In the second episode of the latest season of Tech Tonic, FT columnist and host Jemima Kelly tries to understand why an influential Silicon Valley investment firm thinks that Web3 is a good bet. Will blockchain technology really be the foundation of a new internet era? Is Web3’s promise to decentralise the internet going to pose a challenge to companies such as Facebook and Twitter? The FT’s innovation editor John Thornhill interviews Chris Dixon, head of Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto fund, and Jemima talks to Molly White, author of the Web3 Is Going Just Great blog.
Check out stories and up-to-the-minute news from the FT’s technology team at ft.com/technology
For a special discounted FT subscription go to https://www.ft.com/techtonicsale
Presented by Jemima Kelly. Special thanks to John Thornhill. Edwin Lane is senior producer. Produced by Josh Gabert-Doyon. Executive producer is Manuela Saragosa. Sound design by Breen Turner, with original music from Metaphor Music. The FT’s head of audio is Cheryl Brumley.
News clips credits: CBC, NBC, CNN.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A sceptic’s guide to crypto: the ‘smart’ money

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If you have questions about this year's US presidential election, we have answers.
Swamp Notes is a new podcast from the FT News Briefing. Listen every Saturday morning as our journalists analyse and discuss the latest happenings in US politics. We’ll go beyond the horse race for the White House and offer a global perspective on the election.  
You can subscribe to Swamp Notes here or wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Introducing: Swamp Notes from The FT News Briefing

Introducing Untold, a new podcast from the special investigations team at the Financial Times. In its first series, The Retreat, host Madison Marriage examines the world of the Goenka network, which promotes a type of intensive meditation known as Vipassana. Thousands of people go on Goenka retreats every year. People rave about them. But some people go to these meditation retreats, and they suffer. They might feel a deep sense of terror, or a break with reality. And on the other side, they’re not themselves anymore. Untold: The Retreat launches Jan. 24.
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Introducing Untold: The Retreat

As the race to human-level AI accelerates, researchers are increasingly confronted with the question of what it would mean to develop conscious AI. Will sentience emerge naturally from powerfully intelligent artificial systems? Or is consciousness incompatible with disembodied AI? As some human users become more attached to romantic chatbots, will the moral questions surrounding conscious AI become more pressing? In the final episode of our series on artificial general intelligence, the FT’s John Thornhill and Madhumita Murgia speak to Eugenia Kuyda, founder and chief executive of Replika, Anil Seth, ​​professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex, and Henry Shevlin, director of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge.
Clips: TalkTV
Links: Blake Lemoine transcript Sci-fi writer Ted Chiang: ‘The machines we have now are not conscious’ Google places engineer on leave after he claims group’s chatbot is ‘sentient’ The golden age of AI-generated art is here. It’s going to get weird  EU agrees landmark rules on artificial intelligence 
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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Superintelligent AI: Conscious Machines

What are the ideas driving the pursuit of human-level AI? In the penultimate episode of this Tech Tonic series, hosts Madhumita Murgia and John Thornhill look at some of the futuristic objectives that are at the centre of the AI industry’s quest for superintelligence and hear about the Extropians, a surprisingly influential group of futurists from the early 1990s. Anders Sandberg, senior research fellow at Oxford university's Future of Humanity Institute, sets out some of the ideas developed in the Extropians mailing list while Connor Leahy, co-founder of Conjecture and Timnit Gebru, founder of the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) explain why they worry about the Extropians’ continued influence today.
Free links: OpenAI and the rift at the heart of Silicon Valley We need to examine the beliefs of today’s tech luminaries OpenAI’s secrecy imperils public trust Big tech companies cut AI ethics staff, raising safety concerns
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. Clips: Alcor Cryonics
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Superintelligent AI: Transhumanism etc.

Are generative AI systems such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT really intelligent? Large language models such as GPT 4 appear to use human-level cognitive abilities when they engage in legal reasoning, write essays or solve complex problems. Hosts John Thornhill and Madhumita Murgia speak to Emily Bender, professor of computational linguistics at the University of Washington, to find out what’s really happening under the hood, and also hear from Pablo Arredondo of CaseText, which develops AI tools for lawyers; influential computer scientist Melanie Mitchell, professor at the Santa Fe Institute, and Konstantine Arkoudas, an AI expert who’s worked on Amazon’s Alexa. 
Free links: OpenAI set to launch store as ChatGPT reaches 100mn users How to keep the lid on the Pandora’s box of AI We need a political Alan Turing to design AI safeguards ‘I’ve never seen anything like this’: how OpenAI’s dramatic weekend unfolded
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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A sceptic’s guide to crypto: the ‘smart’ money

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