Brave New World - hosted by Vasant Dhar - TopPodcast.com

View Top 200 Chart

Back to Rankings Page

Brave New World — hosted by Vasant Dhar — Technology
Brave New World — hosted by Vasant Dhar

Brave New World is a look into the transformation of humanity by machines in the post-COVID era. It examines a wide range of topics around how technology and “virtualization” of our lives is impacting work, health, faith, emotional well being, government, democracy, and freedom. It is hosted by AI-pioneer Vasant Dhar.

Copyright: © All Rights Reserved

Latest Episodes:

Ep 100: David Ko, From Panic to Purpose Nov 19, 2025

Show notes

Episode 100 of Brave New World features David Ko, CEO of Calm, a digital health company focused on mental wellness and mindfulness. From experiencing panic attacks as a teenager to being the driving force behind Calm, his journey is an inspiring exploration of resilience, purpose, and the intersection of vulnerability and innovation.

Useful Resources: 1. David Ko, CEO of Calm2. Recharge: Boosting Your Mental Battery, One Conversation at a Time - David Ko3. Jonathan Haidt4. Brave New World Episode 08: How Social Media Threatens Society5. Severance6. Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams7. Recharge with David Ko

Order Thinking With Machines: The Brave New World of AI - Vasant Dhar Check out Vasant Dhar's newsletter on Substack. The subscription is free!

Ep 99: Vasant Dhar on Thinking With Machines, Hosted by Joel Roberts Sep 12, 2025

Show notes

Joel Roberts, former host of a prime-time talk show on KABC Radio, Los Angeles, takes over hosting duties to talk Vasant Dhar about his upcoming book and Roberts' own scepticism regarding all things AI.

Useful Resources: 1. Joel Roberts. 2. Thinking With Machines, The Brave New World With AI - Vasant Dhar3. AI and The Paper Clip Problem. 4. Dr. Jules White. 5. Geoffrey Hinton. 6. Yuval Noah Harari. 7. Augmented Intelligence - The Future of Generative AI and Computing. 8. How The Mind Works - Steven Pinker9. Brave New World Episode 94: Anil Seth On The Science of Consciousness. 10. Backpropagation 11. Brave New World Episode 98: There's no I in AI, Ben Shneiderman on The Evolution and State of Artificial Intelligence. 12. Brave New World Episode 97: Alex Wiltschko on Digitizing Scent. 13. Brave New World Episode 81: Alex Wiltschko on The Sense Of Smell.14. Joy Milne. 15. Brave New World Episode 89: Missy Cummings on Making AI Safe. 16. TEDx Talk - When Should We Trust Machines: Vasant Dhar. 17. The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma: Mustafa Suleyman. 18. Luis Elizondo.

Check out Vasant Dhar's newsletter on Substack. The subscription is free!

Ep 98: There's no I in AI, Ben Shneiderman on The Evolution and State of Artificial Intelligence Aug 14, 2025

Show notes

Useful Resources: 1. Ben Shneiderman, Professor Emeritus, University Of Maryland. 2. Richard Hamming and Hamming Codes. 3. Human Centered AI - Ben Shneiderman. 4. Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon. 5. Raj Reddy and the Turing Award. 6. Doug Engelbart. 7. Alan Kay. 8. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 9. Software psychology: Human factors in computer and information systems - Ben Shneiderman. 10. Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction - Ben Shneiderman. 11. Direct Manipulation: A Step Beyond Programming Languages - Ben Shneiderman. 12. Steps Toward Artificial Intelligence - Marvin Minsky. 13. Herbert Gelernter. 14. Computers And Thought - Edward A Feigenbaum and Julian Feldman. 15. Lewis Mumford. 15. Technics and Civilization - Lewis Mumford. 16. Buckminster Fuller. 17. Marshall McLuhan. 18. Roger Shank. 19. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness - Jonathan Haidt. 20. John C. Thomas, IBM. 21. Yousuf Karsh, photographer. 22. Gary Marcus, professor emeritus of psychology and neural science at NYU. 23. Geoffrey Hinton. 24. Nassim Nicholas Taleb. 25. There Is No A.I. - Jaron Lanier. 26. Anil Seth On The Science of Consciousness - Episode 94 of Brave New World. 27. A 'White-Collar Blood Bath' Doesn't Have to Be Our Fate - Tim Wu 28. Information Management: A Proposal - Tim Berners-Lee 29. Is AI-assisted coding overhyped? : METR study 30. RLHF, Reinforcement learning from human feedback31. Joseph Weizenbaum 32. What Is Computer Science? - Allen Newel, Alan J. Perlis, Herbert A. Simon

-- Check out Vasant Dhar's newsletter on Substack. The subscription is free!

