The Futurists

2023 was the hottest year on record in terms of temperature. ESG, sustainability, clean tech / green tech and corporate responsibility have been hot topics. Are we at war with climate? This week we feature Brett King’s recent sit down in Bangkok, Thailand with former banker, fintech investor and now venture capitalist, Paul Ark, with The Radical Fund, an early-stage VC fund investing in founders who are delivering climate resilience for Southeast Asia. Where are investment dollars going? Climate mitigation (how to prevent the world from getting warmer) and climate adaptation (dealing with a warmer world) and what it means for infrastructure resilience and food insecurity, to name some areas of concern, are top of mind. Climate is a complex systemic issue and requires a buffet of technologies to address, improve and help us reclaim our environment. It’s an enlightening conversation with The Futurists!

Are you certain that every attendee in your Zoom meeting is the person they claim to be? Deep fakes have improved. VFX expert Carl Bogan demonstrates to The Futurists how easy it is to fabricate a persuasive fake persona. Politics and remote work will never be the same again.

Boaz Ashkenazy is the CEO and founder of Simply Augmented. He’s on a mission to equip small and medium sized companies with AI superpowers. Boaz talks to the Futurists about the prospect of fully automated corporations, digitally augmented workforce, and how every company can get started on the process of AI reinvention.

Tech entrepreneur Byron Reese has a pragmatic approach to the future. He has launched several startup companies, exiting three via M&A and two via IPO. He’s also the author of several books, including his newest, Agora. Byron spoke to the Futurists about superintelligence, collective intelligence, super organisms, and emergence. What can human organizations learn from bee hives? The conflict between AI Doomers and the Accelerationists. Why humanity is going to be all right!

In this weeks episode we are joined by Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at John Hopkins – Dr Sabine Stanley – to talk planetary science and her new book. We take a tour though the solar system and then get into the numerous surprises that have unfolded with our recent discoveries of exoplanets outside our solar system. We explore what we might find in a stellar backyard, but more importantly we talk about what we yet might learn about the earth and how planetary systems themselves work.

In this episode, journalist, technologist and entrepreneur Marshall Kirkpatrick joins hosts Brett and Brian to discuss the way AI might change our lives, thinking and philosophy as a species. Marshall dives deep into the way we are learning to integrate AI into our conscious processes, and where it might be useful, and where it might be contentious. In the midst of arguments about the safety of AI and the role it will play in our society, this is a fascinating debate on how your personal AI might change your world.  Bio https://marshallk.com/about-me

Tracey Follows, the author and podcaster of The Future of You, explains how your digital identity will evolve. Custodial or self-sovereign? Centralized or Web3? Big Brother-style surveillance capitalism or liberty? What do we mean by digital identity when there is no government-issued credential?

The hosts of the #1 Futurist Podcast THE FUTURISTS are back to talk emerging Artificial Intelligence regulation from Biden’s latest executive order, the UK and EU positions, and China’s take on AI. We also discuss Marc Andreessen’s TechnoOptimist Manifesto and why the Tech Giants aren’t necessarily the best people to be defining AI regulation.

This week we talk to Alex Tapscott about his new book Web 3, then the hosting team (Rob, Brett and Katie) talk about some of the macro changes within the Web3 & Web3D/Spatial computing space with Meta’s new RayBan smart glasses.

Former CIA undercover operative Valerie Plame exposes the future of espionage and spy craft. The advent of artificial intelligence, especially deep fakes and a flood of disinformation, has made the task of gathering reliable intelligence exponentially more difficult, with big implications for democracies. Listen to this episode to learn about the 17 US intelligence agencies, how 9/11 changed spy craft, the impact of disinformation on civic society and government, how undercover agents cultivate sources, and how artificial intelligence raises the stakes in the effort to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

In this week’s show, we’re joined by Nikolas Badminton, Chief Futurist at Futurist.com and author of Facing Our Futures: How Foresight, Futures Design and Strategy Creates Prosperity and Growth. We discuss what inspired Nik to become a futurist, what’s ahead for professional futurism, the backstory of Futurist.com, protopia and futures thinking towards 2100 and beyond.

Cathy Hackl provides strategic insight about virtual fashion to major brands Nike, Louis Vuitton, Clinique, Walmart and more. She tells The Futurists about the latest trends in spatial computing, immersive 3D entertainment, virtual worlds and the digital style preferences of Gen Alpha. Digital fashion is way, way bigger than buying skins on Fortnite.

