London Futurists

In this episode, Tim Clement-Jones brings us up to date on the reactions by members of the UK's House of Commons to recent advances in the capabilities of AI systems, such as ChatGPT. He also looks ahead to larger changes, in the UK and elsewhere.Lord Clement-Jones CBE, or Tim, as he prefers to be known, has been a very successful lawyer, holding senior positions at ITV and Kingfisher among others, and later becoming London Managing Partner of law firm DLA Piper.He is better known as a politician. He became a life peer in 1998, and has been the Liberal Democrats’ spokesman on a wide range of issues. The reason we are delighted to have him as a guest on the podcast is that he was the chair of the AI Select Committee, Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on AI, and is now a member of a special inquiry on the use of AI in Weapons Systems.Tim also has multiple connections with universities and charities in the UK.Selected follow-up reading:https://www.lordclementjones.org/https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/APPG/artificial-intelligencehttps://arcs.qmul.ac.uk/governance/council/council-membership/timclement-jones.htmlTopics in this conversation include:*) Does "the Westminster bubble" understand the importance of AI?*) Evidence that "the tide is turning" - MPs are demonstrating a spirit of inquiry*) The example of Sir Peter Bottomley, the Father of the House (who has been an MP continuously since 1975)*) New AI systems are showing characteristics that had not been expected to arrive for another 5 or 10 years, taking even AI experts by surprise*) The AI duopoly (the US and China) and the possible influence of the UK and the EU*) The forthcoming EU AI Act and the risk-based approach it embodies*) The importance of regulatory systems being innovation-friendly*) How might the EU support the development of some European AI tech giants?*) The inevitability(?) of the UK needing to become "a rule taker"*) Cynical and uncynical explanations for why major tech companies support EU AI regulation*) The example of AI-powered facial recognition: benefits and risks*) Is Brexit helping or hindering the UK's AI activities?*) Complications with the funding of AI research in the UK's universities*) The risks of a slow-down in the UK's AI start-up ecosystem*) Looking further afield: AI ambitions in the UAE and Saudi Arabia*) The particular risks of lethal autonomous weapons systems*) Future conflicts between AI-controlled tanks and human-controlled tanks*) Forecasts for the arrival of artificial general intelligence: 10-15 years from now?*) Superintelligence may emerge from a combination of separate AI systems*) The case for "technology-neutral" regulationMusic: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain DeclarationDigital Disruption with Geoff Nielson Discover how technology is reshaping our lives and livelihoods.Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Advanced AI is currently pretty much a duopoly between the USA and China. The US is the clear leader, thanks largely to its tech giants – Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple. China also has a fistful of tech giants – Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent are the ones usually listed, but the Chinese government has also taken a strong interest in AI since Deep Mind’s Alpha Go system beat the world’s best Go player in 2016.People in the West don’t know enough about China’s current and future role in AI. Some think its companies just copy their Western counterparts, while others think it is an implacable and increasingly dangerous enemy, run by a dictator who cares nothing for his people. Both those views are wrong.One person who has been trying to provide a more accurate picture of China and AI in recent years is Jeff Ding, the author of the influential newsletter ChinAI.Jeff grew up in Iowa City and is now an Assistant Professor of Political Science at George Washington University. He earned a PhD at Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and wrote his thesis on how past technological revolutions influenced the rise and fall of great powers, with implications for U.S.-China competition. After gaining his doctorate he worked at Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute and Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.Selected follow-up reading:https://jeffreyjding.github.io/https://chinai.substack.com/https://www.tortoisemedia.com/intelligence/global-ai/Topics in this conversation include:*) The Thucydides Trap: Is conflict inevitable as a rising geopolitical power approaches parity with an established power?*) Different ways of trying to assess how China's AI industry compares with that of the U.S.*) Measuring innovations in creating AI is different from measuring adoption of AI solutions across multiple industries*) Comparisons of papers submitted to AI conferences such as NeurIPS, citations, patents granted, and the number of data scientists*) The biggest misconceptions westerners have about China and AI*) A way in which Europe could still be an important player alongside the duopoly*) Attitudes in China toward data privacy and facial recognition*) Government focus on AI can be counterproductive*) Varieties of government industrial policy: the merits of encouraging decentralised innovation*) The Titanic and the origin of Silicon Valley*) Mariana Mazzucato's question: "Who created the iPhone?"