London Futurists
London Futurists
Anticipating and managing exponential impact - hosts David Wood and Calum ChaceCalum Chace is a sought-after keynote speaker and best-selling writer on artificial intelligence. He focuses on the medium- and long-term impact of AI on all of us, our societies and our economies. He advises companies and governments on AI policy.His non-fiction books on AI are Surviving AI, about superintelligence, and The Economic Singularity, about the future of jobs. Both are now in their third editions.He also wrote Pandora's Brain and Pandora’s Oracle, a pair of techno-thrillers about the first superintelligence. He is a regular contributor to magazines, newspapers, and radio.In the last decade, Calum has given over 150 talks in 20 countries on six continents. Videos of his talks, and lots of other materials are available at https://calumchace.com/.He is co-founder of a think tank focused on the future of jobs, called the Economic Singularity Foundation. The Foundation has published Stories from 2045, a collection of short stories written by its members.Before becoming a full-time writer and speaker, Calum had a 30-year career in journalism and in business, as a marketer, a strategy consultant and a CEO. He studied philosophy, politics, and economics at Oxford University, which confirmed his suspicion that science fiction is actually philosophy in fancy dress.David Wood is Chair of London Futurists, and is the author or lead editor of twelve books about the future, including The Singularity Principles, Vital Foresight, The Abolition of Aging, Smartphones and Beyond, and Sustainable Superabundance.He is also principal of the independent futurist consultancy and publisher Delta Wisdom, executive director of the Longevity Escape Velocity (LEV) Foundation, Foresight Advisor at SingularityNET, and a board director at the IEET (Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies). He regularly gives keynote talks around the world on how to prepare for radical disruption. See https://deltawisdom.com/.As a pioneer of the mobile computing and smartphone industry, he co-founded Symbian in 1998. By 2012, software written by his teams had been included as the operating system on 500 million smartphones.From 2010 to 2013, he was Technology Planning Lead (CTO) of Accenture Mobility, where he also co-led Accenture’s Mobility Health business initiative.Has an MA in Mathematics from Cambridge, where he also undertook doctoral research in the Philosophy of Science, and a DSc from the University of Westminster.
Episodes
Mentioned books
23 snips
Sep 9, 2026 • 40min
LFP 136: Steve Keen - Will economists destroy capitalism?
Steve Keen, economist, author, and early forecaster of the 2008 financial crisis, challenges the foundations of modern economics. He discusses climate-risk denial, why dissenting theories stay marginal, and how private debt drives crises. The conversation explores AI-driven unemployment, money creation, universal basic income, emergency climate responses, and the political reforms needed for a resilient mixed economy.
Aug 24, 2026 • 45min
LFP 135: Pat Kane & Indra Adnan - If politics is broken, what's the alternative?
Our guests in this episode are Pat Kane and Indra Adnan, the co-convenors of The Alternative Global. That project was launched in 2017 with the question, “If politics is broken, what’s the alternative?” Pat and Indra will be speaking at the London Futurists and IEET event in London on 19-20 September, “The Technoprogressive Opportunity,” where they’ll giving an update on progress with their project. Our episode today provides a chance to dive into what they have experienced and learned.Pat is a writer, musician, curator, consultant, activist and futurist. He is the author of the book “The Play Ethic”, and has written for the Independent, the Sunday Times, the Guardian/Observer and Scotland’s Sunday Herald, of which he was a founding editor in 1999. He is currently a columnist with The National, and is researching a new book on politics, creativity and the science of emotions.Indra is a psycho-social therapist, founder of the Soft Power Network, and a writer and events producer. She has consulted to the World Economic Forum, Indian, Finnish and Danish governments, NATO, the Scottish Executive and the Institute of Contemporary Arts amongst others. She is the author of the book “The Politics of Waking Up: Power & Possibility In The Fractal Age”.Selected follow-ups:"The Alternative""The Daily Alternative" (newsletter)"Who Is Pat Kane?""About Indra Adnan""The Politics of Waking Up: Power and Possibility in the Fractal Age" - book by Indra"The Play Ethic: A Manifesto For a Different Way of Living" - book by Pat"Fourth Generation Civilization" - Substack by Michel Bauwens"Cosmolocalism: A Framework for Building Sustainable Network State Economies" - by Sterlin"Ecocivilisation through the CAN of CANs [Community Agency Networks]""Alternative Editorial: All For Devolution""Scottish Community Coalition on Energy release a Manifesto for Community Renewables""Alternative Editorial: Facing The Chasm" (covers Three Horizons)"Climate Whistleblower: We Face COLLAPSE" - Aaron Bastani Meets Kevin Anderson"Disruptive Climate Futures, with Dr Tom Harris" - London Futurists"Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren" by John Maynard Keynes (1930)"Spring: a social and political invitation""Emotions and the Brain with Mark Solms" - New Thinking Allowed, with Leanne Whitney"Mo Gawdat"The Technoprogressive Opportunity: Event in London, Sept 19-20Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain Declaration
