People Shaping the Convergence#

This book synthesizes insights from a diverse ecosystem of thinkers, researchers, and practitioners working at the intersection of AI infrastructure, regenerative systems, and planetary boundaries.

The convergence of artificial intelligence, material ecology, and systemic resilience requires cross-disciplinary collaboration. The individuals listed here represent multiple domains—computer science, biology, architecture, economics, policy, and systems thinking—whose work informs the analysis and recommendations in this book.

These thinkers provided the foundational framework for understanding distributed, regenerative alternatives to centralized systems:

Daniel Wahl – Author of Designing Regenerative Cultures; whole-systems design thinker focusing on planetary health and bioregional resilience.

Daniel Schmachtenberger – Philosopher and systems theorist focused on civilization-scale coordination failures, meta-crisis analysis, and existential risk mitigation.

Thomas Schindler – Regenerative economist and bioregional resilience expert; co-founder with Malte Wagenbach of Heliogenesis, a project focused on regenerative systems design.

Jim Rutt – Systems scientist and host of The Jim Rutt Show; prominent figure in the Game B movement exploring post-competitive coordination mechanisms and alternative governance models.

Oslo Project – Research initiative on urban metabolism and circular resource flows, demonstrating practical applications of regenerative systems thinking at city scale.

AI Infrastructure & Foundation Models#

These leaders are building and governing the large-scale AI infrastructure that defines the current trajectory—and whose decisions determine whether we hit the 2027 lock-in point:

Demis Hassabis – CEO, DeepMind (Google DeepMind); leads frontier model development and long-term AI directions in science and infrastructure.

Dario Amodei – CEO, Anthropic; focuses on scalable AI infrastructure, safety-aligned frontier models, and deployment constraints.

Sam Altman – CEO, OpenAI; drives large-scale compute, global infrastructure, and policy for general-purpose models.

Jensen Huang – CEO, NVIDIA; central to the global GPU and data-center hardware stack underpinning all large-scale AI.

Andrew Ng – Founder, Landing AI & DeepLearning.AI; works on practical MLOps and industrial AI deployment.

Fei-Fei Li – Co-Director, Stanford HAI; pushes for human-centered AI infrastructure across sectors.

Daphne Koller – Founder, insitro; builds large-scale AI + wet-lab infrastructure for drug discovery.

Mustafa Suleyman – Co-founder DeepMind, CEO of Microsoft AI (Inflection co-founder); focuses on productized frontier AI and infrastructure at scale.

Ilya Sutskever – Co-founder, former Chief Scientist at OpenAI; architect of large-scale model training paradigms.

Greg Brockman – Co-founder and President, OpenAI; technical infrastructure leader for frontier model development.

Complex Systems, Planetary Risk & AI#

These researchers connect AI trajectories to biophysical constraints, planetary boundaries, and systemic collapse risks:

Nate Hagens – Systems thinker on energy, finance, and complexity; host of The Great Simplification podcast connecting AI growth trajectories to ecological and social constraints.

Johan Rockström – Co-director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research; pioneer of planetary boundaries framework, increasingly referencing AI in global risk governance.

Kate Raworth – Creator of Doughnut Economics; influential in framing how digital/AI infrastructure must fit within ecological ceilings and social foundations.

Timnit Gebru – Founder, DAIR (Distributed AI Research Institute); works at the intersection of AI systems, data, energy, labor, and societal harms.

Yoshua Bengio – Mila founder, Turing Award winner; heavily involved in AI alignment, risk, and governance with attention to global impacts.

Max Tegmark – Physicist, co-founder of Future of Life Institute; focuses on existential and systemic AI risks aligned with climate and other X-risks.

Dan Hendrycks – Director, Center for AI Safety; works on evaluating frontier systems and their broader catastrophic risk profiles.

Andrew Critch – UC Berkeley researcher (CHAI-adjacent); emphasizes multi-agent AI, institutions, and systemic risk.

