Episode 2195: Toby Walsh on why AI is finally ready to change everything

The AI revolution, long in hype but short in practice, is finally beginning to happen. In today’s WSJ, the tech writer Joanna Stern introduces her own Joannabot to review the new iPhone 16. Soon, of course, we will increasingly struggle to distinguished between the real Joanna and her Joannabot. And the same will also be true for yours truly on KEEN ON who will, in the not too distant future, be easily replicated (ie: replaced) by an Andrewbot. That, at least, is the view of Toby Walsh, one of the world’s most respected AI experts and authors. As Walsh explained to me (the real AK), he’s been playing around with Google’s new NotebookLM, a break-through product which, he says, amazed him as much as his reaction to GPT3. Toby is right. NotebookLM is an astonishingly good product which, in the not too distant future, will make most podcasters like myself redundant. My only consolation is that my wife works for Google. And she, I’m proud to say, is impossible to replicate.

Toby Walsh is Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of New South Wales in Sydney and CSIRO’s Data61. He is the winner of the prestigious Celestino Eureka Prize for Promoting Understanding of Science and was named on the international “Who’s Who in AI” list of influencers. He appears regularly on TV and radio, has been profiled by the New York Times and has authored four books on AI for a general audience, the most recent ones entitled “Machines Behaving Badly” and “Faking It: Artificial Intelligence in a Human World” (Fall 2023). He is a Fellow of the Australia Academy of Science and was named by the newspaper The Australian as one of the “rock stars” of Australia’s digital revolution. He has won both the Humboldt Prize and the NSW Premier’s Prize for Excellence in Engineering and ICT. His Twitter account was voted in the top ten to follow to keep abreast of developments in AI.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

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