London Futurists

Our guest in this episode is Dhiraj Mukherjee, best known as the co-founder of Shazam. Calum and David both still remember the sense of amazement we felt when, way back in the dotcom boom, we used Shazam to identify a piece of music from its first couple of bars. It seemed like magic, and was tangible evidence of how fast technology was moving: it was creating services which seemed like science fiction.Shazam was eventually bought by Apple in 2018 for a reported 400 million dollars. This gave Dhiraj the funds to pursue new interests. He is now a prolific investor and a keynote speaker on the subject of how companies both large and small can be more innovative.In this conversation, Dhiraj highlights some lessons from his personal entrepreneurial journey, and reflects on ways in which the task of entrepreneurs is changing, in the UK and elsewhere. The conversation covers possible futures in fields such as Climate Action and the overcoming of unconscious biases.Selected follow-ups:https://dhirajmukherjee.com/https://www.shazam.com/https://dandelionenergy.com/https://technation.io/Entrepreneur Firsthttps://fairbrics.co/https://neoplants.com/Al Gore's Generation Investment Management Fundhttps://www.mevitae.com/Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain DeclarationReal Talk About MarketingAn Acxiom podcast where we discuss marketing made better, bringing you real...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Our guest in this episode is James Hughes. James is a bioethicist and sociologist who serves as Associate Provost at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He is also the Executive Director of the IEET, that is the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, which he co-founded back in 2004.The stated mission of the IEET seems to be more important than ever, in the fast-changing times of the mid-2020s. To quote a short extract from its website:The IEET promotes ideas about how technological progress can increase freedom, happiness, and human flourishing in democratic societies. We believe that technological progress can be a catalyst for positive human development so long as we ensure that technologies are safe and equitably distributed. We call this a “technoprogressive” orientation.Focusing on emerging technologies that have the potential to positively transform social conditions and the quality of human lives – especially “human enhancement technologies” – the IEET seeks to cultivate academic, professional, and popular understanding of their implications, both positive and negative, and to encourage responsible public policies for their safe and equitable use.That mission fits well with what we like to discuss with guests on this show. In particular, this episode asks questions about a conference that has just finished in Boston, co-hosted by the IEET, with the headline title “Emerging Technologies and the Future of Work”. The episode also covers the history and politics of transhumanism, as a backdrop to discussion of present and future issues.Selected follow-ups:https://ieet.org/James Hughes on Wikipediahttps://medium.com/institute-for-ethics-and-emerging-technologiesConference: Emerging Technologies and the Future of WorkMusic: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain DeclarationReal Talk About MarketingAn Acxiom podcast where we discuss marketing made better, bringing you real...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Digital Disruption with Geoff Nielson Discover how technology is reshaping our lives and livelihoods.Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Rebecca Finlay, CEO of PAI, discusses the guidelines developed by the Partnership on AI to address risks associated with advanced AI systems. Topics include societal risks, synthetic media framework, non-regulatory levers for responsible use of technology, public input for AI guidance, and the idea of a moratorium on advanced AI development.

Guest Connor Leahy, German-American AI researcher and entrepreneur, discusses the balance between excitement and concerns surrounding new technologies, the potential outcomes of superintelligence, and the challenge of controlling an entity that is much smarter than humans. The importance of addressing AGI as a problem for its beneficial impact is emphasized, along with the need for regulations, safety measures, and raising awareness to address the challenges of artificial intelligence.

