The idea for this book began over dinner with Jacob Bock Axelsen, who was Deloitte’s CTO at the time.
Jacob is an expert in mathematical modelling, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, with degrees in mathematics and economics, biophysics, and a PhD in physics. In other words, a useful dinner companion if the conversation happens to drift towards the workings of the universe.
Ours did. We began discussing how intelligence had emerged in the cosmos, how complexity develops, and where it might all be heading. The following week, Jacob wrote to suggest that we turn the conversation into a book called The Cosmic Evolution of Genius. I still like that title. Eventually, however, we settled on Hyperintelligence and teamed up with Daniel Käfer, an experienced international business executive and AI expert.
The book explores an extraordinary story: how a universe that began without thoughts or thinkers gave rise to matter, life, intelligence—and eventually machines capable of learning and contributing to their own improvement.
We follow this evolution across 13.8 billion years, through four stages: the cosmosphere, biosphere, technosphere and what we call the unisphere. Along the way, we explore three recurring forces—complexity cascades, critical density and creative pulse—that help explain how the universe developed from its simplest beginnings into a world capable of producing biological and, eventually, machine intelligence.
Understanding these forces places AI within the much longer story of cosmic, biological and technological evolution. It also gives us a way to explore its next chapter. In the book’s final part, we venture into a future of accelerating discovery and potentially astonishing consequences for science, society and everyday life. The result is an expansive and optimistic exploration of how intelligence emerges, how it accelerates—and what it might eventually make possible.
For me, two experiences made this project particularly meaningful. The first was coming to understand, more clearly than ever before, the extraordinary story of which we humans are a part. That perspective changed the way I see the world and our place within it.
The second was travelling through China on a roadshow for the book and meeting so many people who were deeply passionate about understanding the origins and possible destiny of intelligence. A conversation that began over dinner had become a conversation across cultures.
Covers and other Editions
Hyperintelligence: How the Universe Engineers Its Own Mind is published in English by Wiley, in Chinese by CITIC Press, and in Danish by Gyldendal, under the title En vild historie, du endnu ikke har hørt.