Aug 12, 2026 • 37min
LFP 134: Ewan McMillan - AI overhang and economics impact
We are continuing our investigation into the implications of the Economic Singularity, the time when we need a new economic system because full automation by AI means that people can no longer obtain the resources they need by doing jobs.Our guest today is Ewan McMillan, the founder of New Gradient, an Edinburgh-based consultancy that builds AI systems for a variety of industries, from biotech to mining. He took a degree in theoretical physics at the University of Edinburgh, and since then he has spent seven years delivering applied AI R&D. We wanted to have Ewan on the show because he also writes about the economics of AI from the perspective of someone who is actually implementing it. This spring he posted a series of thought-provoking articles called “The Economics of AGI”.Selected follow-ups:New Gradient - Company websiteEwan McMillan - LinkedIn"The Economics of AGI" - Part 1 of Ewan's essay"The Innovation Paradox" - Part 2 of the essay"The Allocation Stack" - Part 3 of the essay"Bitter lesson" (general AIs will in due course out-perform specific AIs) - Wikipedia"AlphaZero" (covers the chess match vs. Stockfish) - Wikipedia"Smartphones and Beyond: Lessons from the remarkable rise and fall of Symbian" - book by David"Culture series" (about science fiction series written by Iain M Banks) - Wikipedia"Aghion–Howitt model" - Wikipedia2025 Nobel Prize in Economics (recipients include Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt)"The First Solo Unicorns Are Here: Meet the One-Person Companies Racing to $1B in 2026" - Founder Institute"Understanding Alpha in Investing" - Investopedia"'We Must Act Now': Sixteen Nobel Laureates Join Leading Economists and AI Researchers in Call to Prepare for AI’s Economic Transformation" - Stanford Digital Economy LabMusic: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain Declaration
Aug 4, 2026 • 41min
LFP 133: Oliver Ritchie - Waking up Economists
Oliver Ritchie, UK Policy Lead at the Future of Life Institute and former Treasury policy official, explores the fiscal shock of mass AI automation. He discusses who pays when wages vanish, the difficulty of taxing mobile capital, the prospects of land taxes and public equity, voluntary windfall sharing, and how to keep humans empowered as AI reshapes the economy.
14 snips
Jul 21, 2026 • 50min
LFP 132: Matteo Rossi MacDermant - Technoprogressive Worldbuilding
Matteo Rossi MacDermant, technophilosopher and host of Bread and Robots, explores technoprogressive worldbuilding. He discusses steering technology toward collective abundance. Topics include post-scarcity economics, UBI/UBC, land‑value tax, sovereign wealth, jobs guarantees, and policy priorities for housing, healthcare and shorter workweeks.
34 snips
Jun 28, 2026 • 35min
LFP 131: Ben Luong - The Discontinuity Thesis
Ben Luong, author of The Discontinuity Thesis and a computer-science–trained marketer, argues advanced AI will topple wage-based postwar capitalism. He explains unit cost dominance, interface collapse, and how verifiers train AIs until self-verification removes jobs. Talks cover regulation limits, compute and energy bottlenecks, inequality risks, UBI, and urgent policy steps to capture AI value.
31 snips
Jun 1, 2026 • 42min
LFP 130: Gerry Tsoukalas and Brett Falk - The AI Automation Layoff Trap
Brett Falk, an economist trained in game theory and co-author of The AI Layoff Trap, and Gerry Tsoukalas, economist and co-author proposing policy fixes, discuss the dynamics of rapid AI automation. They unpack the firms’ prisoner’s dilemma, Pigouvian-style taxes on automation, cross-border avoidance, token-based tax designs, and timing policies to ease worker reabsorption.
8 snips
May 9, 2026 • 44min
LFP 129: Ted Shelton - Post-labour economics and the future of capitalism
Ted Shelton, strategist and researcher who has worked across Silicon Valley and written on how scaling AI may reshape work and capitalism. He discusses how automation could upend the balance between labour and capital. He explores who might own self-improving AI, how resources could be allocated in a world of abundance, and policy options for distributing value.
16 snips
Apr 22, 2026 • 45min
LFP 128: Adrian Brown - Windfall Trust and the Economic Singularity
Adrian Brown, founder and CEO of Windfall Trust who builds policy tools for the economic impacts of advanced AI, discusses how AI could reshape jobs, incomes and public finances. He walks through scenario workshops, risks of concentrated windfalls, global distribution challenges, and a wide range of policy options from taxation to welfare. The conversation highlights urgency without promising simple fixes.
Jan 7, 2026 • 52min
LFP 127: Anticipating 2026
The hosts reflect on significant developments from 2025, including the rapid improvements in large language models and the 'jagged edge' of AI. They categorize attitudes towards AI into three camps: accelerationists, doomers, and scouts. The conversation touches on rising cyber risks linked to AI, an investment bubble, and OpenAI's vulnerabilities. Additionally, they explore AI's potential in handling everyday tasks, the political implications of faster information, and the urgent need for equitable job redistribution amid increasing automation. Optimism for 2026 is highlighted.
