The Next Billion Seconds with Mark Pesce

Originally broadcast on 20th March, 2025 on Radio New Zealand's  Nine To Noon with host Kathryn Ryan.  Christie's held its first auction of AI-generated art, earning a million dollars. Those AI artworks had been 'trained' from countless images, owned by other people. Is that legal? OpenAI and Google claim that unless they have free right to use - well, basically everything everywhere eve...

Originally broadcast on Radio New Zealand's  Nine to Noon on 13 February 2025  Last week Google amended its ethical AI policies to allow their AI tools to be used in weapons - to preserve 'national security'. They're among the last to embrace a new market for their products - defense and weapons. Is this a new thing? Or is tech simply returning to its roots as a service industry for the...

"How did you go bankrupt?" begins the oft-quoted line from Hemingway. "Two ways. Gradually - then suddenly." That's how the automotive sector feels at the end of 2024, with Nissan maybe preparing for bankruptcy and Stellantis firing its CEO and VW struggling with strikes and low sales and GM shuttering Cruise and on and on and on. Sally Dominguez and Drew Smith join Mark Pesce in studio to explore...

In 2018, Nick Hazell founded v2food - an amazing startup making plant-based substitutes for meat that got extensive coverage on THE NEXT BILLION SECONDS. Six years later, it's getting difficult to find their product on supermarket shelves - and there's been a broader roll-back from plant-based alternatives. What's happened? Nick Hazel doesn't have all the answers - but he asks some of the right qu...

The impacts of global heating have become persistent and profound, so we need to do as much as we can to lesson those impacts, as quickly as we can. The best paths forward lean into existing, natural processes - and this is exactly where Nick Hazell has arrived with Algenie. Can algae restore balance to our ecosystem? Is it the moonshot we need to transform our future? See omnystudio.com/listener...

In this final year in review episode, Sally Dominguez, Drew Smith and Mark Pesce address the big, smelly elephant in the room: The change of government - and direction - over in the United States of America. Could massive tariffs plus 'drill, baby, drill' together land a knockout punch on the US EV industry? Plus - predictions for 2025. We're bringing the year to a thrilling close on this episode...

Whenever Mark, Sal and Drew get together, sparks will fly. So much has happened since our visit to CES 2024, we reckoned it time to draw all the year's threads together: Are we pulling back from EVs? Will China dominate manufacturing? And what about all that data vehicles are collecting? It's been full on - enough to require a bit of a 'group hug'. Part one of two. Sign up for 'The Practical Futur...

The $100,000,000,000 Lie — “In 2016, Tesla CEO Elon Musk instructed his team of engineers to 'hard code' the first demo of what would become 'Full Self Driving'. A faked video drove panic across the entire automotive sector, leading to massive (and mostly failed) investments in technologies for autonomy.”     See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Next Billion Cars co-host Drew Smith... has something to say.  Sign up for 'The Practical Futurist' newsletter here Hosted by Drew Smith, Sally Dominguez and futurist Mark Pesce, The Next Billion Cars is everything you need to know about the future of Cars. For more information about this podcast and The Next Billion Seconds, please visit https://nextbillionseconds.com. The Next Billion Second...

The Next Billion Cars co-host Sally Dominguez examines at the data hungry nature of modern vehicles. What does privacy look like in the age of 'artificial intimacy'?  You have nothing to hide, right? Sign up for 'The Practical Futurist' newsletter here Hosted by Drew Smith, Sally Dominguez and futurist Mark Pesce, The Next Billion Cars is everything you need to know about the future of Cars. For m...

  Sign up for 'The Practical Futurist' newsletter here Hosted by award-winning podcast creator, journalist & futurist Mark Pesce, The Next Billion Seconds is everything you need to know about the future — so you can make the best decisions today. The rate of change we are experiencing is the fastest humanity has ever seen. Stay informed as Mark simplifies the complex technological and societal...

A special episode of The Next Billion Cars with Drew Smith and Mark Pesce - car brand ZEEKR: HOW DOES A NEW BRAND SURVIVE? With Gustaf Gunér - head of brand, Zeekr Design.    Sign up for 'The Practical Futurist' newsletter here. In this series of THE NEXT BILLION SECONDS we'll explore the enormous changes that are taking place right now - almost everywhere we look. Because things are moving fast....

