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Roger Spitz | Futurist & Techistentialist

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Roger Spitz | Futurist & Techistentialist

Much of the fear around artificial intelligence is that machines will become smarter than we are. Roger Spitz argues that’s the wrong fear entirely — the real danger isn’t AI outthinking us, it’s us opting out of thinking at all. Spitz has spent his career watching institutions bet on frontier technology, first leading over $25 billion in tech M&A at BNP Paribas, then advising CEOs, governments, and investors on disruption. From that vantage point, he’s tracked a pattern: As decisions get outsourced to algorithms, human judgment doesn’t get replaced so much as it atrophies from disuse. Spitz calls this Techistentialism — and the real question isn’t what AI will become. It’s whether, as we increasingly let machines think and act for us, we’ll still have the agency to decide for ourselves. Back to TEDxJacksonville 2027
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Roger Spitz

Roger Spitz is a bestselling author and authority on strategic foresight, systemic disruption, and artificial intelligence. Ranked #15 among the World’s Top Futurists by Global Gurus in 2026 and named a Global Top Voice in AI and Leadership by Thinkers360, he advises CEOs, boards, and investors on navigating uncertainty, anticipating disruption, and creating sustainable value.

Spitz is President of Techistential and Chair of the Disruptive Futures Institute in San Francisco, a futures intelligence think tank. He coined the term Techistentialism and founded the Techistential Center for Human & Artificial Intelligence, exploring human agency and decision-making in an age of intelligent machines. He contributes an AI column to MIT Technology Review Brasil and serves on the AI Council of the Indian Society for Artificial Intelligence and the World Economic Forum’s AI Global Alliance. Previously, Spitz led Global Technology M&A at BNP Paribas, advising on more than 50 transactions valued at $25 billion. He has lived in ten cities across three continents.

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