Tech, Innovation & Society - The Creative Process: Technology, AI, Software, Future, Economy, Science, Engineering & Robotics Interviews

"One of the things we have to do is we have to increase the rate of learning. We are entering into increasingly uncharted territory and not just in terms of climate change, but in many other areas of activity, AI being one of those, of course. And I think what we need to do is we need to find ways to learn more quickly, as a society, as communities, as villagers, as professional groups. And there are advantages of using some of those technologies in terms of accelerating that learning.We need to be discerning about the technologies we use, and we need to think about the relationships between those technology and social outcomes, environmental outcomes, how to redesign our systems, and how to redesign our governance. So I think there's going to be a need for a lot more thought and creativity in the future."Our window to adapt to a warming world is narrowing quickly. What it will take to avert the climate crises? Mark Howden is Director of the Climate Change Institute at The Australian National University and a Vice Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and a member of the Australian National Climate Science Advisory Committee. He has been a major contributor to the IPCC since 1991, with roles in the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and now Sixth Assessment Reports, sharing the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with other IPCC participants and Al Gore. He was on the US Federal Advisory Committee for the 3rd National Climate Assessment and contributes to several major national and international science and policy advisory bodies. Mark has worked on climate variability, climate change, innovation and adoption issues for over 30 years in partnership with many industry, community and policy groups via both research and science-policy roles.https://iceds.anu.edu.au/people/academics/professor-mark-howdenhttps://iceds.anu.edu.au/www.ipcc.chwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Our window to adapt to a warming world is narrowing quickly. What it will take to avert the climate crises? Mark Howden is Director of the Climate Change Institute at The Australian National University and a Vice Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and a member of the Australian National Climate Science Advisory Committee. He has been a major contributor to the IPCC since 1991, with roles in the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and now Sixth Assessment Reports, sharing the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with other IPCC participants and Al Gore. He was on the US Federal Advisory Committee for the 3rd National Climate Assessment and contributes to several major national and international science and policy advisory bodies. Mark has worked on climate variability, climate change, innovation and adoption issues for over 30 years in partnership with many industry, community and policy groups via both research and science-policy roles."One of the things we have to do is we have to increase the rate of learning. We are entering into increasingly uncharted territory and not just in terms of climate change, but in many other areas of activity, AI being one of those, of course. And I think what we need to do is we need to find ways to learn more quickly, as a society, as communities, as villagers, as professional groups. And there are advantages of using some of those technologies in terms of accelerating that learning.We need to be discerning about the technologies we use, and we need to think about the relationships between those technology and social outcomes, environmental outcomes, how to redesign our systems, and how to redesign our governance. So I think there's going to be a need for a lot more thought and creativity in the future."https://iceds.anu.edu.au/people/academics/professor-mark-howdenhttps://iceds.anu.edu.au/www.ipcc.chwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastPhoto credit: Lannon Harley/ANU

Wildfire season is starting earlier and lasting longer due to global warming across the world. What will we do to save the world on fire? How can we cure our addiction to fossil fuels which is verging on pyromania?Simon Dalby is author of Pyromania: Fire and Geopolitics in a Climate-Disrupted World and Professor Emeritus at Wilfrid Laurier University. His other books are Rethinking Environmental Security, Anthropocene Geopolitics: Globalization, Security, Sustainability, and Security and Environmental Change. He’s co-editor of Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, and Reframing Climate Change: Constructing Ecological Geopolitics."It's crucial because of how we design cities so we can live better together. If we are going to be sustainable: less personal car ownership, a lot more public transport, a lot more bicycles or scooters - they dramatically reduce pollution and they allow everybody to breathe easier because there's much less pollution from internal combustion engines actually in cities. All of this suggests that we need to reimagine cities as public spaces that are not dependent on the individual use of cars."https://experts.wlu.ca/simon-dalby-1www.agendapub.com/page/detail/pyromania/?k=9781788216500www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"And what's very interesting is that at the moment there is this mass movement of people to our cities, making them megacities. And so we are actually depopulating the rural areas. So the very strange thing is that the Earth, it's becoming a wilder place. And therefore there are so many opportunities where people are leaving to go to the big cities where we can rewild, we can reforest, and we can bring back nature to actually keep those services that we absolutely rely on.We are so powerful as a planetary species, not individually, but collectively, that we have had that impact, that we have changed the geological destiny of the planet through changing the environment, changing the climate, and changing the evolutionary destiny - because we're already causing lots of extinctions - but also lots of new organisms to be evolving. And we are creating them in labs as well."Can we imagine a world where we leave half the earth to the natural environment and use the other half for ourselves? Can we change history and protect the Indigenous, the vulnerable, and the very poorest in society?Mark Maslin is a Professor of Earth System Science at University College London. Maslin is a leading expert in understanding the anthropocene and how it relates to the major challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. He has written a number of books on the issue of climate change, his most book is How to Save Our Planet: The Facts.www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/people/academic-staff/mark-maslinwww.penguin.co.uk/books/320155/how-to-save-our-planet-by-maslin-mark/9780241472521www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastImage courtesy of Mark Maslin