The launch of GPT-4 on the 14th of March this year was shocking as well as exciting. ChatGPT had been released the previous November, and became the fastest-growing app ever. But GPT-4’s capabilities were a level beyond, and it provoked remarkable comments from people who had previously said little about the future of AI. In May, Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described superintelligence as an existential risk to humanity. A year ago, it would have been inconceivable for the leader of a major country to say such a thing.The following month, in June, Sunak announced that a global summit on AI safety would be held in November at the historically resonant venue of Bletchley Park, the stately home where during World War Two, Alan Turing and others cracked the German Enigma code, and probably shortened the war by many months.Despite the fact that AI is increasingly humanity’s most powerful technology, there is not yet an established forum for world leaders to discuss its longer term impacts, including accelerating automation, extended longevity, and the awesome prospect of superintelligence. The world needs its leaders to engage in a clear-eyed, honest, and well-informed discussion of these things.The summit is scheduled for the 1st and 2nd of November, and Matt Clifford, the CEO of the high-profile VC firm Entrepreneur First, has taken a sabbatical to help prepare it.To help us all understand what the summit might achieve, the guest in this episode is Ollie Buckley.Ollie studied PPE at Oxford, and was later a policy fellow at Cambridge. After six years as a strategy consultant with Monitor, he spent a decade as a civil servant, developing digital technology policy in the Cabinet Office and elsewhere. Crucially, from 2018 to 2021 he was the founding Executive Director of the UK government's original AI governance advisory body, the Centre for Data Ethics & Innovation (CDEI), where he led some of the original policy development regarding the regulation of AI and data-driven technologies. Since then, he has been advising tech companies, civil society and international organisations on AI policy as a consultant.Selected follow-ups:https://www.linkedin.com/in/ollie-buckley-10064b/https://www.publicaffairsnetworking.com/news/tech-policy-consultancy-boosts-data-and-ai-offer-with-senior-hirehttps://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ai-safety-summit-programme/ai-safety-summit-day-1-and-2-programmehttps://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ai-safety-summit-introduction/ai-safety-summit-introduction-htmlAn open event at Wilton Hall, Bletchley, the afternoon before the AI Safety Summit starts: https://www.meetup.com/london-futurists/events/296765860/Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain DeclarationReal Talk About MarketingAn Acxiom podcast where we discuss marketing made better, bringing you real...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

In the future, energy will be too cheap to meter. That used to be a common vision of the future: abundant, clean energy, if not exactly free, then much cheaper than today's energy. But a funny thing happened en route to that future of energy abundance. High energy costs are still with us in 2023, and are part of what's called the cost-of-living crisis. Moreover, although there's some adoption of green, non-polluting energy, there seems to be as much carbon-based energy used as ever.Regular listeners to this show will know, however, that one of our themes is that forecasts of the future often go wrong, not so much in their content, but in their timing. New technology and the associated products and services can take longer than expected to mature, but once a transition does start, it can accelerate. And that's a possible scenario for the area of technology we discuss in this episode, namely, space-based solar power.Joining us to discuss the prospects for satellites in space gathering significant amounts of energy from the sun, and then beaming it wirelessly to receivers on the ground, is John Bucknell, the CEO of the marvellously named company Virtus Solis.John has been with Virtus Solis, as CEO and Founder, since 2018. His career previously involved leading positions at Chrysler, SpaceX, General Motors, and the 3D printing company Divergent.Selected follow-ups:https://virtussolis.space/Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain DeclarationReal Talk About MarketingAn Acxiom podcast where we discuss marketing made better, bringing you real...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Self-driving cars has long been one of the most exciting potential outcomes of advanced artificial intelligence. Contrary to popular belief, humans are actually very good drivers, but even so, well over a million people die on the roads each year. Globally, for people between 12 and 24 years old, road accidents are the most common form of death.Google started its self-driving car project in January 2009, and spun out a separate company, Waymo, in 2016. Expectations were high. Many people shared hopes that within a few years, humans would no longer need to drive. Some of us also thought that the arrival of self-driving cars would be the signal to everyone else that AI was our most powerful technology, and would get people thinking about the technological singularity. They would in other words be the “canary in the coal mine”.The problem of self-driving turned out to be much harder, and insofar as most people think about self-driving cars today at all, they probably think of them as a technology that was over-hyped and failed. And it turned out that chatbots – and in particular GPT-4 - would be the canary in the coal mine instead.But as so often happens, the hype was not wrong – it was just the timing that was wrong. Waymo and Cruise (part of GM) now operate paid-for taxi services in San Francisco and Phoenix, and they are demonstrably safer than humans. Chinese companies are also pioneering the technology.One man who knows much more about this than most is our guest today, Timothy Lee, a journalist who writes the newsletter "Understanding AI". He was previously a journalist at Ars Technica and the Washington Post, and he has a masters degree in Computer Science. In recent weeks, Timothy has published some carefully researched and insightful articles about the state of the art in self-driving cars.Selected follow-ups:https://www.UnderstandingAI.org/Topics addressed in this episode include:*) The two main market segments for self-driving cars*) Constraints adopted by Waymo and Cruise which allowed them to make progress*) Options for upgrading the hardware in a self-driven vehicle*) Some local opposition to self-driving cars in San Francisco*) A safety policy: when uncertain, stop, and phone home for advice*) Support from the State of California - and from other US States*) Comparing accident statistics: human drivers versus self-driving*) Why self-driving cars don't require AGI (Artificial General Intelligence)*) Reasons why self-driving cars cannot be remotely tele-operated*) Prospects for self-driven freight transport running on highways*) The company Nuro that delivers pizza and other items by self-driven robots*) Another self-driving robot company: Starship ("your local community helpers")*) The Israeli company Mobileye - acquired by Intel in 2017*) Friction faced by Chinese self-driving companies in the US and elsewhere*) Different possibilities for the speed at which self-driving solutions will scale up*) Potential social implications of wider adoption of self-driving solutions*) Consequences of fatal accidents*) Dangerous behaviour from safety drivers*) The special case of Tesla FSD (assisted "Full Self-Driving") and Elon Musk*) The future of recreational driving*) An invitation to European technologistsMusic: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain DeclarationReal Talk About MarketingAn Acxiom podcast where we discuss marketing made better, bringing you real...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Stacey Edmonds, an expert in cybercrime and artificial intelligence, discusses the increase in cybercrime fueled by Generative AI. They explore strategies for reducing 'scam-ability' and fostering trusted digital relationships. The podcast also covers the profitability and unreported instances of cybercrime, trust issues in mainstream media, and understanding 'scammability' in the future of cybercrime.