Ep 97: Alex Wiltschko on Digitizing Scent Jul 10, 2025

Show notes

Alex Wiltschko, CEO and Founder of Osmo, returns to Brave New World on Episode 97 to discuss the developments in the field of mapping smell and what the future holds for olfactory AI.

Useful Resources: 1. Alex Wiltschko, Founder and CEO of OSMO. 2. Brave New World Episode 81: Alex Wiltschko On The Sense Of Smell. 3. StockX. 4. Gas Chromatography - Mass Spectrometry5. Brave New World Episode 90: Sandeep Robert Datta on Smell and The Brain6. Brave New World Episode 62: Dmitry Rinberg on the Mysteries of Smell7. The Science of Scent, Luca Turin's TED Talk. 8. Graph Neural Network9. Convolutional Networks on Graphs for Learning Molecular Fingerprints; paper by Dougal Maclaurin, David Duvenaud, Alán Aspuru-Guzik10. OSMO AI passes human performance in Odour Turing Test. 11. Giving Computers a Sense of Smell, Alex Wiltschko in conversation with Patrick O'Shaughnessy 12. A principal odour map unifies diverse tasks in olfactory perception, OSMO's paper in Science. 13. First Success, teleporting the scene of a Plum. 14. Generation, OSMO's fragrance company. 15. Industry report by Global Market Insights on the Global Fragrance Market. 16. Glossine, Wizerine and Fractalin; proprietary AI-generated scent molecules 17. An Anthropologist On Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales - Oliver Sacks

Check out Vasant Dhar's newsletter on Substack. The subscription is free!

Pre-order Thinking With Machines: The Brave New World of AI - Vasant Dhar

Ep 96: Deogratias Niyizonkiza, Healing a Nation, One Village at a Time Jun 12, 2025

Show notes

Episode 96 of Brave New World features Deogratias Niyizonkiza in conversation with Vasant Dhar. From surviving the genocide in Burundi to rebuilding lives through healthcare and education, Deo's journey is one of extraordinary resilience and purpose.

Useful Resources:1. Deogratias "Deo" Niyizonkiza, Founder and CEO, Village Health Works. 2. Strength In What Remains - Tracy Kidder. 3. Louis Rwagasore, Burundian Prince and Politician.4. Hutu, Tutsi and Twa, Ethnic Groups In Burundi. 5. The Assassination of Burundian President Melchior Ndadaye. 6. Rwanda Genocide of 1994. 7. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe. 8. Termination of USAID.

Check out Vasant Dhar's newsletter on Substack. The subscription is free!

Pre-order Thinking With Machines: The Brave New World of AI - Vasant Dhar.

Ep 95: Peter Ward On The Evolution Of Life May 08, 2025

Show notes

In Episode 95 of Brave New World, Palaeontologist Peter Ward returns to explore life's evolutionary journey and examine compelling possibilities for its future direction.

Useful Resources: 1. Peter Ward on Wikipedia and The University Of Washington. 2. Stephen Jay Gould. 3. Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and Nature Of History – Stephen Jay Gould. 4. Cambrian Explosion. 5. Burgess Shale. 6. Nick Lane. 7. Oxygen: The Molecule That Made The World – Nick Lane. 8. Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution – Nick Lane. 9. David Catling on Wikipedia and the University Of Washington. 10. Eukaryote. 11. Lynn Margulis. 12. Carl Sagan. 13. Chemoreceptors. 14. My Octopus Teacher. 15. Pippa Ehrlich On The Mysteries of The Sea – Episode 77 Of Brave New World. 16. Methuselah Foundation and Methuselah Mice. 17. CRISPR. 18. Future Evolution – Peter Ward. 19. After Man: A Zoology Of The Future - Dougal Dixon. 20. Future Evolution with Alexis Rockman 21. Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe – Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee. 22. Seth Shostak on Extraterrestrial Life – Episode 85 of Brave New World. 23. Drake Equation. 24. Endangered Species Act, Clean Air Act. 25. Daniel J. Evans. 26. David Battisti 27. Edward O. Wilson 28. Biophilia – Edward O. Wilson

Check out Vasant Dhar's newsletter on Substack. The subscription is free!

Ep 94: Anil Seth On The Science of Consciousness Apr 10, 2025

Show notes

Neuroscientist Anil Seth explores how the brain constructs our sense of self and reality in Episode 94 of Brave New World with Vasant Dhar, offering insights on the boundary between perception and consciousness.

