Juan Benet (Filecoin, Protocol Labs): Neurotech, Thinking in Decades, Crypto, Knowledge Systems — Luba Show

Juan Benet, founder of Protocol Labs, discusses his lifelong obsession with knowledge systems, the evolution of his career from crypto to large-scale R&D, and his vision for humanity’s technological future.
- As a child, he read encyclopedias for fun and was fascinated by the sheer volume of human knowledge. The internet both excited and overwhelmed him because it made clear that no individual could ever read everything.
- He reframes the Bacon quote “knowledge is power” as “knowledge is capability” — knowing something literally expands what you can do, from swimming to building technology.
- He traces three major knowledge systems in Earth’s history:
  - Genetic knowledge system: DNA encoding information about the environment, refined through evolutionary selection pressure over millions of years.
  - Neural knowledge system: Neurons processing information as electrical signals, enabling learning by observation, social interaction, and eventually language and writing — knowledge that can be transferred between individuals.
  - Digital knowledge system: Computers and the internet encoding representations of reality, enabling asynchronous transfer of knowledge at scale; still early in development.
- He became interested in how to systematically represent what humanity actually knows — not just information, but verified knowledge with evidence behind it — and how to accelerate the scientific process and the translation of knowledge into concrete capabilities.
- He was inspired by Bell Labs as a model for large-scale R&D, but concluded that the single-company approach no longer works as well as it once did. Instead, he pivoted Protocol Labs toward becoming an innovation network — partnering with many founding teams across many fields, similar to how YC operates but with more capital deployment at earlier stages and more connective tissue between organizations.
- Protocol Labs currently has four focus areas:
  - Web3 and digital human rights: Secure communications, publishing, and transaction systems (IPFS, Filecoin, Ethereum, Bluesky).
  - Upgrading economies and governance: Using crypto mechanism design to build new economic primitives (stablecoins, DeFi, network states, digital economic zones).
  - AI and robotics: Viewing AI as potentially the most important technology humanity will ever build, creating a “third knowledge system” and possibly a new form of intelligence.
  - Neurotech: Brain-computer interfaces and digitizing neural tissue, with the connectome of a fly already mapped and a mouse connectome expected within 3–5 years.
- He makes three cases for neurotech:
  - Medical repair: Restoring senses (hearing via cochlear implants, vision via retinal implants like Prima from Science Corp) or mobility for people with injuries or diseases.
  - Enhancing human experience: Expanding the range of senses (infrared vision, tetrachromatic color perception, broader hearing range), enabling new forms of art, and eventually allowing direct brain-to-brain communication of thoughts, memories, and shared imaginings.
  - Co-evolution with AI: Using neurotech to upload or digitize human minds so humanity can participate in digital evolution alongside AI, potentially avoiding conflict between biological humans and superintelligent digital beings by merging with them.
- On consciousness, he views it as an emerging phenomenon arising from the information processing required to make decisions in complex social and physical environments — involving recursive self-awareness. If that information system is replicated digitally, it would also be conscious.
- He argues uploaded humans might be more ethically grounded than purely artificial systems because humans already have deep cultural tendencies toward compassion and moral judgment, whereas the intrinsic motivations of AI systems remain uncertain.
- Predictions for 2036 (10–15 years out):
  - Full AGI and possibly superintelligence with recursive self-improvement.
  - Tens to hundreds of millions of humanoid robots.
  - Massively scaled solar energy, greatly reducing CO2 emissions.
  - Hundreds of thousands to millions of people with BCIs for medical repair; consumer enhancement use cases beginning.
  - Digital societies of connected AI agents.
  - A mouse or possibly dog connectome running in a virtual environment.
  - Early stages of economic restructuring to decouple capital from labor.
- Predictions for 2076 (50 years out):
  - Millions or billions of uploaded/digital beings.
  - Energy abundance via solar and/or nuclear.
  - Robotic automation of most production.
  - Resolution of major geopolitical tensions (US-China).
  - New forms of art enabled by expanded senses and technology.
  - Scientific understanding of consciousness.
  - Hopefully better ethical frameworks and reduced harm to other species.
- On morality, he argues that scientific understanding of ourselves and other species can ground objective moral claims — we should minimize suffering and be good stewards of the planet, even as we pursue technological progress. He distinguishes between factory farming (enormous suffering) and higher-quality livestock practices, and between plants and animals with different nervous systems having very different needs for well-being.
- He notes that trust in scientific authority has eroded since the mid-20th century, but the internet is paradoxically both spreading misinformation and enabling millions of people to develop deeper discernment and understanding than ever before.
- Personal joy: recently married, enjoys weightlifting, sauna and cold plunge culture, reading sci-fi, and conversations with interesting people.

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