*) Learning from the failure of Japan's 5th Generation Computers initiative*) The evolution of China's Social Credit systems*) Research by Shazeda Ahmed and Jeremy Daum*) Factors encouraging and discouraging the "splinternet" separation of US and Chinese tech ecosystems*) Connections that typically happen outside of the public eye*) Financial interdependencies*) Changing Chinese government attitudes toward Chinese Internet giants*) A broader tension faced by the Chinese government*) Future scenarios: potential good and bad developments*) Transnational projects to prevent accidents or unauthorised use of powerful AI systemsMusic: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain DeclarationDigital Disruption with Geoff Nielson Discover how technology is reshaping our lives and livelihoods.Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Peter James is one of the world’s most successful crime writers. His "Roy Grace" series, about a detective in Brighton, England, near where Peter lives, has produced a remarkable 19 consecutive Sunday Times Number One bestsellers. His legions of devoted fans await each new release eagerly. The books have been televised, with the third series of "Grace", starting John Simm, being commissioned for next year.Peter has worked in other genres too, having written 36 novels altogether. When Calum first met Peter in the mid-1990s, Peter's science fiction novel “Host” was generating rave reviews. It was the world’s first electronically published novel, and a copy of its floppy disc version is on display in London’s Science Museum.Peter is also a self-confessed petrol-head, with an enviable collection of classic cars, and a pretty successful track record of racing some of them. The discussion later in the episode addresses the likely arrival of self-driving cars. But we start with the possibility of mind uploading, which is the subject of “Host”.Selected follow-up reading:https://www.peterjames.com/https://www.alcor.org/Topics in this conversation include:*) Peter's passion for the future*) The transformative effect of the 1990 book "Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition"*) A Christmas sojourn at MIT and encounters with AI pioneer Marvin Minsky*) The origins of the ideas behind "Host"*) Meeting Alcor, the cryonics organisation, in Riverside California*) How cryonics has evolved over the decades*) "The first person to live to 200 has already been born"*) Quick summaries of previous London Futurists Podcast episodes featuring Aubrey de Grey and Andrew Steele*) The case for doing better than nature*) Peter's novel "Perfect People" and the theme of "designer babies"*) Possible improvements in the human condition from genetic editing*) The risk of a future "genetic underclass"*) Technology divides often don't last: consider the "fridge divide" and the "smartphone divide"*) Calum's novel "Pandora's Brain"*) Why Peter is comfortable with the label "transhumanist"*) Various ways of reading (many) more books*) A thought experiment involving a healthy 99 year old*) If people lived a lot longer, we might take better care of our planet*) Peter's views on technology assisting writers*) Strengths and weaknesses of present-day ChatGPT as a writer*) Prospects for transhumans to explore space*) The "bunker experiments" into the circadian cycle, which suggest that humans naturally revert to a daily cycle closer to 26 hours than 24 hours*) Possible answers to Fermi's question about lack of any sign of alien civilisations*) Reflections on "The Pale Blue Dot of Earth" (originally by Carl Sagan)*) The likelihood of incredible surprises in the next few decades*) Pros and cons of humans driving on public roads (especially when drivers are using mobile phones)*) Legal and ethical issues arising from autonomous cars*) Exponential change often involves a frustrating slow phase before fast breakthroughs*) Anticipating the experience of driving inside immersive virtual reality*) The tragic background to Peter's book "Possession"*) A concluding message from the science fiction writer Kurt VonnegutMusic: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain DeclarationDigital Disruption with Geoff Nielson Discover how technology is reshaping our lives and livelihoods.Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Our guest in this episode is a Briton who is based in Berlin, namely Andrew Steele. Earlier in his life Andrew spent nine years at the University of Oxford where, among other accomplishments, he gained a PhD in physics. His focus switched to computational biology, and he held positions at Cancer Research UK and the Francis Crick Institute.Along the way, Andrew decided that aging was the single most important scientific challenge of our time. This led him to write the book "Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older Without Getting Old". There are a lot of books these days about the science of slowing, stopping, and even reversing aging, but Andrew's book is perhaps the best general scientific introduction to this whole field.Selected follow-ups:https://andrewsteele.co.uk/https://www.youtube.com/DrAndrewSteelehttps://ageless.link/Topics in this conversation include:*) The background that led Andrew to write his book "Ageless"*) A graph that changed a career*) The chance of someone dying in the next year doubles every eight years they live*) For tens of thousand of years, human life expectancy didn't change *) In recent centuries, the background mortality rate has significantly decreased, but the eight year "Gompertz curve" doubling of mortality remains unchanged*) Some animals do not have this mortality doubling characteristic; they are said to be "negligibly senescent", "biologically immortal", or "ageless"*) An example: Galapagos tortoises*) The concept of "hallmarks of aging" - and different lists of these hallmarks*) Theories of aging: wear-and-tear vs. programmed obsolescence*) Evolution and aging: two different strategies that species can adopt*) Wear-and-tear of teeth - as seen from a programmed aging point-of-view*) The case for a pragmatic approach*) Dietary restriction and healthier aging*) The potential of computational biology system models to generate better understanding of linkages between different hallmarks of aging*) Might some hallmarks, for example telomere shortening or epigenetic damage, prove more fundamental than others?