Brett and Rob on the latest moves against Big Tech. The Writers Guild strikes a blow against imposed AI. Organized labor versus EVs. The US government brings antitrust suits against Amazon and Google. And a look at what the infamous “Pause AI” petition did and didn’t accomplish.

As AI continues to develop at an unprecedented rate, the laws and regulations surrounding the technology have seemingly fallen behind the times. But can governments be trusted to keep AI in check?

In this weeks show we visit with Eric Edmeades, a philosopher, student of evolutionary biology and a former top 10 ranked professional tennis player. We delve into the habits of tribes in Africa and the Amazon and why their dietary habits show good habits we’ve lost as a result of modern lifestyles, and we debate how tech and science might change human biology over the coming decades.

This week Marc Buckley joins Brett for a fireside chat on the role regenerative techniques hold for the future of the planet. As a member of the World Economic Forum and the UN advisory panel, trained by Al Gore on climate response, Marc has a big role globally in policy setting for the emerging future. But Marc also emphasizes the role that each of us has in creating a sustainable world.

This week journalist and bestselling author of The Guttenburg Parenthesis, What Would Google Do? and Geeks Bearing Gifts, Jeff Jarvis joins us to talk media and content in the AI age. Jarvis is considered one of the Top 100 most influential media leaders (WEF/Davos). He believes AI’s impact on our society will be as impactful as the printing press, and helps us understand how institutions and society will likely adapt. We forget the lessons of the past at our future’s peril.

In this week’s TF we interview a key attorney representing AI companies in current copyright battles taking place in courts in the US and around the world. Amir Ghavi is an Intellectual Property and Tech attorney for Fried Frank. We get into policy, precedent, and the likely future of AI from a legal perspective. It might surprise you.

On this weeks episode of The Futurists we engage with Metaverse futurist Dr. Martha Boeckenfeld all the way from Switzerland. Robert and Martha get deep into the debate of what is the Metaverse, and where do we go after lackluster performance from the likes of Meta. Brett tries to play referee.

This week on The Futurists we get to engage with one of the world’s foremost experts in hydrology, the study of Water, and the relationship of water to emerging climate change. Gleick is considered one of the world’s foremost experts in the arena, and while things look bleak in the medium term, we get solidly into the long future of water and the tools at our disposal for water mitigation and geo-engineering. We also check out Peter’s latest book the Three Ages of Water BIO – https://www.gleick.com/#about 

Josh Bernoff’s entire career as an analyst and author has been focused on the future. In this episode The Futurists discuss forecasting: What is the difference between strategic insight and tactical decisions? Why is is so difficult to predict the timing of forecasts? Why organizations have a bias towards the status quo, and why futurists have a bias towards change. Josh explains how summarizing “What It Means” can bring a liberating clarity to forecasts and strategic plans.

Jim Rutt solves complex future problems by taking action. When we say complex, we mean very complex!. A pioneer of networked society since 1980, Jim launched the world’s first online community, and later led Network Solutions and the Santa Fe Institute. In this episode of the Futurists, the discussion moves fluidly from theory to practice as Jim explains his Game B initiative with colorful language and fresh insight. Topics include: complexity science, applied artificial intelligence, the importance of the number zero, the failures of governance mechanisms, the doom loop of money-on-money return, and why we need a system that is focused on optimizing human wellbeing within planetary limits.

Michael Margolis, founder and CEO of Storied, is an expert in constructing intentional narratives about the future. The stories Michael tells are not about people but, rather, about products and technology. He has developed a unique approach to navigating digital transformation and change management. This inspiring and provocative episode covers a broad range of topics including the fundamental human need for narrative structure in industry, politics, technology, mass media, machine intelligence, and more. Michael reveals the hidden dynamics of narrative structure that frame our understanding of the world and our shared perception of reality.

AI researcher Monica Anderson guides the Futurists beyond first principles to the zeroth level of science, which is epistemology. Monica argues that science suffers from a kind of cognitive dissonance, relying upon a reductionist approach instead of holistic principles. In this episode, Monica explains why: AI alignment is trivial; malevolent behavior must be intentionally programmed; all problem-solving methodologies break down into two categories; complex problems differ from complicated problems; small syntax models outperform large language models; AI may be more impartial than a jury in court; AI will be required for licensed professions; home-schooled AI will be trained on your home computer; and a lot more.

