The Munk Debates Podcast

Friday Focus provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. The following is a sample of the Munk Debates’ weekly current affairs podcast, Friday Focus.   On this week’s edition of the Friday Focus podcast, Janice and Rudyard start the show with a discussion of the riots in France and what they say about the state of Europe as it heads into a key NATO meeting next week. How racially divided is France and other major European states? How do domestic divisions play into Europe’s ability to sustain Ukraine in its fight with Russia? The second half of the program explores the growing battle between Big Tech and the Government of Canada, who wants to see the former subsidize news and journalism in Canada through new legislation. Can Canada go on its own in its fight against two of the world’s most powerful companies? What is at stake for our democracy when the distribution of news is increasingly dependent on large technology platforms? This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.

On June 22nd we gathered at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall for a live, sold out debate on Artificial Intelligence. We were joined on stage by four AI experts and pioneers to debate the resolution Be it Resolved, AI research and development poses an existential threat. MIT’s Max Tegmark and Mila’s Yoshua Bengion argued in favour of the resolution, while Meta’s Yann Lecun and the Santa Fe Institute's Melanie Mitchelll argued against it. In this episode of the Munk Dialogues, we bring you the pre-interviews our host Rudyard Griffiths conducted with each debater prior to the debate. How did they intend to argue their case? What made them want to take part in this event? And what is it about AI that has them most worried, or alternatively, most excited?   The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths - @rudyardg.   Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/ To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to podcast@munkdebates.com.   To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, newsletter and ticketing privileges at our live events. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/ Senior Producer: Ricki Gurwitz Editor: Kieran Lynch

Friday Focus provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. The following is a sample of the Munk Debates’ weekly current affairs podcast, Friday Focus.   On this week’s edition of the Friday Focus podcast, Janice and Rudyard start the show with a recap of the last week of events in Russia. What exactly happened? How will Putin respond to the biggest domestic crisis in his twenty-year-plus rule? And what should Ukraine and its Western allies take away from it all? On the back half of the show, exclusively for Munk donors, the conversation turns to the U.S. Supreme Court decision on ending affirmative action policies based on race at American universities. What are the implications of the ruling? Is there a better way for universities to select for the vast human potential in society today and not on the basis of race, class or test score performance? Janice's Article in the Texas National Security Review: https://tnsr.org/2023/06/escalation-management-in-ukraine-learning-by-doing-in-response-to-the-threat-that-leaves-something-to-chance/ Rudyard's Article in The Hub: https://thehub.ca/2023-06-26/rudyard-griffiths-what-did-we-learn-from-russias-borat-coup/ This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.

With the debut of ChatGPT, the AI once promised in some distant future seems to have suddenly arrived with the potential to reshape our working lives, culture, politics and society. For proponents of AI, we are entering a period of unprecedented technological change that will boost productivity, unleash human creativity and empower billions in ways we have only begun to fathom. Others think we should be very concerned about the rapid and unregulated development of machine intelligence. For their detractors, AI applications like ChatGPT herald a brave new world of deep fakes and mass propaganda that could dwarf anything our democracies have experienced to date. Immense economic and political power may also concentrate around the corporations who control these technologies and their treasure troves of data. Finally, there is an existential concern that we could, in some not-so-distant future, lose control of powerful AIs who, in turn, pursue goals that are antithetical to humanity’s interests and our survival as a species. Arguing for the motion is Yoshua Bengio, one of the leading worldwide experts on AI whose pioneering work in deep learning earned him the 2018 Turing Award, often referred to as “the Nobel Prize of Computing. Yoshua’s debate partner is Max Tegmark, an internationally renowned cosmologist, global leader in machine learning research, and a professor at the M.I.T.  Arguing against the motion is Yann Lecun. Yann is an acclaimed computer scientist of mobile robotics and computational neuroscience, the Silver Professor of the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at N.Y.U. and Vice-President, Chief AI Scientist at Meta. His debate partner is Melanie Mitchell, a bestselling author and world-leading expert in the various fields of artificial intelligence and cognitive science at the Santa Fe Institute.   The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths - @rudyardg.   Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/ To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to podcast@munkdebates.com.   To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, newsletter and ticketing privileges at our live events. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/ Senior Producer: Ricki Gurwitz Editor: Kieran Lynch  

Friday Focus provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. The following is a sample of the Munk Debates’ weekly current affairs podcast, Friday Focus.   On this week’s edition of the Friday Focus podcast, Janice and Rudyard start the show with a recap of last night’s mainstage Munk Debate on Artificial Intelligence. What did we learn from the debate? And, which arguments, “pro” and “con” on AI being an existential threat, had the biggest impact on the course of the debate and the audience? On the back half of the show, exclusively for Munk donors, the conversation turns to this week’s disaster at the Titanic that saw a catastrophic failure of an experimental, private submarine and the deaths of five people. What does this accident say about today’s culture of innovation, risk-taking and regulation? And how should governments respond, at great public cost, to the failures of for-profit risk-takers? This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.