*) Special challenges posed by damage in the proteins in the scaffolding between cells*) What's required to accelerate the advent of "longevity escape velocity"*) Excitement and questions over the funding available to Altos Labs*) Measuring timescales in research dollars rather than years*) Reasons for optimism for treatments of some of the hallmarks, for example with senolytics, but others aren't being properly addressed*) Breakthrough progress with the remaining hallmarks could be achieved with $5-10B investment each*) Adding some extra for potential unforeseen hallmarks, that sums to a total of around $100B before therapies for all aspects of aging could be in major clinical trials*) Why such an expenditure is in principle relatively easily affordable*) Reflections on moral and ethical objections to treatments against aging*) Overpopulation, environmental strains, resource sustainability, and net zero impact*) Aging as the single largest cause of death in the world - in all countries*) Andrew's current and forthcoming projects, including a book on options for funding science with the biggest impact*) Looking forward to "being more tortoise".Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain DeclarationDigital Disruption with Geoff Nielson Discover how technology is reshaping our lives and livelihoods.Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Natasha Vita-More, a pioneering transhumanist, reflects on the evolution of transhumanism over the decades, highlighting key advances and disappointments. She shares her hopes for the future of the movement, emphasizing the importance of ethical technological use and the integration of transhumanist concepts into society for human enhancement.

Our guest in this episode is the scientist and science fiction author Davin Brin, whose writings have won the Hugo, Locus, Campbell, and Nebula Awards. His style is sometimes called 'hard science fiction'. This means his narratives feature scientific or technological change that is plausible rather than purely magical. The scenarios he creates are thought-provoking as well as entertaining. His writing inspires readers but also challenges them, with important questions not just about the future, but also about the present.Perhaps his most famous non-fiction work is his book "The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?", first published in 1998. With each passing year it seems that the questions and solutions raised in that book are becoming ever more pressing. One aspect of this has been called Brin's Corollary to Moore's Law: Every year, the cameras will get smaller, cheaper, more numerous and more mobile.David also frequently writes online about topics such as space exploration, attempts to contact aliens, homeland security, the influence of science fiction on society and culture, the future of democracy, and much more besides.Topics discussed in this conversation include:*) Reactions to reports of flying saucers*) Why photographs of UFOs remain blurry*) Similarities between reports of UFOs and, in prior times, reports of elves*) Replicating UFO phenomena with cat lasers*) Changes in attitudes by senior members of the US military*) Appraisals of the Mars Rovers*) Pros and cons of additional human visits to the moon*) Why alien probes might be monitoring this solar system from the asteroid belt*) Investigations of "moonlets" in Earth orbit*) Looking for pi in the sky*) Reasons why life might be widespread in the galaxy - but why life intelligent enough to launch spacecraft may be rare*) Varieties of animal intelligence: How special are humans?*) Humans vs. Neanderthals: rounds one and two*) The challenges of writing about a world that includes superintelligence*) Kurzweil-style hybridisation and Mormon theology*) Who should we admire most: lone heroes or citizens?*) Benefits of reciprocal accountability and mutual monitoring (sousveillance)*) Human nature: Delusions, charlatans, and incantations*) The great catechism of science*) Two levels at which the ideas of a transparent society can operate*) "Asimov's Laws of Robotics won't work"*) How AIs might be kept in check by other AIs*) The importance of presenting gedanken experimentsFiction mentioned (written by David Brin unless noted otherwise):The Three-Body Problem (Liu Cixin)ExistenceThe Sentinel (Arthur C. Clarke)Startide RisingThe Uplift WarKiln PeopleThe Culture Series (Iain M. Banks)The Expanse (James S.A. Corey)The Postman (the book and the film)Stones of SignificanceFahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain DeclarationSelected follow-up reading:http://www.davidbrin.com/http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2021/07/whats-really-up-with-uaps-ufos.htmlDigital Disruption with Geoff Nielson Discover how technology is reshaping our lives and livelihoods.Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

