Ft Tech Tonic

John Thornhill talks to Jaan Tallinn, founding engineer at Skype and Kazaa, about his subsequent career as a tech investor and his concerns about AI safety.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Madhumita Murgia discusses what happens when robots can do most of the work humans do with Calum Chace of the Economic Singularity Club, Mike Wooldridge, professor of Computer Science at Oxford University and Kathryn Parsons, founder of Decoded  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Mathematician Marcus du Sautoy puts his theories about creative AI to the test before a live audience at the recent FT Weekend Festival in London.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Design guru John Maeda tells Tim Bradshaw why he thinks a diversity of viewpoints and listening to what consumers want will be more valuable to the companies of the future than creating the next breakthrough technology.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Bioethicist Sarah Chan contributed to a report this month on neurotechnology by the UK’s senior scientific academy. She talks to John Thornhill about the potential health benefits of neural interfaces but also the difficulty of regulating the commercial use of devices that interact with our brains. Read the Royal Society's report hereAll FT stories will be free to read on Wednesday September 18th when there will be a 24-hour paywall freeze. Here are a couple of recommendations to get you started:Neural interfaces should upgrade, not degrade, humansHow China dodged a trade war recession  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Alice Bentinck, co-founder of Entrepreneur First, tells John Thornhill about her mission to harness the entrepreneurial talents of a new generation of people from diverse backgrounds.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Vishal Chatrath, chief executive and co-founder of Prowler, tells John Thornhill how his company is helping to improve decision making in the worlds of finance and logistics.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Priya Lakhani, founder and chief executive AI company Century Tech, talks to John Thornhill about her mission to improve the life chances of students around the world using AI-assisted learning.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

John Thornhill talks to the billionaire investor and philanthropist Nicolas Berggruen about his book: Renovating Democracy: Governing in the Age of Globalization and Digital Capitalism  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ben Goertzel talks to John Thornhill about his work for Hanson Robotics, the company that created the robot Sophia, about SingularityNET, the blockchain-based AI marketplace he founded, and about his belief that artificial general intelligence, transhumanism and benevolent robots are not too far in the future  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Nobel laureate Frances Arnold talks to Anjana Ahuja about her pioneering a work harnessing the power of nature to engineer enzymes, her long career and the challenges faced by women in science.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Joseph DeSimone, chief executive of Carbon, talks to Richard Waters about the manufacturing technique he invented that can craft objects in seconds using the power of light and digital projection systems  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

John Thornhill talks to economist Mariana Mazzucato about her work to promote collaboration between governments and companies to direct innovation towards sustainable and inclusive growth.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Paul Clarke, chief technology officer at the online grocery Ocado, talks to John Thornhill about how the use of robotics, machine learning and digital twins is taking the business to a new level and even helping to plan the cities of the future.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Jennifer Doudna talks to Richard Waters, the FT's San Francisco bureau chief, about how she discovered the CRISPR Cas-9 system and how it is transforming the world of gene editing.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

 John Thornhill talks to Lord John Browne, former chief executive of BP, about his book: Make, Think, Imagine on engineering and the future of civilisation.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Nathan Jurgenson, sociologist at Snapchat’s parent company Snap, talks to Tim Bradshaw about his book The Social Photo and about how the smartphone camera is changing the way we communicate  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hannah Kuchler talks to American cardiologist Eric Topol about his book Deep Medicine, which looks at the potential for artificial intelligence technology to help free up doctors to spend more time with their patients.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Tech Tonic, the podcast that looks at the way technology is changing our lives, is returning for a news season starting on Monday 17th June. We’ll be talking to Eric Topol, the US cardiologist, about the ways in which the work of doctors can be enhanced by AI, Nathan Jurgenson on social media and the selfy, and John Browne, former head of BP, on engineering and the future of civilisation, and many more. So tune in next week  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Artificial intelligence expert Andrew Ng talks to John Thornhill about his concern that AI technology is concentrating wealth in the hands of a few and why we need to spread AI skills and understanding across society.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.