Useful Resources: 1. Anil Seth2. Being You: A New Science Of Consciousness – Anil Seth. 3. TED Talk: Your Brain Hallucinates Your Conscious Reality – Anil Seth. 4. Predictive Coding5. Hermann Helmhotz and Unconscious Interference. 6. Priming In Psychology. 7. Reality Is A Controlled Hallucination – Anil Seth. 8. Computational Functionalism. 9. How The Mind Works – Steven Pinker. 10. Ned Block, Co-Director, Centre for Mind, Brain and Consciousness, NYU. 11. Thomas Nagel. 12. Claude Shannon and Information Theory. 13. David Chalmers, Co-Director, Centre for Mind, Brain and Consciousness, NYU. 14. Panel Discussion at The World Science Festival, Moderated By Brain Green. 15. Stevan Harnard and the Symbol Grounding Problem. 16. Pippa Ehrlich On The Mysteries of The Sea – Episode 77 Of Brave New World. 17. A Tiger For Malgudi – RK Narayan. 18. Kevin Mitchell Makes A Case For Free Will – Episode 80 Of Brave New World. 19. Marcello Massimini20. Robert Sapolsky. 21. Robert Sapolsky on Free Will. 20. Compatibilism. 21. The Emergent Properties of The Connected Brain. 22. Aaron Schurger. 23. Benjamin Libett. 24. Readiness Potential.

Check out Vasant Dhar's newsletter on Substack. The subscription is free!

Ep 93: Uma Valeti on Cultivating Meat Mar 13, 2025

Show notes

How do we get meat that is more nutritious, sustainable, and less cruel to animals? Dr Uma Valeti, a cardiologist turned CEO of Upside Foods, joins Vasant Dhar in episode 93 of Brave New World to discuss the future of cultivated meat.

Useful Resources: 1. Dr Uma Valeti, MD, Upside Foods. 2. Clean Meat - Paul Shapiro. 3. 'Animal Liberation NOW' - Peter Singer. 4. How India Eats, Vegetarians vs Non Vegetarians percentage in India. 5. Maneka Gandhi On Animal Rights – Episode 44 of Brave New World. 6. Peter Singer On Animal Liberation – Episode 74 of Brave New World. 7. Paul Shapiro on Growing Meat Without Animals – Episode 54 of Brave New World. 8. Sean Sullivan, IndieBio, CPT Capital and Unovis Capital. 9. Cargill, Tyson Foods and Norwest Foods International. 10. CRISPR. 11. The Florida lab-grown meat ban. 12. The Alabama lab-grown meat ban.

Check out Vasant Dhar's newsletter on Substack. Subscription is free!

Ep 92: Angela Hawken on Changing Government Feb 13, 2025

Show notes

All meaningful reform happens when there is one smooth pipeline from research to policy to execution. Angela Hawken joins Vasant Dhar in episode 92 of Brave New World to discuss her work as both a thinker in academia and a doer with government. Useful resources 1. Angela Hawken at Marron Institute of Urban Management. 2. Solly Angel's Atlas of Urban Expansion. 3. Graduated Reintegration: Smoothing the Transition from Prison to Community -- Angela Hawken and Mark Kleiman. 4. Unorthodox Philanthropy. 5. Bias in Smart City Governance -- Constantine Kontokosta and Boyeong Hong. 6. The Civic Analytics program. 7. Litmus. Check out Vasant Dhar's newsletter on Substack. Subscription is free!

Ep 91: Michael Levin on the New Frontiers of Biological Intelligence Jan 11, 2025

Show notes

Memory, consciousness and the self aren't what you think they are. Michael Levin joins Vasant Dhar in episode 91 of Brave New World to explain why the distinction between machines and organisms will soon fall apart. Useful resources 1. Michael Levin at Tufts, Wikipedia, Twitter, Google Scholar and The Levin Lab. 2. There's Plenty of Room Right Here: Biological Systems as Evolved, Overloaded, Multi-scale Machines -- Joshua Bondard and Michael Levin. 3. Self-Improvising Memory: A Perspective on Memories as Agential, Dynamically Reinterpreting Cognitive Glue -- Michael Levin. 4. The Space Of Possible Minds -- Michael Levin. 5. Endless forms most beautiful 2.0 -- Wesley Clawson and Michael Levin. 6. My Octopus Teacher — Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed. 7. Pippa Ehrlich on the Mysteries of the Sea -- Episode 77 of Brave New World. 8. Turing Patterns. 9. Mark Solms' theory of consciousness -- SelfAwarePatterns. 10. Mark Solms on Consciousness. Check out Vasant Dhar's newsletter on Substack. Subscription is free!

Related Podcasts