OpenAI's ChatGPT and picture generating AI systems like MidJourney and Stable Diffusion have got a lot more people interested in advanced AI and talking about it. Which is a good thing. It will not be pretty if the transformative changes that will happen in the next two or three decades take most of us by surprise.A company that has been pioneering advanced AI for longer than most is IBM, and we are very fortunate to have with us in this episode one of IBM’s most senior executives.Alessandro Curioni has been with the company for 25 years. He is an IBM Fellow, Director of IBM Research, and Vice President for Europe and Africa.Topics discussed in this conversation include:*) Some background: 70 years of inventing the future of computing*) The role of grand challenges to test and advance the world of AI*) Two major changes in AI: from rules-based to trained, and from training using annotated data to self-supervised training using non-annotated data*) Factors which have allowed self-supervised training to build large useful models, as opposed to an unstable cascade of mistaken assumptions*) Foundation models that extend beyond text to other types of structured data, including software code, the reactions of organic chemistry, and data streams generated from industrial processes*) Moving from relatively shallow general foundation models to models that can hold deep knowledge about particular subjects*) Identification and removal of bias in foundation models*) Two methods to create models tailored to the needs of particular enterprises*) The modification by RLHF (Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback) of models created by self-supervised learning*) Examples of new business opportunities enabled by foundation models*) Three "neuromorphic" methods to significantly improve the energy efficiency of AI systems:  chips with varying precision, memory and computation co-located, and spiking neural networks*) The vulnerability of existing confidential data to being decrypted in the relatively near future*) The development and adoption of quantum-safe encryption algorithms*) What a recent "quantum apocalypse" paper highlights as potential future developments*) Changing forecasts of the capabilities of quantum computing*) IBM's attitude toward Artificial General Intelligence and the Turing Test*) IBM's overall goals with AI, and the selection of future "IBM Grand Challenges" in support of these goals*) Augmenting the capabilities of scientists to accelerate breakthrough scientific discoveries.Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain DeclarationSelected follow-up reading:https://researcher.ibm.com/researcher/view.php?person=zurich-curhttps://www.zurich.ibm.com/st/neuromorphic/https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2022/07/nist-announces-first-four-quantum-resistant-cryptographic-algorithmsDigital Disruption with Geoff Nielson Discover how technology is reshaping our lives and livelihoods.Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Quantum computing is a tough subject to explain and discuss. As Niels Bohr put it, “Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it”. Richard Feynman helpfully added, “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”.Quantum computing employs the weird properties of quantum mechanics like superposition and entanglement. Classical computing uses binary digits, or bits, which are either on or off. Quantum computing uses qubits, which can be both on and off at the same time, and this characteristic somehow makes them enormously more computationally powerful.Co-hosts Calum and David knew that to address this important but difficult subject, we needed an absolute expert, who was capable of explaining it in lay terms. When Calum heard Dr Ignacio Cirac give a talk on the subject in Madrid last month, he knew we had found our man.Ignacio is director of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Germany, and holds honorary and visiting professorships pretty much everywhere that serious work is done on quantum physics. He has done seminal work on the trapped ion approach to quantum computing and several other aspects of the field, and has published almost 500 papers in prestigious journals. He is spoken of as a possible Nobel Prize winner.Topics discussed in this conversation include:*) A brief history of quantum computing (QC) from the 1990s to the present*) The kinds of computation where QC can out-perform classical computers*) Likely timescales for further progress in the field*) Potential quantum analogies of Moore's Law*) Physical qubits contrasted with logical qubits*) Reasons why errors often arise with qubits - and approaches to reducing these errors*) Different approaches to the hardware platforms of QC - and which are most likely to prove successful*) Ways in which academia can compete with (and complement) large technology companies*) The significance of "quantum supremacy" or "quantum advantage": what has been achieved already, and what might be achieved in the future*) The risks of a forthcoming "quantum computing winter", similar to the AI winters in which funding was reduced*) Other comparisons and connections between AI and QC*) The case for keeping an open mind, and for supporting diverse approaches, regarding QC platforms*) Assessing the threats posed by Shor's algorithm and fault-tolerant QC*) Why companies should already be considering changing the encryption systems that are intended to keep their data secure*) Advice on how companies can build and manage in-house "quantum teams"Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain DeclarationSelected follow-up reading:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Ignacio_Cirac_Sasturainhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rydberg_atomDigital Disruption with Geoff Nielson Discover how technology is reshaping our lives and livelihoods.Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

