Ecosystemic Futures

Civilization came together when people agreed on a shared "code" about building communities and cities. Today, some believe there is a need for a new layer of accountable, transparent, and contestable code - to support our digitally-enabled society. Join us for a conversation with Ben Cerveny, President and Founder of the Foundation for Public Code, an organization helping public institutions develop and maintain public code in a tech-empowered society.   While it may seem that tech giants have the edge on developing systems at scale - the public sector can assume a leading role in the development of public code, and inform beneficial future pathways for society. Barcelona, Estonia, Taiwan, and Ukraine have all created public code-based efforts - in this episode we delve into these innovative efforts that are paving the way with ecosystemic methodologies, protocols, and community engagement programs.   Guest: Ben Cerveny, President & Chairman of the Board for Foundation for Public Code   Co-Hosts: Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO, Shoshin Works Mark Stephen Meadows, Science Fiction Writer / Researcher for CAS, NASA   Series Hosts: Vikram Shyam, Lead Futurist, NASA Glenn Research Center Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO, Shoshin Works  

How do you solve the problem of trust? Confidence is a prerequisite for large-scale adoption. With the deluge of speculation about Generative AI, organizations everywhere are establishing regulations and certifications to solve for fidelity, trust, and assurance. We're also seeing substantial debate regarding the viability of such efforts at this stage in the adoption of AI-empowered capabilities. Guest Emre Kazim is the co-Founder and co-CEO of Holistic AI, a hot startup empowering organizations to adopt and scale AI with confidence - which at its core, is solving the problem of trust. Emre shares an overview of the current ecosystems within and across the AI landscape - policy, industry, and society... federal, state, and local levels of activity. The path to AI governance is heating up and challenges us to answer the difficult questions - who will be the ultimate arbiter of trust and what are those entities' self-interests; what trade-offs are made and tolerated within AI-enabled systems of trust; what gaps exist between AI-powered capabilities, regulations, and policy... As you might suspect, the proximity of policy-making to the development of the capabilities they govern is key. Controlling the harm depends upon understanding the specific use case, the context of use, and the underlying layers of operability and interoperability - enabling a more precise assessment of the corresponding risk. Steady experimentation in practical, tangible use cases are the path forward enabling the real shift possible with AI.  At the core - trust comes from confidence, and confidence comes from using these systems over time. Good governance will come from the same ecosystem that innovated these capabilities. Guest: Emre Kazim, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Holistic AI Co-Hosts: James Villarrubia, White House Presidential Innovation Fellow & Digital Strategist for CAS, NASA G. Edward Powell, PhD, CEO, TensorX, Inc Series Hosts: Vikram Shyam, Lead Futurist, NASA Glenn Research Center Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO, Shoshin Works

Join our co-hosts and guest Jan Bunge, Director at Squint/Opera, who has built global partnerships and leveraged advanced technologies to support large city planning projects. This episode delves into the benefits of leveraging virtual experience twins to help establish alignment and trust within diverse stakeholder networks. We explore the unique ways that AI can help simplify complexity and accelerate outcomes - while affording the flexibility needed for evolving priorities. This insightful discussion cuts through the hype of advanced technologies to offer practical examples, use cases, and suggestions to help avoid some of the traps that ensnare adopters of these powerful tools. Guest: Jan Bunge, Director, Squint/Opera Co-Hosts: Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO, Shoshin Works Mark Stephen Meadows, Science Fiction Writer / Researcher for CAS, NASA Series  Hosts: Vikram Shyam, Lead Futurist, NASA Glenn Research Center Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO, Shoshin Works

We have to remember AI does not think like humans and it's risky to attribute too much understanding and knowledge to AI solutions - especially when used in healthcare scenarios.   Guest technologist and entrepreneur Steve Schwartz provides an overview of the evolution of AI for a non-technical audience - sharing insights from a healthcare perspective on AI's capability, bias concerns, and how to use AI within a layered approach for truly powerful partnerships between people and technology.   Guest: Steve Schwartz, Startup Founder and CTO, Owner at Alfa Jango   Co-Hosts: G. Edward Powell, PhD, CEO, TensorX, Inc James Villarrubia, White House Presidential Innovation Fellow & Digital Strategist for CAS, NASA   Series Hosts: Vikram Shyam, Lead Futurist, NASA Glenn Research Center Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO, Shoshin Works   Shownotes: Link to Steve Schwartz' AI for Non-technical Investors presentation https://youtu.be/FngMleT_A_U

