Carnegie Council Podcasts

The global pandemic and investments in mRNA COVID vaccines have accelerated worldwide interest in the field of synthetic biology—a field that unifies chemistry, biology, computer science, and engineering for the purpose of writing better biological code. In this podcast, Genesis Machine co-author Amy Webb and Senior Fellows Nick Gvosdev and Tatiana Serafin explore how these developments are leading to a new industrial revolution. For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

In this Artificial Intelligence & Equality podcast, Senior Fellow Anja Kaspersen talks with Dr. Ricardo Chavarriaga about the promise and peril of brain-machine interfaces and cognitive neural prosthetics. What are the ethical considerations and governance challenges in using computational tools to create models or enhance our brains? For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org.

Since the Russian invasion began in late February, millions of Ukrainians have been forced to flee their homes. In this Global Ethics Review podcast, Senior Fellow Michael Doyle discusses what this means on the ground in Eastern Europe, what governments are and should be doing to help, and how this refugee stream is different from ones that came before. For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

Global war, inflation, and a COVID-19 resurgence--the Biden/Harris team has been put on defense for first two quarters of 2022. Policies are reactive, promises made a year ago tabled. This week, "Doorstep" co-hosts Nick Gvosdev and Tatiana Serafin reflect on what has happened to the vaunted Biden/Harris "foreign policy for the middle class" and how midterm elections will up-end the narratives the administration expected to put in place. Where do we go from here? For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

The advent of the age of data is a formidable accelerator of history. As society faces a crisis of politics compounded by the emergence of powerful virtual communities competing with territorial communities, are we on the cusp of an earthquake in the history of humanity? In this Artificial Intelligence & Equality podcast, Senior Fellow Anja Kapsersen is joined by Professor Jean-Marie Guéhenno for a thought-provoking conversation about his new book The First XXI Century: From Globalization to Fragmentation. For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

Every time a new technology that collects, stores, and analyzes our data is released to the world or permitted a new role, we are promised that it will work as intended and won't cause undue harm. But writer, professor, and speaker Dr. Chris Gilliard has found that this is rarely how these stories actually end. In this discussion with Senior Fellow Arthur Holland Michel, Dr. Gilliard explains why the arc of surveillance technology and novel "artificial intelligence" bends toward failures that disproportionately hurt society’s most vulnerable groups, what this means for our notions of "responsible tech" and "AI ethics," and what we can do about it moving forward. For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

A leader asking his second in command to keep him in power. A parliament dissolved. A Supreme Court deciding the fate of a nation. Echoes of the January 6 political crisis in the U.S. are reverberating in the current standoff in Pakistan, where "ousted" Prime Minister Imran Khan is blaming the U.S. for conspiring to remove him from power. Atlantic Council's Uzair Younus joins Senior Fellows Nick Gvosdev and Tatiana Serafin to explain a pivotal moment of change in Pakistan and how this may impact autocrats around the world. For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

In this Artificial Intelligence & Equality podcast, Senior Fellow Anja Kaspersen and Katherine Milligan, director the Collective Change Lab, explore what we can learn from the social impact and entrepreneurship movement to govern the potential impact of AI systems. What is systems change and collective sense-making? And why is it relevant to reenvisioning ethics in the information age?  For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org.

In this riveting and wide-ranging conversation, Senior Fellow Anja Kaspersen is joined by HKUST's Professor Pascale Fung to discuss the symbiotic relationship between science fiction and innovation and the importance of re-envisioning ethics in AI research. We may be able to code machines to seem and act more like humans, says Professor Fung, however the ability to question our own existence to understand who we are, are fundamentally human features and cannot be easily or even responsibly encoded. For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org.

From Super Bowl cryptocurrency advertising to Save the Children accepting bitcoin donations, the crypto conversation is now mainstream. Over $100 million so far has been raised via crypto donations to Ukraine's war effort both from official government wallets and individual NFTs.  Will this revolutionize war funding, enable oligarchs to avoid sanctions, or pave the way for broader acceptance of a digital currencies around the world? NYU Stern’s Professor David Yermack returns to discuss these issues and the future of crypto with Carnegie Council Senior Fellows Nick Gvosdev and Tatiana Serafin. For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org.