This week on The Futurists we are joined by renowned journalist and a true renaissance man, Monty Munford. Monty has appeared on the BBC, written for Forbes, The Telegraph and contributed to TechCrunch, Mashable, Fast Company, Huffington Post, Wired, MIT Technology Review, The Independent, The Guardian, Financial Times, and The Times of India. He explains why he’s had to become a futurist to do his day job better, and why tech continues to be so disruptive to our social order.

On this weeks futurist we have the return of New York Times Bestselling Author, Kevin J Anderson. In this week’s episode Kevin takes on a journey as to how technology has dramatically changed his connection with his readers for the publication of new books, including multiple very successful Kickstarter campaigns. We talk writing for the Dune and Start Wars Universes, and dive into Dan Shambles, the detective every zombie needs.

Legendary sci fi author, astrophysicist, and NASA advisor David Brin rejoins the Futurists for a special first anniversary show. Topics include: Wall Street’s insatiable AIs, Karl Marx and capitalism, the magic of competition, Hollywood tropes, self-preventing prophecies, the flaw in Asimov’s laws of robotics and hope for a positive sum game.

This week The Futurists speak with Jennifer Pahlka, the founder of Code for America. Jennifer served in Barack Obama’s White House as the US Deputy Chief Technology Officer where she launched the US Digital Service. In this episode, Jennifer reveals the tactics to surmount the myriad obstacles that thwart government agencies when they seek to deploy digital technology to improve the delivery of services to citizens.

Society has grown more complex and more polarized. That increases the likelihood of complicated disputes. How is the legal industry evolving to deal with hyperconnected society? Dr. Cain Elliott tells the Futurists how the legal profession is digitizing to move faster and operate more efficiently. But the motivation to change is coming from clients, not from attorneys. Topics: the broken business model of legal services, the political and regulatory barriers to change, the transformative potential of legal tech.

Theo Priestley is a Futurist based in Scotland and he’s mentored Silicon Valley startups, has written hundreds of articles on AI, IoT, Web3, Metaverse, Fintech and he’s the author of “The Future Starts Now” . He has a habit of making some big bets on the future, but also he’s not afraid to put out his thoughts on the future as they develop. Priestley is a contrarian at heart though, and his futurist lens comes from the conflict between technological advancements, policy development and human nature. It’s not always clear which of these will win out as the future unfolds, and Priestley is not afraid to play off this uncertainty.

This week on the Futurists, Dan Jeffries, Managing Director of the AI Infrastructure Alliance and CIO at Stability.AI talks the doomsayers attacking ChatGPT, and the overblown fear over AI. Jeffries argues there are historical precedents for human adaptation to the disruptive technology of AI, but that learning to live with another intelligence might be a bit more challenging.

This week on the Futurists we catch up with Fox/CNBC tech commentator Shelly Palmer as we dive into the implications of ever pervasive technology in our lives. Shelly, has been following consumer trends for 2 decades and is a mainstay at events like CES, but he says AI is a different sort of beast. We dive into how technology will augment and change our lives moving forward.

This week on The Futurists we get into the future of cybercrime and personal security in the smart world with renowned “security guru” Bruce Schneier. The author of over a dozen books (his latest bestseller being “A Hacker’s Mind”), Lecturer on Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, Congressional advisor and Media personality. Will AI and Quantum kill passwords? How secure will your DNA records be? The answers might surprise you. https://www.schneier.com/blog/about/

Julian Bleecker of the Near Future Laboratory has developed a novel way to forecast: he constructs prototypes, products and artifacts from future scenarios. Then he designs the marketing material, including ad campaigns and brochures and catalogs, to interrogate the wider impact on consumer society and human behavior. These techniques are set forth in Julian’s book, The Manual of Design Fiction: A Practical Guide to Exploring The Near Future. https://www.nearfuturelaboratory.com/

Chief Futurist for one of the largest consulting practices on the planet, Kasey Lobaugh joins the futurists this week to talk about the building blocks for the worlds of tomorrow. While at Deloitte, Kasey has spearheaded research into the next level of disruptive innovations and technologies that are reshaping business. When talking AI Kasey maintains that this is unlike any other innovation wave we’ve ever faced and that large scale technounemployment is a real possibility.