In the summer of 1950, the physicist Enrico Fermi and some colleagues at the Los Alamos Lab in New Mexico were walking to lunch, and casually discussing flying saucers, when Fermi blurted out “But where is everybody?” He was not the first to pose the question, and the precise phrasing is disputed, but the mystery he was referring to remains compelling.We appear to live in a vast universe, with billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars, mostly surrounded by planets, including many like the Earth. The universe appears to be 13.7 billion years old, and even if intelligent life requires an Earth-like planet, and even if it can only travel and communicate at the speed of light, we ought to see lots of evidence of intelligent life. But we don’t. No beams of light from stars occluded by artificial satellites spelling out pi. No signs of galactic-scale engineering. No clear evidence of little green men demanding to meet our leaders.Numerous explanations have been advanced to explain this discrepancy, and one man who has spent more brainpower than most exploring them is the always-fascinating Anders Sandberg. Anders is a computational neuroscientist who got waylaid by philosophy, which he pursues at Oxford University, where he is a senior research fellow.Topics in this episode include:* The Drake equation for estimating the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy* Changes in recent decades in estimates of some of the factors in the Drake equation* The amount of time it would take self-replicating space probes to spread across the galaxy* The Dark Forest hypothesis - that all extraterrestrial civilizations are deliberately quiet, out of fear* The likelihood of extraterrestrial civilizations emitting observable signs of their existence, even if they try to suppress them* The implausibility of all extraterrestrial civilizations converging to the same set of practices, rather than at least some acting in ways where we would notice their existence - and a counter argument* The possibility of civilisations opting to spend all their time inside virtual reality computers located in deep interstellar space* The Aestivation hypothesis, in which extraterrestrial civilizations put themselves into a "pause" mode until the background temperature of the universe has become much lower* The Quarantine or Zoo hypothesis, in which extraterrestrial civilizations are deliberately shielding their existence from an immature civilization like ours* The Great Filter hypothesis, in which life on other planets has a high probability, either of failing to progress to the level of space-travel, or of failing to exist for long after attaining the ability to self-destruct* Possible examples of "great filters"* Should we hope to find signs of life on Mars?* The Simulation hypothesis, in which the universe is itself a kind of video game, created by simulators, who had no need (or lacked sufficient resources) to create more than one intelligent civilization* Implications of this discussion for the wisdom of the METI project - Messaging to Extraterrestrial IntelligenceSelected follow-up reading:* Anders' website at FHI Oxford: https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/team/anders-sandberg/* The Great Filter, by Robin Hanson: http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/greatfilter.html* "Seventy-Five Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life" - a book by Stephen Webb: https://link.sprDigital Disruption with Geoff Nielson Discover how technology is reshaping our lives and livelihoods.Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

An area of technology that has long been anticipated is Extended Reality (XR), which includes Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR). For many decades, researchers have developed various experimental headsets, glasses, gloves, and even immersive suits, to give wearers of these devices the impression of existing within a reality that is broader than what our senses usually perceive. More recently, a number of actual devices have come to the market, with, let's say it, mixed reactions. Some enthusiasts predict rapid improvements in the years ahead, whereas other reviewers focus on disappointing aspects of device performance and user experience.Our guest in this episode of London Futurists Podcast is someone widely respected as a wise guide in this rather turbulent area. He is Steve Dann, who among other roles is the lead organiser of the highly popular Augmenting Reality meetup in London.Topics discussed in this episode include:*) Steve's background in film and television special effects*) The different forms of Extended Reality*) Changes in public understanding of virtual and augmented reality*) What can be learned from past disappointments in this field*) Prospects for forthcoming tipping points in market adoption*) Comparisons with the market adoption of smartwatches and of smartphones*) Forecasting incremental improvements in key XR technologies*) Why "VR social media" won't be a sufficient reason for mass adoption of VR*) The need for compelling content*) The particular significance of enterprise use cases*) The potential uses of XR in training, especially for medical professionals*) Different AR and VR use cases in medical training - and different adoption timelines*) Why an alleged drawback of VR may prove to be a decisive advantage for it*) The likely forthcoming battle over words such as "metaverse"*) Why our future online experiences will increasingly be 3D*) Prospects for open standards between different metaverses*) Reasons for companies to avoid rushing to purchase real estate in metaverses*) Movies that portray XR, and the psychological perception of "what is real"*) Examples of powerful real-world consequences of VR experiences.Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain DeclarationSelected follow-up reading:https://www.meetup.com/augmenting-reality/https://www.medicalrealities.com/aboutDigital Disruption with Geoff Nielson Discover how technology is reshaping our lives and livelihoods.Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify