Humans in the Loop

I sat down with Paul Kedrosky - investor, researcher and one of the smartest voices out there on the economics of AI and the risks of a bubble. Here are a few of the questions we talked about: What is a bubble? Is AI a bubble? How does it compare to past bubbles? What would cause the bubble to burst? Why should the average person care? Will we see a bull market in laser tag in all the abandoned da...

How do ideas, however crazy they might seem, spread? Who's a true believer vs. a grifter following the money? Can you talk about Epstein and QAnon without losing your rational mind? How can investigative journalism move with the times? These are just some of the questions I sat down to discuss with award-winning journalist and author James R Ball. He has worked as the global editor of TBIJ, a...

Many of us have a sense that even well-meaning companies and institutions lose their way, sometimes becoming downright evil. Eric Ries is a legend when it comes to building tech companies and his new book is written from the perspective of someone whose been 'on the frontlines in the battle for the soul of our economy'.Incorruptible is a new blueprint for companies that will prosper and en...

How to lift an entire country out of poverty? Does philanthropy make a difference? What if wealthy tech founders gave away their money? Will AI make poor countries even poorer? How does technology help a country to develop? Those are some of the questions discussed into today's episode of Humans in the Loop featuring Nick Allardice, CEO of GiveDirectly, a non-profit that's sent over $1 bil...

China is shaping the world. In direct ways, like innovation, foreign policy, investment. And indirectly, by provoking a response from countries such as the US who see it as a competitor. China's transformation into one of the world's superpowers is the most remarkable transformation of a single country in the history of the world. And yet it's still poorly understood (including by me)....

Henry Shukman is a Zen Master, a meditation teacher, and co-founder of The Way meditation app. As AI poses some hard questions about what it means to be human, I thought Henry might help make some sense of things. Chapters 00:00 Understanding Zen: A Personal Journey 03:52 The Need for Spirituality: A Personal Crisis 10:07 Living Zen in the Modern World 13:36 Navigating Modern Existence: Technology...

My guests today are artists, film makers, educators, technologists and founders of Fuser, a company building an AI workspace for creatives. With so much noise around what AI should or shouldn’t be used for, and where human creativity starts and ends, I wanted to get Dalena and Hirad on to talk more about the creative process in this technological moment. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Fuser and It...

Mike Masnick wrote the paper that helped inspire Bluesky and now he sits on the Bluesky board. A long-time advocate of decentralised tech, Mike's paper 'Protocols not platforms' outlined how a more open protocol-based system to social media would create a healthier social media ecosystem in which people were free to vote with their feet (or their mouse) and go elsewhere, without losing...

Alex Komoroske is one of the smartest voices out there talking about better forms of technology right now. He spent a long chapter of his career at the likes of Google and Stripe and is now the Founder and CEO of Common Tools, working on enabling decentralised technology. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Alex Komoroske's Perspective on Tech 03:39 The Hacker Ethic and Disillusionment in Tech 06:3...

How to describe Kevin Kelly? Founder of Wired Magazine. Writer of industry defining essays like '1000 true fans' - https://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/ Co-chair of The Long Now Foundation encouraging people to think on civilisational timescales Passionate traveller and photographer whose travelled remote parts of Asia for the last 50 years - https://kevin2kelly.myshopify.com/products...

Ed has spent his career thinking systemically about the future and consulting with governments and corporations on topics as varied as the environment, politics, healthcare and education. He's also the co-host of hit podcast 'Jon Richardson and the Futurenauts' alongside comedian Jon Richardson and fellow Futurenaut Mark Stevenson. Given Ed's varied expertise I wasn't quite sur...

Benedikt Lehnert is former design leader at Microsoft and Chief Design Officer at SAP. He's had a seat at the top table in big tech and brings his own clear-eyed perspective based on that experience. I really enjoyed the conversation with Ben as we discussed the role of the designer in this current moment, the moral responsibilities of building business and technology, the hype cycles and weir...

Summary In this conversation, I speak to Kate Armstrong , the Executive Director of InterSpecies Internet , about the latest advancements in how we communicate with animals through technology. Kate emphasizes the importance of planetary kinship and the responsibility humans have as advanced toolmakers to create beneficial tools for other species. The discussion also touches on real-world applicati...

This episode features an OG in the world of internet security, the Godfather of Cybersecurity, Bruce Schneier. Bruce describes himself as a public interest technologist, and has done many things under that banner - run companies, lectured at Harvard, testified before Congress, authored over a dozen books, and written a blog for over 20 years that has more than 250k regular readers - to name just a...

This episode features Sam Stephenson, co-founder of ⁠Granola⁠ - one of the standout UK success stories in AI product building. Sam and I discussed his background as a designer, his journey to becoming a founder, the trajectory of the company so far, and shares his thoughts on designing for human agency and the future of work. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Granola and Its Purpose 02:33 Sam's B...

In this conversation, I speak to William Morgan and Sylvan Rackham, the Co-Founders of Restless Egg , an incubator for Artist Founders, about the intersection of art, technology, and innovation. They discuss the concept of the 'artist founder', the challenges faced by creative technologists, and the need for a supportive infrastructure to foster their ideas. The conversation explores the r...