jamie is at the top of my list for my speaking engagements needs.
Terrence J. Richardson, Head of Corporate & Investment Bank Marketing, HSBC Bank
Dr. Jamie Metzl spoke to a captivated audience about a fascinating and complicated subject. Bio-engineering and its impact upon the future of mankind was the topic Dr. Metzl aptly articulated in an enthralling yet relatable style. From the start, he built a genuine rapport with the audience as he communicated so that each person understood as clearly as possible the subject matter. Jamie’s presentation was amazingly fluid and perfectly paced as he spoke effortlessly without notes or prompts. “Jamie is the best speaker we’ve ever had.” “This event was a home run because of Jamie Metzl!” “Jamie is engaging and smoothly breaks it down.” These are just a few samples of the positive comments received from the audience after the presentation. Our community is excited about Jamie’s return for an encore!
Trudy Jacobson, Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City
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