Tech, Innovation & Society - The Creative Process: Technology, AI, Software, Future, Economy, Science, Engineering & Robotics Interviews

The more the science of intelligence (both human and artificial) advances, the more it holds the potential for great benefits and dangers to society. Max Bennett is the cofounder and CEO of Alby, a start-up that helps companies integrate large language models into their websites to create guided shopping and search experiences. Previously, Bennett was the cofounder and chief product offi­cer of Bl...

How can we resolve conflicts without compromising our ethics and moral vision? Each year, wars are being fought in our name or with our support that citizens never get an opportunity to vote on. How can we make our voices heard? “Warism, taking war for granted as morally acceptable, even morally required, is the primary obstacle to peace.” Duane L. Cady is a philosopher and Professor Emeritus at H...

"We live on the one hand in very exciting times with technological development, but on the other hand, we should also be careful. And I've seen studies showing the effects of screen time on brain development that are worrisome, in my opinion. So as a mother, I continuously engaged in a battle to minimize screen time for my children. Not always successfully because I also understand that the world...

How we think, feel, and experience the world is a mystery. What distinguishes our consciousness from AI and machine learning? Liad Mudrik studies high level cognition and its neural substrates, focusing on conscious experience. She teaches at the School of Psychological Sciences at Tel Aviv University. At her research lab, her team is currently investigating the functionality of consciousness, try...

“Coral reefs are the most biodiverse habitat on the planet, despite covering less than 1 percent of the ocean area, over a quarter of all marine life exists in these rainforests of the sea. And if you think of a coral reef as a rainforest, the trees are the coral themselves. Which are incredible organisms, so, magic is really the right word to describe them. They're these animals that are one of t...

Coral reefs are the most biodiverse habitat on the planet, despite covering less than 1 percent of the ocean. Over a quarter of all marine life exists in these rain forests of the sea. Gator Halpern is the Co-founder and President of Coral Vita, a mission-driven company working to restore our world’s dying coral reefs. He is a lifelong entrepreneur who is passionate about start...

"I think, oftentimes, what'll happen as a trap when we talk about technology. People say, 'Well, what do you think is the future of artificial intelligence? Or what is the future of neural interfaces? Or what is the future of this?' And I always pause them and say, 'Wait a minute. If you're just talking about the technology, you're having the wrong conversation because it's not about the technolog...

Brian David Johnson is Futurist in Residence at Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination, a professor in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society, and the Director of the ASU Threatcasting Lab. He is Author of The Future You: How to Create the Life You Always Wanted,  Science Fiction Prototyping: Designing the Future with Science Fiction, 21st Century Robot:...

"I am the type of person who's endlessly interested in different topics, and that can lead to really fun things. I'm also very worried about the future of humanity. Maybe that's an outgrowth of being a parent. I have three teenagers, and I worry about where AI is headed. We are at a really interesting point in technology, and it's sort of an honor to be alive right now to witness all this. But to...

Will AI become conscious? President Biden has just unveiled a new executive order on AI — the U.S. government’s first action of its kind — requiring new safety assessments, equity and civil rights guidance, and research on AI’s impact on the labor market. With this governance in place, can tech companies be counted on to do the right thing for humanity?  Susan Schneider is a philosopher, arti...

What will the future look like? What are the risks and opportunities of AI? What role can we play in designing the future we want to live in? Voices of philosophers, futurists, AI experts, science fiction authors, activists, and lawyers reflecting on AI, technology, and the Future of Humanity. All voices in this episode are from our interviews for The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast. Voi...

"It's such a difficult and huge, huge, huge issue. And for me, it's absolutely not one-sided. And it's not a simple answer. Anybody who thinks that AI is going to completely save us is fooling themselves. And anybody who thinks that AI is just evil or harmful is also overlooking the very obvious benefits from drug and cancer research and other illnesses. And there are so many things that AI can he...