Technology and AI are changing the calculus on which categories of work are assigned to human versus digital agents. Co-hosts James Villarrubia and Dyan Finkhousen connect with Richard Susskind, President of the Society for Computers and Law to discuss his perspective on the history of AI and how it's informing potential futures for all professions. Guest: Richard Susskind, President, Society for Computers and Law Co-Hosts: James Villarrubia, White House Presidential Innovation Fellow & Digital Strategist for CAS, NASA Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO, Shoshin Works  

Media outlets love to amplify AI hype with fear, yet humanity also has much to gain from thoughtful, intentional application of AI. What will it take for industry, society, and governments to shift to human-centric AI?  In this episode we connect with technologist Phil D. Hall who started working with the first iterations of AI in the early '80s, and today focuses on highly contextualized healthcare AI systems. Guest: Phil D. Hall, CTO CareEnabler from SeraCares Co-Hosts: Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO, Shoshin Works Mark Stephen Meadows, Science Fiction Writer / Researcher for CAS, NASA

AIming for Economic Antifragility With economic resilience elusive - what role, if any, can regulation play in unlocking innovation? What is the ecosystemic impact of regulation?    Join our co-hosts as they explore the role of AI in our economy with Professor Luke Froeb, former Chief Economist at the US Department of Justice and at the Federal Trade Commission.   This episode packs heady and hard-hitting perspectives on a full spectrum of economic implications - the need for regulation in the AI ecosystem; surprising correlations between Generative AI and the Search Engine market; funding and development of AI models; the future of intellectual property rights within the context of large language models and generative AI; and the hype and potential promise of the current inflection point with Generative AI.    Guest: Luke Froeb, Professor at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management   Co-Hosts: G. Edward Powell, PhD, CEO, TensorX, Inc James Villarrubia, White House Presidential Innovation Fellow & Digital Strategist for CAS, NASA

Transformational or transitional? Will AI elevate humanity, or exploit? This season of the Ecosystemic Futures podcast investigates the potential, practicalities, and perils of AI applications in society, industry, and policy.  Join co-hosts Dyan Finkhousen, Mark Stephen Meadows, Ed Powell, and James Villarrubia as they frame a pragmatic exploration of the history of AI, and the potential futures it may unlock.

This episode of the Ecosystemic Futures podcast delivers the capstone on what have been an extraordinary first two seasons. These two brilliant seasons explored the undeniable fact that ‘The Future is Ecosystemic and Interconnected’... Establishing a new way - an ecosystemic way - of understanding our dynamic world and how to thrive within it. These first 45 conversations delivered a bounty of universal truths and strategic surprises: from the role of trust and ethics in society; bio-inspired models; ‘Strategic Surprise’ and systemic thinking to help shirk conventional norms; and the critical importance of designing for systemic resilience. An exceptionally diverse, prismatic collection of perspectives devoted to defining new horizons for humanity, industry, and policy... each conversation reinforcing that the world is increasingly interconnected and ecosystemic - and that we have a unique, generational opportunity to optimize performance and elevate the human experience... through intentional, ecosystemic design. The Ecosystemic Futures Podcast is provided by Shoshin Works in collaboration with NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration Convergent Aeronautics Solutions Project - connecting with the world’s brilliant minds with wicked opportunities to help us better innovate, operate, and navigate in our increasingly connected world.

Concluding this series on space, this episode of The Ecosystemic Futures Podcast focuses on the industrial and societal pathways for the space economy. The conversation explores the new, much more expansive, frame for what's possible as we consider the operationalization of space. In this new frontier - geographic borders no longer offer clear boundaries for frameworks like economic system governance and security infrastucture. The development of in situ resource utilization and other foundational capabilities will begin to pave the way for the accessibility, affordability and sustainability of this next horizon for humanity.   Guest: Isaac Arthur, Futurist and host of the popular youtube channel ‘Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur’ Co-hosts: Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO, Shoshin Works Vikram Shyam, Lead Futurist, NASA Glenn Research Center Series Host: Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO, Shoshin Works and Ecosystemic Futures With an emphasis on space exploration and the future, our guest Isaac Arthur joins our hosts in this fascinating discussion, exploring objectives that may help to prepare us for new outcomes for humanity. Thinking beyond the scope of our planet, the conversation explores innovative practices and the advancement of technologies, encouraging learning and opening our minds up to the realm of possibility.