Eureka in Silicon Valley! Richard Socher on Why AI Will Unlock a New Scientific Renaissance

Andrew Keen (0:00)

Hello, my name is Andrew Keen. Welcome to Keen On America, the daily interview show about the United States.

Hello, everybody, it's Wednesday, the 23rd of September, 2026 History is certainly moving very quickly these days, especially when it comes to technology. Little more than 18 months ago, I had a technologist called Richard Socher on the show. Back then, he was the CEO of u.com. We got together at the DLD conference in Munich, which I always go to, and it was nice to see Richard. He's also a regular. Since then, over the last 18 months, Richard has been remarkably busy, not only as the CEO of u.com, but also the founder, I think, and CEO, or certainly a co-founder in Recursive, which is a very interesting new company that terrifies AI doomsayers. It is a company that's focused, I think, on the idea of technology replicating itself. And he's also the author of a book that just came out yesterday, The Eureka Machine. Why AI is the key to unlocking a new era of scientific discoveries. Richard is talking to me from San Francisco, just down the road on Telegraph Hill. Richard, what have you been doing over the last 18 months? Have you had any sleep at all? I don't quite understand how you could be doing all these things.

Richard Socher (1:58)

Well, it's helpful to work like 80 to 100 hours a week and have incredible people surrounding you, so it helps.

Andrew Keen (2:09)

You're not tired? You don't fancy in that?

Richard Socher (2:13)

I do get tired sometimes. I try to be better about my sleep and still get like seven hours or so at least, but it doesn't always work.

Andrew Keen (2:21)

I want to come to the book in a second, and I'm intrigued why such a busy guy like you would be writing a book. But let's talk a little bit about Recursive, because since we last talked when we met in Munich, you were doing u.com, which was a hot company. Now you're CEO not just of u.com, but of this new Recursive company. Tell me about it and what you're trying to do there.

Richard Socher (2:47)

So at Recursive, we want to build Recursive self-improving superintelligence that automates knowledge discovery, essentially automates the scientific method. And we believe that that's something that most people can be quite excited about. And it's essentially a first step towards building this Eureka machine. I talk about in the book too, that will lead to a new scientific renaissance. And it's less about automating jobs. And it's more about creating new knowledge for humanity. And in the book, I talk about all the different fields from physics, chemistry, biology, neuroscience, medicine, economics, and astrophysics.

In the company, we first will start with the science of AI.

That's hence the sort of recursive aspect of it. AI working on AI itself. But eventually, our goals are to then really expand the aperture and scope and really apply it to all kinds of other sciences.

Andrew Keen (3:46)

Couldn't you be a bit more ambitious, Richard?

Richard Socher (3:50)

You know, I think now is the time. Now is the time to truly build exciting big things. Actually, I love some of the ambitions that people come back to. That we used to have, like humanity in the 50s, 60s, 70s. They're like people who thought we'll have abundant energy of nuclear.

And then there's so much fear on nuclear. We started doing coal, gas and oil instead. And arguably, about 50,000 people now every year die from coal and lung cancer. It's not as like catchy and doesn't make as good of a movie as Chernobyl. But Chernobyl didn't kill as many people.

And neither did Fukushima as coal does every year. So I think sometimes these scares when you have a really exciting new wave of technologies, can be really counterproductive and set humanity back.

Andrew Keen (4:44)

Yeah. And I want to come to all the fears, all the massive sense that we're on the verge, not just of a great new scientific age, but of an extinction event. You're on the other side of the debate.

We've talked in the past, in the last couple of weeks actually on the show, comparing what's happening now with AI, with nuclear technology and Fukushima, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. So we'll come back to that. But let's get to the book. You talk in the book about a century of breakthroughs compressed into a decade. What kind of breakthroughs are these? And what decade are you talking about?

Richard Socher (5:28)

Yeah, I think the era we're entering now, history doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes. I think the era of AI will rhyme with a mix of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.