Luke Kemp – Researcher at Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, Cambridge; studies global risk cascades, including AI as a risk multiplier.

Allison Duettmann – Foresight Institute; convenes technical communities on AI safety, nanotech, and long-term infrastructure futures.

Stuart Russell – Computer scientist, AI safety thought leader, UC Berkeley professor; author of Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control.

Geoffrey Hinton – AI pioneer, deep learning expert, 2024 Nobel laureate in Physics; now advocates for responsible AI development and warns of existential risks.

Kate Crawford – Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research; interdisciplinary AI ethics scholar, author of Atlas of AI.

Daniel Kahneman – Nobel laureate in Economics; work on cognitive bias, risk perception, and decision-making informs AI-human interface design.

Helen Toner – Director of Strategy, Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET); AI policy specialist focusing on national security implications.

Ted Parson – Environmental law and policy expert at UCLA; works on climate risk, geoengineering governance, and systemic risk management.

Material Ecology, Bio-Fabrication & Computational Design#

These innovators are creating regenerative alternatives to extractive material systems—combining biology, computation, and distributed manufacturing:

Neri Oxman – Originator of “material ecology” concept; pioneered computational design uniting fabrication, biology, and architecture (former MIT Media Lab).

Janine Benyus – Biologist, author of Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature; founder of Biomimicry Institute connecting design, computation, and nature-derived solutions.

Rachel Armstrong – Professor of Experimental Architecture; innovator in “living architecture” and self-healing materials informed by complex systems.

Skylar Tibbits – Founder of MIT Self-Assembly Lab; investigates programmable/active materials, 4D printing, and self-organizing structures.

David Benjamin – Architect, founder of The Living (Autodesk); explores biodesign and mycelium-based structures merging generative algorithms with bio-materials.

Tomás Saraceno – Artist/architect creating living, interactive ecosystems; uses sensing, computation, and data-driven environments in large-scale installations.

Orkan Telhan – Designer and entrepreneur in living technologies, biomanufacturing, and computational design workflows.

Maria Aiolova – Co-founder of Terreform ONE; focuses on ecological urban planning, biodesign, and bio-based infrastructure with data/tech integration.

Markus Kayser – Designer merging solar and additive manufacturing with natural processes; explores material transformation through environmental energy sources.

Anna Lindemann – Bioartist blending biology and digital fabrication in art and design; explores living systems as design materials.

William Myers – Author and curator specializing in biodesign; expert on the emerging intersection of biology, design, and technology.

Why This Matters#

The convergence this book describes—AI infrastructure hitting biophysical limits while regenerative alternatives prove economically superior—requires voices from all these domains:

  • AI builders understand the technical constraints and deployment trajectories
  • Systems thinkers map the cascading risks and feedback loops
  • Material ecologists demonstrate nature-compatible alternatives at scale
  • Policy experts navigate the 2-3 year implementation timelines

No single discipline has the complete picture. The solution space exists at the intersection.

The individuals listed here are not just researchers—they are architects of the infrastructure choices that will determine whether we build for resilience or lock in fragility before 2027.

For Further Exploration#

Podcasts & Long-Form Conversations:

  • The Great Simplification (Nate Hagens)
  • The Jim Rutt Show (Jim Rutt)
  • Future of Life Institute Podcast
  • MA Earth Podcast

Research Institutions:

Key Works Referenced:

  • Daniel Wahl, Designing Regenerative Cultures
  • Janine Benyus, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature
  • Kate Crawford, Atlas of AI
  • Stuart Russell, Human Compatible
  • Kate Raworth, Doughnut Economics

Note: This list is not exhaustive but represents a cross-section of leaders whose work directly informs the analysis, data, and recommendations in AI Inflection: The Sovereign Exit. For a complete bibliography and sources, see individual chapter reference sections.

Backward Action Guide: Building Sovereign Exit Now Foreword Forward
The Gator - Hidden Energy Demand

The Gator: The hidden, exponentially growing energy demand lurking beneath civilizational complexity