Sign up for 'The Practical Futurist' newsletter here. In this series of THE NEXT BILLION SECONDS we'll explore the enormous changes that are taking place right now - almost everywhere we look. Because things are moving fast. The future has suddenly become the present. Hosted by award-winning podcast creator, journalist & futurist Mark Pesce, The Next Billion Seconds is everything you need to k...

Live at SXSW: A Fine Line between technology and anthropology with Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau, CEO and Publisher of MIT Technology Review Ever since the release of ChatGPT it's changed how we think about what we can do. That revelation continues unrolling across a vast front...Students getting ChatGPT to write their essays... Teachers writing prompts, constructing densely detailed historical world...

On this episode, we stare into the abyss of one of our deepest fears - that AI has suddenly made us all obsolete. Or has it? Sign up for 'The Practical Futurist' newsletter here. In this series of THE NEXT BILLION SECONDS we'll explore the enormous changes that are taking place right now - almost everywhere we look. Because things are moving fast. The future has suddenly become the present. Hosted...

On this episode, we look at what's happened to one of the most important areas of the economy - the semiconductor industry. The very few firms who make the chips that power our civilisation - TSMC, Apple, AMD and Nvidia... There's been a massive shift. And now, sadly, a massive natural disaster. They're related. We'll explore why, on episode of THE NEXT BILLION SECONDS. Sign up for 'The Practical...

Sign up for 'The Practical Futurist' newsletter here. We've tacitly adopted the four-day week from two directions... The Future has arrived... The last two years have seen more change and the previous 20. Are we ready for that? In this series of THE NEXT BILLION SECONDS we'll explore the enormous changes that are taking place right now - almost everywhere we look. Because things are moving fast. T...

Sign up for 'The Practical Futurist' newsletter here The Future has arrived... The last two years have seen more change and the previous 20. Are we ready for that? In this series of THE NEXT BILLION SECONDS we'll explore the enormous changes that are taking place right now - almost everywhere we look. Because things are moving fast. The future has suddenly become the present. Hosted by award-winni...

Science fiction legend Vernor Vinge inspired the title of this podcast - and his influence extends far beyond fiction. His novella "True Names" gave readers a first taste of the metaverse, and in a 1993 talk for NASA, Vinge described a 'technological singularity' - a time when computers get so good so fast that they 'run away' from human control. It's a scenario that haunts every big company worki...

Mark started working with cryptocurrencies back in 2014. Ten years at the coalface has convinced him that - despite incredible promise - cryptocurrencies are pwned by gamblers and grifters. After a decade advising financial institutions, regulators and cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, Mark explains why he's chosen to leave it all behind - and might never mention cryptocurrencies publicly again. For m...

Despite some new car announcements from Honda, this year's Consumer Electronics Show reveals a stagnant automotive sector that seems to have lost its way in the transition to EVs. Co-host Sally Dominguez, Special Correspondent Drew Smith and Mark Pesce find a few bones to pick with the future on offer in Las Vegas - but a surprise from Sharp left the team smelling roses. It's Las Vegas, baby - wit...

The Consumer Electronics Show is one of the biggest conventions in the world, featuring gadgets of every size and description. It’s also the most important car show in the world. Cohost Sally Dominguez, special correspondent Drew Smith and host Mark Pesce share some of their highs and lows of this year’s show.  For more information about this podcast and The Next Billion Seconds, please visit http...

The year of 'brolectrification', artificial intelligence working its way into car dashboards, a Chinese EV invasion - and Cybertruck's domination. At the end of 2023, what have we learned? Co-host Sally Dominguez and Special Correspondent Drew Smith sit down with Mark Pesce to augur the entrails of a very weird year, then look forward to the 2024 Consumer Electronics Show. On this final episode of...

RESHARE! Thanks to Paddy Dhanda for having Mark Pesce on his Podcast Superpowers school - we're happy to be sharing here!  🎧  Follow Superpowers School Podcast on: 👉  Apple 👉  Spotify 👉  YouTube 👉  Newsletter In this exclusive interview,  Mark Pesce  shares his journey of writing his new book published by the BCS, " Getting Started with ChatGPT and AI Chatbots ." He was inspired by the realis...

Autonomous agents - computer programs that can think and act for themselves - have been an impossible dream for almost forty years. Suddenly, they're easy to create - and being weaponised as agents of mass disinformation. In this final of our three-part miniseries on AI, we look at the power - and peril - of autonomous agents, a technology that will play a huge role in our NEXT BILLION SECONDS. On...