What happens when society is subject to accelerated change? Now we know: uncertainty and widespread panic. March 2023 was the month when the old systems began to collapse and entirely new systems were launched. In one month we experienced a viral run on banks, the launch of AI superpowers, and the exposure of systematic deceit at a major news publisher. In this special edition of The Futurists, co-hosts Brett King and Robert Tercek review current events through the lens of the future. Who profits from uncertainty and confusion? How do the merchants of doubt leverage social and traditional media to undermine faith in conventional norms and governance? Can the trustworthiness of machine learning systems be certified? By whom? Discussion topics include: democracy versus autocracy in a time of rapid change; the business of social inequality; the failure of Silicon Valley Bank; lies and manipulation at Fox News; the false dichotomy of political parties; the inaccuracy of ChatGPT; the advent of robotic corporations in the clouds; why it’s more profitable to break consensus than to build it; and the greater chaos is yet to come.

In this weeks episode of The Futurists we talk to author Gunjan Bagla, a leading figure in India-US trade relationships and commerce. Bagla argues that while China is seen as a massive threat to the US, India is a natural ally of the west having supported outsourcing over the last 4 decades, and being more aligned on policy. But like China, India has big ambitions and will overtake China as the most populous nation this decade. Will that translate into economic growth or does India need infrastructure investment to level up as a global economic powerhouse?

Co-hosts Brett King and Robert Tercek interview journalist Dean Takahashi, who has been covering innovation in the game industry for three decades. Dean gives The Futurists a post-CES roundup of new trends and genres that span a dizzying array of evolving technologies.  Games have expanded beyond a niche category of entertainment to dominate mainstream media. Games now foster new story franchises that attract tens of millions of fans daily. Dean explains how game tech is blurring the boundaries between the classic game industry and other media, such as motion pictures and television series. He tells us why game developers are most likely to lead the way into the metaverse. And he anticipates interoperable game economies where any player can also be a creator of generative worlds that are photorealistic. Topics include: core gamers, casual games, free-to-play, cloud gaming, blockchain games, VR and AR, Roblox, Fortnite, PUBG, digital twins and game communities.  Websites:  @DeanTak on Twitter GamesBeat.com VentureBeat.com

Co-hosts Brett King and Rob Tercek speak with medical futurist Dr. Daniel Kraft on the topic of exponential health care. Kraft reports that we’ve entered a decade-long era of rapid innovation that began with the pandemic. Covid-19 accelerated progress in health care from incremental to exponential, including: vaccines derived from messenger RNA, consumerized health care and home diagnostic kits, loosening of regulation to allow telemedicine, and innovation in payments. What’s next: hybrid care, AI medical chatbots, the “mediverse”, advanced sensors, DNA sequencing, the Big Data shift from quantified self to quantified health, advances in wearables, “predictalytics”, the advantages of crowdsourcing actionable data, democratization and equity in global health care, medical tricorders, 3D printed medications and foods, “humanized” pigs. Daniel extends an invitation to listeners to visit his event www.NextMed.Health and to access the free resources at www.Digital.Health https://danielkraftmd.net/

Anders Sorman-Nilsson is a Swedish futurist living in Australia, but he believes that humanity is on the cusp of a new renaissance where humanity finds purpose beyond consumption and market profit. He calls out human systems that are coming to a natural conclusion due to this emerging thinking, including the damage that fossil fuel companies and others have done to our ecosystem in the name of profits. Ultimately, Anders is an optimist but he thinks that human behavior and technological leaps and bounds don’t necessarily align, but it’s navigating the conflict between our long-held traditions, global conflicts, and climate disasters, along with our rapidly advancing technical capabilities that will define humanity for centuries to come. We get deep on this one…

In this episode, creative technologist Roger Holzberg recounts his personal career journey from the Imagineering studio at the Walt Disney Company, where he devised and built original theme park rides, to his second career as where he applies immersive technology to health care and healing, first at the National Cancer Institute and now as a med tech innovator at Reimagine Well.  Roger explains the subtle art of balancing new technologies with real world events and the ever-evolving customer experience. Discussion topics include: designing deep futures, the use case for virtual reality and augmented reality, dealing with animated dolphins, lessons from Walt Disney’s Imagineering, visualization tech in cancer treatment and research, the use of distraction therapy, healthcare by design, teaching the art of world building, turning students in Imagineers, environmental sustainability.   https://reimaginewell.com/