Can we imagine a world where we leave half the earth to the natural environment and use the other half for ourselves? Can we change history and protect the Indigenous, the vulnerable, and the very poorest in society?Mark Maslin is a Professor of Earth System Science at University College London. Maslin is a leading expert in understanding the anthropocene and how it relates to the major challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. He has written a number of books on the issue of climate change, his most book is How to Save Our Planet: The Facts.www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/people/academic-staff/mark-maslinwww.penguin.co.uk/books/320155/how-to-save-our-planet-by-maslin-mark/9780241472521www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastAll images courtesy of Mark Maslin

“One of our great British artists is Brian Eno, and he spoke a lot about limitations. I had the great joy of having a conversation. We ended up chatting for a couple of hours and he said, 'Oh, I want to show you something. I want to show you my library, and this tool I've created!' His Sonic Library, which is decades of audio material. (I have something similar. I call it an orphanage of sound. These files and folders that will eventually find a home.) But he's created a piece of software using algorithms that will at random pull out sounds and play them. And he can set certain parameters: I want a string sound to be here. And I'd like some bass sounds to come in. And I'd like some drum sounds, but it's just choosing these layers and playing them all at the same time. Again, a bit like the cacophony of birdsong. It's a bit of a mess initially, but then you can edit, and you start to refine. And in those limitations that have come out of this tool - and this is the point I guess I'm trying to make - is that it can be used as a tool to set limits or to burst limits. Or to mix things up. Out of that editing process, you can output something that to your ear sounds good to somebody else's ear."How has music transported you? Where do you find inspiration from the natural world? Where do you find moments of every day magic? Erland Cooper is a Scottish composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist from Stromness, Orkney. He has released three acclaimed studio albums, four additional companion albums, and multiple EPs, including a trilogy of work inspired by his childhood home. His work combines field recordings with traditional orchestration and contemporary electronic elements. Through music words and cinematography, he explores landscape, memory, and identity. Cooper also works across mixed media projects, including installation, art, theater, and film. He is widely known for burying the only existing copy of the master tape of his first classical album in Scotland, deleting all digital files, and leaving only a treasure hunt of clues for fans and his record label alike to search for it. The tape has recently been found.www.erlandcooper.comwww.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

How has music transported you? Where do you find inspiration from the natural world? Where do you find moments of every day magic? Erland Cooper is a Scottish composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist from Stromness, Orkney. He has released three acclaimed studio albums, four additional companion albums, and multiple EPs, including a trilogy of work inspired by his childhood home. His work combines field recordings with traditional orchestration and contemporary electronic elements. Through music words and cinematography, he explores landscape, memory, and identity. Cooper also works across mixed media projects, including installation, art, theater, and film. He is widely known for burying the only existing copy of the master tape of his first classical album in Scotland, deleting all digital files, and leaving only a treasure hunt of clues for fans and his record label alike to search for it. The tape has recently been found.“One of our great British artists is Brian Eno, and he spoke a lot about limitations. I had the great joy of having a conversation. We ended up chatting for a couple of hours and he said, 'Oh, I want to show you something. I want to show you my library, and this tool I've created!' His Sonic Library, which is decades of audio material. (I have something similar. I call it an orphanage of sound. These files and folders that will eventually find a home.) But he's created a piece of software using algorithms that will at random pull out sounds and play them. And he can set certain parameters: I want a string sound to be here. And I'd like some bass sounds to come in. And I'd like some drum sounds, but it's just choosing these layers and playing them all at the same time. Again, a bit like the cacophony of birdsong. It's a bit of a mess initially, but then you can edit, and you start to refine. And in those limitations that have come out of this tool - and this is the point I guess I'm trying to make - is that it can be used as a tool to set limits or to burst limits. Or to mix things up. Out of that editing process, you can output something that to your ear sounds good to somebody else's ear."www.erlandcooper.comwww.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastPhoto by Alex Kozobolis