Lindsey Anderson Beer wrote and executive produced the hit Netflix original dramedy Sierra Burgess is a Loser before making the jump to direct the horror genre with Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, starring Jackson White and Natalie Alyn Lind. The story is based on an untold chapter of Stephen King's self-proclaimed, scariest property of all time. Up next, she will helm Paramount’s Sleepy Hollow reboot a...

But at the same time, the world is building new megacities that are going to house tens of millions of people, and we now have the opportunity to build them for the 21st century. We don't have to follow the same design patterns of the past. So, this now opens up enormous creativity, experimentation, and innovation. One study has found that the single thing that makes people most unhappy in America...

Anthony Leiserowitz, Ph. D. is the founder and Director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and a Senior Research Scientist at the Yale School of the Environment. He is an internationally recognized expert on public climate change beliefs, attitudes, policy support, and behavior, and the psychological, cultural, and political factors that shape them and conducts research globally,...

In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu speaks with Professor Veena Dubal about how such companies have exported globally a technique of algorithmic wage discrimination that pays workers based on data to which they have no access. Owners dangle bonuses before workers but take away work from them as they draw close to achieving their targets; they use psych...

"I'm really very glad. I was happy to see that within my lifetime that the prospects of not just Mars, but in fact interstellar space is being taken seriously. I've been at two conferences where we were talking about building the first starship within this century. One of my later books, Arkwright, is about such a project. I saw that Elon Musk is building Starship One, I wish him all the...

What does the future of space exploration look like? How can we unlock the opportunities of outer space without repeating the mistakes of colonization and exploitation committed on Earth? How can we ensure AI and new technologies reflect our values and the world we want to live in?  Allen Steele is a science fiction author and journalist. He has written novels, short stories, and essays and been a...

"I believe that AI will be an incredibly useful tool. Humanity has endured primarily because of its inherent characteristics. I see things like NFTs and AI and Spotify and file sharing, and there was a time when I moved to New York where I could drift through the empty museum galleries of the moment, and have my epiphanies. Now you go to the same museum, it's like the Tokyo subway. You're, you kno...

How does the mind influence the mind? The mind cannot function without memory. And memory is just the mind aware of itself. So how do images tell us how we see and who we are? Ralph Gibson is one of the most interesting American photographers of our time. His international renown is based on his work, which is shown and collected by some of the world’s leading museums, including the Museum of Mode...

Rob Verchick is one of the nation’s leading scholars in disaster and climate change law and a former EPA official in the Obama administration. He holds the Gauthier-St. Martin Eminent Scholar Chair in Environmental Law at  Loyola University New Orleans. Professor Verchick is also a Senior Fellow in Disaster Resilience at Tulane University and the President of the&nbsp...

But I would also like to see the government really start to restrict new fossil fuel developments because it's been made very clear by the IPCC, by the International Energy Agency, by every scientific paper you could read that promoting new developments is completely incompatible with a safe climate." Now in the 21st century, with an abundance of renewable technologies, why is the world still usin...

Now in the 21st century, with an abundance of renewable technologies, why is the world still using 18th-century energy technology? How can each of us harness our unique skills to help solve the climate crisis? Lesley Hughes is a Distinguished Professor of Biology and Interim Executive Dean of the Faculty of Science & Engineering at Macquarie University. She is an ecologist whose main research...

What happens when we die? What happens to our memories and consciousness when our bodies cease to be?  In the end, is it the things we did and the people we loved that give our lives meaning? Shehan Karunatilaka is the multi-award winning author. He is known for his novels dealing with the history, politics, and folklore of his home country of Sri Lanka. He won the Commonwealth Book Prize and...

What happens when we die? What happens to our memories and consciousness when our bodies cease to be?  In the end, is it the things we did and the people we loved that give our lives meaning? Shehan Karunatilaka is the multi-award winning author. He is known for his novels dealing with the history, politics, and folklore of his home country of Sri Lanka. He won the Commonwealth Book Prize and...