Some experts believe that over 300 million jobs worldwide will be automated by AI, with white collar professions in advanced economies being most affected by AI bots like ChatGPT. Radiologists, lawyers, coders, you name it - if you sit at a computer for work, you can expect to have some of your tasks completed by artificial intelligence. To get a closer look at just exactly how AI will transform the labour market, we’re talking to James Bessen. James is the Executive Director of the Technology & Policy Research Initiative at Boston University, and an expert on how automation affects the workplace. We want to ask him: will robots steal our jobs?   The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths - @rudyardg.   Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/ To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to podcast@munkdebates.com.   To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, newsletter and ticketing privileges at our live events. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/ Senior Producer: Ricki Gurwitz Editor: Kieran Lynch  

Friday Focus provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. The following is a sample of the Munk Debates’ weekly current affairs podcast, Friday Focus.   On this week’s edition of the Friday Focus podcast, Janice and Rudyard start the show with a discussion of what Henry Kissinger thinks about the world as he marks his 100th birthday. Are Kissinger’s warnings about the risks of war between China and the U.S. over Taiwan credible? And, is there still an agreement on his pioneering “One China Policy” as a means to manage growing tensions over Taiwan? On the back half of the show, exclusively for Munk donors, the conversation turns to next week’s Munk Debate on AI. What are the issues that Rudyard and Janice expect to see explored at the debate? How existential is the risk of AI and, more importantly, how should humankind be thinking about existential threats more generally in an age of machine intelligence? This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.

Over the past few months we’ve heard many warnings about the dangers of Artificial Intelligence. But are there some positive aspects about this emerging technology that are being overlooked? On this episode, we’re joined by internationally renowned security technologist Bruce Schneier who argues that dangers associated with Artificial Intelligence are being overblown, and that chatbots like ChatGPT could actually strengthen democracy and restore trust in our governing institutions.   The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths - @rudyardg.   Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/ To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to podcast@munkdebates.com.   To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, newsletter and ticketing privileges at our live events. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/ Senior Producer: Ricki Gurwitz Editor: Kieran Lynch

Friday Focus provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. The following is a sample of the Munk Debates’ weekly current affairs podcast, Friday Focus.   On this week’s edition of the Friday Focus podcast, Janice and Rudyard start the show with a discussion of the wildfires choking the North East of the continent with smoke and dangerous levels of air pollution. Is this a sneak peek into what awaits North America in a world of runaway climate change? How do we respond to the climate threat when humanity is being pressed with crises right and left, from pandemics to inflation to AI to the largest land war in Europe since WWII? On the back half of the show, exclusively for Munk donors, the conversation focuses on the Ukraine offensive, which started in earnest this week. What can we discern from its opening flints and forays? How is Russia likely to respond? When will we start to see the outlines of how this war will end, and is the likely endgame a frozen conflict or a more meaningful and lasting peace? This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.

It’s a debate as old as time: when it comes to a household pet, which four legged furball makes the best companion? On one side, we have the independent, low maintenance feline, she who is quiet and clean. The cat isn’t needy; she gives her humans personal space and can walk herself, thank you very much. Unlike the too-eager dog, winning a cat’s affection takes time, patience, and trust. It’s a hard-fought battle which makes its victory that much more special. On the other side, we have man’s best friend. The ultimate companion, the dog is happy, affectionate and attentive. He protects the house and defends his humans. And, perhaps most importantly, he’s always up for a snuggle. Research shows dogs are better for your health: dog owners are less lonely, have fewer mental health issues, and get more exercise. When searching for a pet companion, dog enthusiasts claim, canines beat out cats in every category that counts.  Arguing for the motion is Aaron Hancox. He’s a filmmaker who has produced three documentaries about cats including the award-winning film Catwalk: Tales From the Cat Show Circuit Arguing against the motion is Alexandra Horowitz. She’s a professor of canine cognition at Barnard College and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know   The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths - @rudyardg.   Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/ To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to podcast@munkdebates.com.   To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, newsletter and ticketing privileges at our live events.This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/ Senior Producer: Ricki Gurwitz Editor: Kieran Lynch