In the past, innovation in agriculture lagged behind consumer electronics and telecoms. Today, that’s changing. As food futurist Tony Hunter explains, food is technology. In this episode, Hunter shares his view of tech-fueled advances in food production and distribution around the world. Topics include: supply chain disruption, new tech for farming, strategies for waste reduction, changes to food supply caused by the pandemic, the distinction between food security and food sovereignty, alternative proteins like lab-grown meat, vertical farming using hydroponics, genomics, microbiome, cellular agriculture, synthetic biology, plant molecular farming, how computing technologies like artificial intelligence accelerate innovation. If you’re interested in the future, then you really must tune into the changes afoot in the food industry. As Tony explains, food and drink are the only absolute non-discretionary items for daily human needs. https://www.FuturistForFood.com

This week Brian Solis joins Brett in the hosting chair as Srujana Kaddevarmuth from Walmart labs joins the Futurists to delve into the future of in store and online interactions for the retail giant. From future store design, warehouse robotics through to data science and AI, we cover the gamut of possibilities of 21st century commerce.

This week on The Futurists our hosts interview Charlie Melcher, the founder of The Future of Storytelling.  Charlie recounts the many ways that the ancient practice of storytelling is evolving in an era of immersive and interactive media. He is also a book publisher who uses innovations in printing technology to reinvent the 5000-year-old medium for contemporary audiences and he speculates about the future evolution of the craft of meaning-making.  Web site: Www.thefutureofstorytelling.Org

In this episode, David Mattin, creator of New World Same Humans, talks to the Futurists about his simple but phenomenally powerful technique for forecasting: he uses fundamental human needs as the lens that brings emerging technology and behavior trends into crisp focus. Our discussion topics include: generative AI, the value of human creativity, virtual humans, digital companions, large language models, Meta’s struggle to control Galactica, storytelling and trend forecasting, the four big story templates that describe the future, and the eternal quest for status as a driver for human behavior.  Learn more at New World Same Humans https://newworldsamehumans.com/

In this episode we ask one of the OG’s of crypto, Bill Barhydt, to join us on The Futurists to talk the 2022 crypto collapse, the merits of crypto and blockchain for the future-world, and how crypto, stablecoins, tokens, NFTs and CBDCs will ba battle it out for the emerging monetary rails of the 21st century. We also debate who Satoshi Nakomoto was, why ‘he’ created bitcoin, and what the collapse of FTX and other exchanges mean for the principles of decentralization that the crypto community holds so dear. https://www.linkedin.com/in/billbar

This week we interview the phenomenal Aubrey De Grey, the world’s foremost authority on longevity and developing strategies to slow or eliminate aging altogether. The author of The Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging (1999) and Ending Aging (2007), De Grey is probably best known for the concept of Longevity Escape Velocity, a view that soon medical technology will enable human beings to prevent age-related deterioration, and eventually eliminated aging entirely.

A look at the trends that will shape the workplace of the future: flexibility, the expanding 1099 workforce, the Great Resignation, the gig economy, telework, remote collaboration, placeless employment, automation, robotics, the rebound in union membership, breaking social contract. Wither the American Dream? According to Future of Work expert Sophie Wade, humans need more autonomy and empathy in the workplace order to achieve their best. In this episode we explore how technology might make that possible. Sophie Wade, Work Futurist, Flexcel Network Website: https://www.sophiewade.com/ Website: https://www.flexcelnetwork.com/ Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Wade Twitter:  https://twitter.com/asophiewade

In this week’s episode we talk to Dave Birch, the author of “Before Babylon, Beyond Bitcoin”, The Currency Cold War, and Identity is the New Money about all things identity, digital assets and the future of Crypto. Dave is one of the world’s preeminent experts on payments tech globally as well. But when we get into how AIs will make payments and hold bank accounts, it gets very interesting indeed.

The future of healthcare and machine intelligence, featuring Dr Phillip Alvelda, the founder and chairman of Medio Labs. The pandemic accelerated the introduction of direct-to-consumer healthcare with clinical grade accuracy. Phillip explains how AI will amplify this process by reducing cost to scale. But the prospect of constant surveillance raises other concerns, and that leads to a lively Futurists debate about China’s advances in AI and a new round of US export controls.