"About 15 years ago, we still didn't have 3G, 4G, 5G internet, that only started about 15 years ago. And then only 10 years ago we saw the real rise of social media with Facebook giving you a like button and becoming a dominant means of telecommunications. And we show in our work that the spread of 3g, 4G mobile, broadband internet, and social media have also contributed to the rise of populism. Why? Because a populist message travels faster and more broadly and more convincingly on social media simply because of the model of social media. Where the idea of creating the social media space is to make sure that your retention is kept, and of course, attention is more likely to be attracted by critical, negative, and outrageous messages. These are anti-elite messages. These are actually quite often also false messages, but they travel faster on social media. And so social media has also contributed to the rise of populism."What is a spin dictator? What does tyranny look like in the 21st century? Why is populism on the rise? And how do we reinvent democracy?Sergei Guriev is the co-author of Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century. Guriev is Provost and a professor of economics and at Sciences Po in Paris. He is a former Chief Economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, London, and a former Rector of the New Economic School in Moscow in 2004-13.https://sites.google.com/site/sguriev/https://spindictators.com/www.sciencespo.fr/department-economics/en/researcher/sergei-guriev.htmlwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

What is a spin dictator? What does tyranny look like in the 21st century? Why is populism on the rise? And how do we reinvent democracy?Sergei Guriev is the co-author of Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century. Guriev is Provost and a professor of economics and at Sciences Po in Paris. He is a former Chief Economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, London, and a former Rector of the New Economic School in Moscow in 2004-13."About 15 years ago, we still didn't have 3G, 4G, 5G internet, that only started about 15 years ago. And then only 10 years ago we saw the real rise of social media with Facebook giving you a like button and becoming a dominant means of telecommunications. And we show in our work that the spread of 3g, 4G mobile, broadband internet, and social media have also contributed to the rise of populism. Why? Because a populist message travels faster and more broadly and more convincingly on social media simply because of the model of social media. Where the idea of creating the social media space is to make sure that your retention is kept, and of course, attention is more likely to be attracted by critical, negative, and outrageous messages. These are anti-elite messages. These are actually quite often also false messages, but they travel faster on social media. And so social media has also contributed to the rise of populism."https://sites.google.com/site/sguriev/https://spindictators.com/www.sciencespo.fr/department-economics/en/researcher/sergei-guriev.htmlwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"We actually have some new works which have scientific monitoring devices in them. They actually have little sensors in them that monitor temperature and salinity and other factors. And one of the main pieces there is this piece called The Ocean Siren. And it is a young indigenous woman who is standing on the coastline, and she's actually attached to a weather station connected via a satellite link to a weather station out on the Great Barrier Reef. And that feeds data back to her. And then there's a solar array that changes a series of LEDs on her skin. So she changes red and orange color when there are prolonged spikes in temperature that could indicate coral bleaching. And then when the water is cooler, she obviously comes back down to a cooler blue or green color.From the beginning, it's always been one of my major concerns that I don't always like human intervention in natural landscapes. And it was something that I was really conscious of when I first started. So, first and foremost, I made attention to the fact that it needed to be made from materials that didn't pollute in any way, that were sustainable, and that would last for a very long time. It takes reefs hundreds of years to fully get established. So the materials had to live up to that. They also had to not be displaced by all the strong forces and energy that are prevalent underwater. And they also had to foster marine life. I also found out that, they were very good at actually controlling how tourists interact with our marine areas. So many of the projects are actually to draw visitors away from natural areas and to bring them to an area where there's a sandy substrate where their impact is lessened."What if museums weren’t confined to buildings but could be part of the natural world? What if sculptures could not only celebrate our oceans, but also provide habitats for marine life?Jason deCaires Taylor is a sculptor, environmentalist, and underwater photographer. His works are constructed using materials to instigate natural growth and the subsequent changes intended to explore the aesthetics of decay, rebirth, and metamorphosis. DeCaires Taylor's pioneering public art projects are not only examples of successful marine conservation but also works of art that seek to encourage environmental awareness and lead us to appreciate the breathtaking natural beauty of the underwater world.www.underwatersculpture.comwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast