Stay ConnectedWe are in the midst of a digital revolution, where the line between our physical world and cyberspace is blurring. Tech Tonic is the show that investigates the promises and perils of this new technological age.
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Copyright: © Financial Times
In the first episode of a new, five-part series of Tech Tonic, FT journalists Madhumita Murgia and John Thornhill ask how close we are to building human-level artificial intelligence and whether ‘superintelligent’ AI poses an existential risk to humanity. John and Madhu speak to Yoshua Bengio, a pioneer of generative AI, who is concerned, and to his colleague Yann LeCun, now head of AI at Meta, who isn’t. Plus, they hear from Eliezer Yudkowsky, research lead at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, who’s been sounding the alarm about superintelligent AI for more than two decades.
Register here for the FT's Future of AI summit on November 15-16
Free links to read more on this topic:
How Sunak’s Bletchley Park summit aims to shape global AI safety
OpenAI chief seeks new Microsoft funds to build ‘superintelligence’
We must slow down the race to God-like AI
The sceptical case on generative AI
AI will never threaten humans, says top AI scientist
Tech Tonic is presented by Madhumita Murgia and John Thornhill. Senior producer is Edwin Lane and the producer is Josh Gabert-Doyon. Executive producer is Manuela Saragosa. Sound design by Breen Turner and Samantha Giovinco. Original music by Metaphor Music. The FT’s head of audio is Cheryl Brumley.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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In a new series of Tech Tonic, FT journalists Madhumita Murgia and John Thornhill look at the concerns around the rise of artificial intelligence. Will superintelligent AI bring existential risk, or a new renaissance? Would it be ethical to build conscious AI? How intelligent are these machines anyway? The new season of Tech Tonic from the Financial Times, drops mid-November.
Presented by Madhumita Murgia and John Thornhill. Senior producer is Edwin Lane and producer Josh Gabert-Doyon. Executive produced by Manuela Saragosa. Sound design by Breen Turner and Samantha Giovinco. Original music by Metaphor Music. The FT’s head of audio is Cheryl Brumley.
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A hardware revolution in recording devices and a software revolution in artificial intelligence has convinced some scientists that humans will eventually be able to ‘translate’ animal and even plant sounds into human language. But what would be the consequences of humans learning to ‘speak whale’, chat with bats or converse with elephants? The FT’s innovation editor John Thornhill and producer Persis Love explore the ethics of potential human-to-animal communication.
Presented by John Thornhill, produced by Persis Love, sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco. The executive producer is Manuela Saragosa. Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s head of audio.
Free links:
Google Translate for the zoo? How humans might talk to animals
Karen Bakker, scientist and author, 1971-2023
How generative AI really works
Credits: Elephant bee rumble from Lucy King; plant sounds from Lilach Hadany
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A hardware revolution in recording devices and a software revolution in artificial intelligence is enabling researchers to listen in to all kinds of conversations outside the human hearing range, a field known as bioacoustics. Some scientists now believe these developments will also allow us to ‘translate’ animal sounds into human language. In a new season of Tech Tonic, FT innovation editor John Thornhill and series producer Persis Love ask whether we’re moving closer to being able to ‘speak whale’ or even to chat with bats.
Free links:
Google Translate for the zoo? How humans might talk to animals
Karen Bakker, scientist and author, 1971-2023
How generative AI really works
Credits: Sperm whale sounds from Project CETI; honeyhunter calls from Claire Spottiswoode
Presented by John Thornhill, produced by Persis Love, sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco. The executive producer is Manuela Saragosa. Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s head of audio.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The Canadian scientist and author Karen Bakker, who died unexpectedly in August this year, was a leading voice in the bioacoustic research community. Her 2022 book, The Sounds of Life, explained how it might one day be possible to create a kind of Google Translate for animals and was the inspiration behind this Tech Tonic series. This episode contains the full interview that we recorded with her. We are posting it as a tribute to her remarkable work.
Free links:
Google Translate for the zoo? How humans might talk to animals
Karen Bakker, scientist and author, 1971-2023
How generative AI really works
Credits: Elephant bee rumble from Lucy King
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Some scientists believe that rapid advances in artificial intelligence may also hold the key to decoding animal sounds, allowing us to ‘translate’ them into human language. In a new season of Tech Tonic, FT innovation editor John Thornhill and series producer Persis Love explore how the same technology that powers ChatGPT is being applied to research in animal communication. Could we one day learn to ‘speak whale’ or even chat with bats? And if so, can we trust ourselves to do so responsibly?
Presented by John Thornhill, produced by Persis Love, sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco. The executive producer is Manuela Saragosa and Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s head of audio.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
A bonus episode to go with our Quantum Revolution season. The FT’s John Thornhill and Madhumita Murgia host a panel of experts at the Founders Forum conference, discussing the promise of quantum computing and the state of the quantum industry today. Featuring Steve Brierley, founder and chief executive of Riverlane, a company building the algorithms and software for quantum computers; Ilana Wisby, CEO of Oxford Quantum Circuits, a company building commercially available quantum computers; and Hermann Hauser, co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners and an investor in quantum technology.
All six episodes of The Quantum Revolution are available now on the Tech Tonic feed.
Presented by Madhumita Murgia and John Thornhill, produced by Josh Gabert-Doyon and Edwin Lane. Executive producer is Manuela Saragosa. Sound design by Breen Turner and Samantha Giovinco. Original music by Metaphor Music. The FT’s head of audio is Cheryl Brumley.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Who is Sergei Leontiev? To the US asylum system, he’s an exiled Russian banker who was persecuted by the state and forced to flee. To Russia, he’s said to be responsible for massive fraud. On The Russian Banker, a new series from the Financial Times, reporters Courtney Weaver and Stefania Palma try to uncover the truth, and find a story that tells us about Russia today and how people in the west build stories about who’s good and who’s bad. The Russian Banker is a special series that will run on the Behind the Money podcast starting Aug. 30. Listen to The Russian Banker by subscribing to the Behind the Money podcast here.
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In the final episode of this Tech Tonic season, FT correspondents weigh in on the trends that will determine the future of social media. From Meta’s Threads to artificial intelligence, we ask how platforms will look and feel in years to come. The FT’s deputy Lex editor, host Elaine Moore, speaks with social media reporter Cristina Criddle, global technology correspondent Tim Bradshaw and San Francisco-based tech reporter Hannah Murphy. Plus, we hear from Evan Henshaw-Plath, one of the creators of Twitter.
Presented by Elaine Moore. Produced by Edwin Lane and Josh Gabert-Doyon, executive producer is Manuela Saragosa. Sound design by Breen Turner and Samantha Giovinco. Original music by Metaphor Music. The FT’s head of audio is Cheryl Brumley.
Further reading (free to read) on FT.com:
Cristina Criddle: TikTok reshapes ecommerce unit in bid to crack western markets
Cristina Criddle: TikTok prepares ‘Project S’ plan to break into online shopping
Tim Bradshaw: Meta’s Threads is a throwback to the giddy early days of Twitter
Hannah Murphy: Meta to release commercial AI model in effort to catch rivals
Hannah Murphy: Linda Yaccarino’s vision for Twitter 2.0 emerges
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Can we get rid of the bad bits of social media and keep the good? Is it possible to create a more positive social media experience than the one we get from the platforms that dominate the landscape today? In this episode, Elaine Moore asks what the social media platforms of the future should look like, and whether platforms designed for smaller groups of users with shared interests are the way forward.
We hear from writer and tech historian Benj Edwards about the BBS era of the early 1990s; University of Massachusetts professor Ethan Zuckerman; Sarah Gilbert, researcher at Cornell University and Reddit moderator; and Jonathan Abrams, partner at 8-Bit Capital and the creator of Friendster.
Presented by Elaine Moore. Produced by Edwin Lane and Josh Gabert-Doyon, Executive producer is Manuela Saragosa. Sound design by Breen Turner and Samantha Giovinco. Original music by Metaphor Music. The FT’s head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. Special thanks to Hannah Murphy.
Mentioned in this podcast:
The Lex Newsletter: Reddit and the API apocalypse
Discord has won over gamers. Now it wants everybody else
Reddit stands firm in clash with users as blackout on forums escalates
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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