The podcast discusses the upcoming AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park and explores the risks and opportunities of AI. It compares joblessness to the displacement of horses by cars. The concept of abundance and a generous income is proposed to address technological unemployment. The idea of a Universal Generous Income (UGI) is explored, along with the connection between risks and economic mobility.

This episode, like the previous one, consists of a number of short interviews recorded at the Longevity Summit Dublin between 17th and 20th August, featuring a variety of different speakers from the Summit.In this episode, we'll hear first from Matt Kaeberlein, the CEO of a company called Optispan, following a 20 year period at the University of Washington studying the biological mechanisms of aging and potential interventions to improve healthspan. Among other topics, Matt talks to us about the Dog Aging Project, the Million-Molecule Project, and whether longevity science is at the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning.Our second speaker is João Pedro de Magalhães who is the Chair of Molecular Biogerontology at the University of Birmingham, where he leads the genomics of aging and rejuvenation lab. João Pedro talks to us about the motivation to study and manipulate the processes of aging, and his work to improve the low-temperature cryopreservation of human organs. You may be surprised at how many deaths are caused by the present lack of such cryopreservation methods.Third is Steve Horvath, who has just retired from his position as a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and is now a Principal Investigator at Altos Labs in Cambridge. Steve is known for developing biomarkers of aging known as epigenetic clocks. He describes three generations of these clocks, implications of mammalian species with surprisingly long lifespans, and possible breakthroughs involving treatments such as senolytics, partial epigenetic reprogramming, and altering metabolic pathways.The episode rounds off with an interview with Tom Lawry, Managing Director for Second Century Tech, who refers to himself as a recovering Microsoft executive. We discuss his recent bestselling book "Hacking Healthcare", what's actually happening with the application of Artificial Intelligence to healthcare (automation and augmentation), the pace of change regarding generative AI, and whether radiologists ought to fear losing their jobs any time soon to deep learning systems.Selected follow-ups:https://longevitysummitdublin.com/speakers/https://optispanlife.com/https://orabiomedical.com/https://rejuvenomicslab.com/https://oxfordcryotech.com/https://horvath.genetics.ucla.edu/https://altoslabs.com/team/principal-investigators-san-diego/steven-horvath/https://www.tomlawry.com/https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003286103/hacking-healthcare-tom-lawryMusic: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain DeclarationReal Talk About MarketingAn Acxiom podcast where we discuss marketing made better, bringing you real...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Digital Disruption with Geoff Nielson Discover how technology is reshaping our lives and livelihoods.Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify