The launch of GPT-4 on the 14th of March this year was shocking as well as exciting. ChatGPT had been released the previous November, and became the fastest-growing app ever. But GPT-4’s capabilities were a level beyond, and it provoked remarkable comments from people who had previously said little about the future of AI. In May, Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described superintelligence as an existential risk to humanity. A year ago, it would have been inconceivable for the leader of a major country to say such a thing.

The following month, in June, Sunak announced that a global summit on AI safety would be held in November at the historically resonant venue of Bletchley Park, the stately home where during World War Two, Alan Turing and others cracked the German Enigma code, and probably shortened the war by many months.

Despite the fact that AI is increasingly humanity’s most powerful technology, there is not yet an established forum for world leaders to discuss its longer term impacts, including accelerating automation, extended longevity, and the awesome prospect of superintelligence. The world needs its leaders to engage in a clear-eyed, honest, and well-informed discussion of these things.

The summit is scheduled for the 1st and 2nd of November, and Matt Clifford, the CEO of the high-profile VC firm Entrepreneur First, has taken a sabbatical to help prepare it.

To help us all understand what the summit might achieve, the guest in this episode is Ollie Buckley.

Ollie studied PPE at Oxford, and was later a policy fellow at Cambridge. After six years as a strategy consultant with Monitor, he spent a decade as a civil servant, developing digital technology policy in the Cabinet Office and elsewhere. Crucially, from 2018 to 2021 he was the founding Executive Director of the UK government's original AI governance advisory body, the Centre for Data Ethics & Innovation (CDEI), where he led some of the original policy development regarding the regulation of AI and data-driven technologies. Since then, he has been advising tech companies, civil society and international organisations on AI policy as a consultant.

Selected follow-ups:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ollie-buckley-10064b/
https://www.publicaffairsnetworking.com/news/tech-policy-consultancy-boosts-data-and-ai-offer-with-senior-hire
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ai-safety-summit-programme/ai-safety-summit-day-1-and-2-programme
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ai-safety-summit-introduction/ai-safety-summit-introduction-html
An open event at Wilton Hall, Bletchley, the afternoon before the AI Safety Summit starts: https://www.meetup.com/london-futurists/events/296765860/

Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain Declaration

In the future, energy will be too cheap to meter. That used to be a common vision of the future: abundant, clean energy, if not exactly free, then much cheaper than today's energy. But a funny thing happened en route to that future of energy abundance. High energy costs are still with us in 2023, and are part of what's called the cost-of-living crisis. Moreover, although there's some adoption of green, non-polluting energy, there seems to be as much carbon-based energy used as ever.

Regular listeners to this show will know, however, that one of our themes is that forecasts of the future often go wrong, not so much in their content, but in their timing. New technology and the associated products and services can take longer than expected to mature, but once a transition does start, it can accelerate. And that's a possible scenario for the area of technology we discuss in this episode, namely, space-based solar power.

Joining us to discuss the prospects for satellites in space gathering significant amounts of energy from the sun, and then beaming it wirelessly to receivers on the ground, is John Bucknell, the CEO of the marvellously named company Virtus Solis.

John has been with Virtus Solis, as CEO and Founder, since 2018. His career previously involved leading positions at Chrysler, SpaceX, General Motors, and the 3D printing company Divergent.

Selected follow-ups:
https://virtussolis.space/

Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain Declaration

Self-driving cars has long been one of the most exciting potential outcomes of advanced artificial intelligence. Contrary to popular belief, humans are actually very good drivers, but even so, well over a million people die on the roads each year. Globally, for people between 12 and 24 years old, road accidents are the most common form of death.

Google started its self-driving car project in January 2009, and spun out a separate company, Waymo, in 2016. Expectations were high. Many people shared hopes that within a few years, humans would no longer need to drive. Some of us also thought that the arrival of self-driving cars would be the signal to everyone else that AI was our most powerful technology, and would get people thinking about the technological singularity. They would in other words be the “canary in the coal mine”.

The problem of self-driving turned out to be much harder, and insofar as most people think about self-driving cars today at all, they probably think of them as a technology that was over-hyped and failed. And it turned out that chatbots – and in particular GPT-4 - would be the canary in the coal mine instead.

But as so often happens, the hype was not wrong – it was just the timing that was wrong. Waymo and Cruise (part of GM) now operate paid-for taxi services in San Francisco and Phoenix, and they are demonstrably safer than humans. Chinese companies are also pioneering the technology.

One man who knows much more about this than most is our guest today, Timothy Lee, a journalist who writes the newsletter "Understanding AI". He was previously a journalist at Ars Technica and the Washington Post, and he has a masters degree in Computer Science. In recent weeks, Timothy has published some carefully researched and insightful articles about the state of the art in self-driving cars.

Selected follow-ups:
https://www.UnderstandingAI.org/

Topics addressed in this episode include:
*) The two main market segments for self-driving cars
*) Constraints adopted by Waymo and Cruise which allowed them to make progress
*) Options for upgrading the hardware in a self-driven vehicle
*) Some local opposition to self-driving cars in San Francisco
*) A safety policy: when uncertain, stop, and phone home for advice
*) Support from the State of California - and from other US States
*) Comparing accident statistics: human drivers versus self-driving
*) Why self-driving cars don't require AGI (Artificial General Intelligence)
*) Reasons why self-driving cars cannot be remotely tele-operated
*) Prospects for self-driven freight transport running on highways
*) The company Nuro that delivers pizza and other items by self-driven robots
*) Another self-driving robot company: Starship ("your local community helpers")
*) The Israeli company Mobileye - acquired by Intel in 2017
*) Friction faced by Chinese self-driving companies in the US and elsewhere
*) Different possibilities for the speed at which self-driving solutions will scale up
*) Potential social implications of wider adoption of self-driving solutions
*) Consequences of fatal accidents
*) Dangerous behaviour from safety drivers
*) The special case of Tesla FSD (assisted "Full Self-Driving") and Elon Musk
*) The future of recreational driving
*) An invitation to European technologists

Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain Declaration

One of the short-term concerns raised by artificial intelligence is cybercrime. Cybercrime didn’t start with AI, of course, but it is already being aggravated by AI, and will become more so.

We are delighted to have as our guest in this episode somebody who knows more about this than most people. After senior roles in audit and consulting firm Deloitte, and the headhunting firm Korn Ferry, Stacey Edmonds set up Lively, which helps client companies to foster the culture they want, and to inculcate the skills, attitudes, and behaviours that will enable them to succeed, and to be safe online.

Stacey’s experience and expertise also encompasses social science, youth work, education, Edtech, and the creative realm of video production. She is a juror at the New York Film Festival and the International Business Awards.

In this discussion, Stacey explains how cybercrime is on the increase, fuelled not least by Generative AI. She discusses how people can reduce their 'scam-ability' and live safely in the digital world, and how organisations can foster and maintain trusted digital relationships with their customers.

Selected follow-ups:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/staceyedmonds/
https://futurecrimesbook.com/ (book by Marc Goodman)
https://cybersecurityventures.com/cybercrime-to-cost-the-world-8-trillion-annually-in-2023/
https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/9/15/23875113/mgm-hack-casino-vishing-cybersecurity-ransomware
https://www.trustcafe.io/

Topics addressed in this episode include:
*) Excitement and apprehension following the recent releases of generative  AI platforms
*) The cyberattack on the MGM casino chain
*) Estimates of the amount of money stolen by cybercrime
*) The human trauma of victims of cybercrime
*) Four factors pushing cybercrime figures higher
*) Hacking "the human algorithm"
*) Phishing attacks with and without spelling mistakes
*) The ease of cloning voices
*) The digital wild west, where the sheriff has gone on holiday
*) People who are particularly vulnerable to digital scams
*) The human trafficking of men with IT skills
*) Economic drivers for both cybercrime and solutions to cybercrime
*) Comparing the threat from spam and the threat from deep fakes
*) Anticipating a surge of deep fakes during the 2024 election cycle
*) A possible resurgence of mainstream media
*) Positive examples: BBC Verify, Trust Café (by Jimmy Wales), the Reddit model of upvoting and downvoting, community notes on Twitter
*) Strengthening "netizen" skills in critical thinking
*) The forthcoming app (due to launch in November) "Dodgy or Not" - designed to help people build their "scam ability"
*) Cyber meets Tinder meets Duolingo meets Angry Birds
*) Scenarios for cybercrime 3-5 years in the future
*) Will a future UGI (Universal Generous Income) reduce the prevalence of cybercrime?

Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain Declaration

The UK government has announced plans for a global AI Safety Summit, to be held in Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, outside London, on 1st and 2nd of November. That raises the importance of thinking more seriously about potential scenarios for the future of AI. In this episode, co-hosts Calum and David review Calum's concept of the Economic Singularity - a topic that deserves to be addressed at the Bletchley Park Summit.

Selected follow-ups:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-government-sets-out-ai-safety-summit-ambitions
https://calumchace.com/the-economic-singularity/
https://transpolitica.org/projects/surveys/anticipating-ai-30/

Topics addressed in this episode include:
*) The five themes announced for the AI Safety Summit
*) Three different phases in the future of AI, and the need for greater clarity about which risks and opportunities apply in each phase
*) Two misconceptions about the future of joblessness
*) Learning from how technology pushed horses out of employment
*) What the word 'singularity' means in the term "Economic Singularity"
*) Sources of meaning, beyond jobs and careers
*) Contrasting UBI and UGI (Universal Basic Income and Universal Generous Income)
*) Two different approaches to making UGI affordable
*) Three forces that are driving prices downward
*) Envisioning a possible dual economy
*) Anticipating "the great churn" - the accelerated rate of change of jobs
*) The biggest risk arising from technological unemployment
*) Flaws in the concept of GDP (Gross Domestic Product)
*) A contest between different narratives
*) Signs of good reactions by politicians
*) Recalling Christmas 1914
*) Suspension of "normal politics"
*) Have invitations been lost in the post?
*) 16 questions about what AI might be like in 2030

Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain Declaration

This episode, like the previous one, consists of a number of short interviews recorded at the Longevity Summit Dublin between 17th and 20th August, featuring a variety of different speakers from the Summit.

In this episode, we'll hear first from Matt Kaeberlein, the CEO of a company called Optispan, following a 20 year period at the University of Washington studying the biological mechanisms of aging and potential interventions to improve healthspan. Among other topics, Matt talks to us about the Dog Aging Project, the Million-Molecule Project, and whether longevity science is at the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning.

Our second speaker is João Pedro de Magalhães who is the Chair of Molecular Biogerontology at the University of Birmingham, where he leads the genomics of aging and rejuvenation lab. João Pedro talks to us about the motivation to study and manipulate the processes of aging, and his work to improve the low-temperature cryopreservation of human organs. You may be surprised at how many deaths are caused by the present lack of such cryopreservation methods.

Third is Steve Horvath, who has just retired from his position as a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and is now a Principal Investigator at Altos Labs in Cambridge. Steve is known for developing biomarkers of aging known as epigenetic clocks. He describes three generations of these clocks, implications of mammalian species with surprisingly long lifespans, and possible breakthroughs involving treatments such as senolytics, partial epigenetic reprogramming, and altering metabolic pathways.

The episode rounds off with an interview with Tom Lawry, Managing Director for Second Century Tech, who refers to himself as a recovering Microsoft executive. We discuss his recent bestselling book "Hacking Healthcare", what's actually happening with the application of Artificial Intelligence to healthcare (automation and augmentation), the pace of change regarding generative AI, and whether radiologists ought to fear losing their jobs any time soon to deep learning systems.

Selected follow-ups:
https://longevitysummitdublin.com/speakers/
https://optispanlife.com/
https://orabiomedical.com/
https://rejuvenomicslab.com/
https://oxfordcryotech.com/
https://horvath.genetics.ucla.edu/
https://altoslabs.com/team/principal-investigators-san-diego/steven-horvath/
https://www.tomlawry.com/
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003286103/hacking-healthcare-tom-lawry

Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain Declaration

The Longevity Summit Dublin took place from 17th to 20th August. In between presentations, Calum and David caught up with a number of the speakers to ask about their experiences at the Summit. This episode features three of these short interviews.

First up is Aubrey de Grey, the President and Chief Science Officer of the LEV Foundation - a person deeply involved in the design and planning of the Summit. Next, we hear from Andrew Steele, who is an author and campaigner. The third interview features Liz Parrish, the CEO of BioViva Sciences and COO of Genorasis.

Selected follow-ups:
https://longevitysummitdublin.com/speakers/
https://www.levf.org/
https://maiabiotech.com/
https://andrewsteele.co.uk/
https://bioviva-science.com/
https://www.bestchoicemedicine.com/
https://www.genorasis.com/

Audio engineering assisted by Alexander Chace.

Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain Declaration

The legal profession is rarely accused of being at the cutting edge of technological development. Lawyers may not still use quill pens, but they’re not exactly famous for their IT skills. Nevertheless, the profession has a number of characteristics which make it eminently suited to the deployment of advanced AI systems. Lawyers are deluged by data, and commercial law cases can be highly lucrative.

One man who knows more about this than most is our guest in this episode, Benjamin Alarie, a Professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, and a successful entrepreneur.

In 2015, Ben co-founded Blue J, a Toronto-based company which uses machine learning to analyze large amounts of data to predict a court's likely verdict in legal cases. Blue J is used by the Department of Justice in Canada and Canada's Revenue Agency.

Ben has just published “The Legal Singularity: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Law Radically Better.” And here at the London Futurists Podcast, we do like a singularity.

Selected follow-ups:
https://www.legalsingularity.com/
https://www.bluej.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Alarie

Topics addressed in this episode include:
*) Much of lawyers' work is data-heavy and involves prediction, so it is amenable to radical improvement with AI
*) Other reasons why, in principle, the legal industry should be an early adopter of AI technology
*) Reasons why the world is sometimes slow to adopt an innovation that technology makes possible
*) Automating the processes of disclosure and discovery
*) Two implications of automation for commercial earnings by law firms
*) Selling "the machine service" rather than "the human time"
*) A different kind of prediction: predicting what is likely to happen inside the inscrutable minds of judges
*) Judging as a "full body exercise" - involving the gut, heart, and compassion
*) Two "mountains of information" that legal decisions can nevertheless be reliably predicted in many cases
*) AI algorithms are more scalable, to wider use, than the limited time of expert human QCs (Queen's Counsel lawyers)
*) Even QCs can improve their performance if they take into account the advice of an AI system like Blue J
*) "Human plus machine beats human" - and can beat machine too
*) Once systems like Blue J are more widely used, the proportion of certain types of legal cases that come to trial may decrease; however, the proportion of other types of case coming to trial may increase
*) Entertainment industry workers are on strike in Hollywood, fearing disruption from AI technologies; why aren't lawyers on a similar strike?
*) What kinds of change in the legal profession would merit the term "singularity"?
*) A potential future in which law is a solved problem, with new laws being generated on demand whenever the need arises
*) The creation of laws that are fairer, more efficient, and better all round
*) Potential drawbacks in the run-up to the legal singularity
*) The 2013 movie "The Congress"
*) Estimates for when the Legal Singularity might occur - and for when people will realize that it is coming soon

Audio engineering by Alexander Chace.

Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain Declaration

Our guest in this episode is Aidan McCullen. For ten years from 1998 to 2008, Aidan was a professional rugby player, delighting crowds in Ireland, England, and France. He made the very natural transition from that into sports commentating, but he also moved into digital media.

He started as an intern at Communicorp to learn digital media and marketing, and he learned about digital by doing it, living it and building it – as he puts it, by jumping off a cliff and building a plane on the way down. With typical humility, he says he was just a few Google searches ahead of everyone else.

With this grounding, Aidan has made himself a genuine expert on innovation. He is a keynote speaker, an executive coach, a board director, a lecturer, and the author of “Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention for Individuals, Organisations and Life”.

Aidan may be known best as the enthusiastic and generous host of a podcast called the Innovation Show, which offers weekly interviews with leaders in their fields, including writers, academics, inventors, executives and mavericks. The central message of that podcast is that we all need to stay open to new ideas, and always keep learning.

Selected follow-ups:
https://theinnovationshow.io/about/

Topics addressed in this episode include:
*) Lessons from Aidan's time as a rugby player
*) The gift of discipline
*) Being ready to take advantage of unexpected good luck
*) Avoiding the "WASP" trap - wandering aimlessly without purpose
*) The "centaur" model - half human and half machine
*) Aidan's own use of generative AI - embellishing graphics, developing metaphors, suggesting questions for interviews
*) An alternative to a lemonade stand: creating an entire cartoon book using generative AI
*) Why audiences are leaning in, more than before
*) Various ways in which automation will impact the jobs market and the cost of services
*) Career advice for a nine year old
*) Encouraging students to use and understand generative AI tools
*) Tangible examples of Amara's Law
*) The special value of skills in communication, collaboration, 'cobot'ing, coordination, and looking after your health
*) Actions today in anticipation of being healthy at the age of 100
*) Deciding who to collaborate with
*) Developing a "stem cell" mindset - knowing our purpose, but keeping our options open
*) Bruce Lipton's research on epigenetics
*) What drives Aidan: helping people make better decisions and lead better lives
*) Building a community of people who are prepared to think differently

Audio engineering by Alexander Chace.

Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain Declaration

Our guest in this episode is Martin O'Dea. As the CEO of Longevity Events Limited, Martin is the principal organiser of the annual Longevity Summit Dublin. In a past life, Martin lectured on business strategy at Dublin Business School. He has been keeping a close eye on the longevity space for more than ten years, and is well placed to speak about how the field is changing. Martin sits on a number of boards including the LEV Foundation, where, full disclosure, so does David.

This conversation is a chance to discover, ahead of time, what some of the highlights are likely to be at this year's Longevity Summit Dublin, which is taking place from 17th to 20th August.

Selected follow-ups:
https://longevitysummitdublin.com/
https://www.levf.org/projects/robust-mouse-rejuvenation-study-1

Topics addressed in this episode include:
*) Emma Teeling and the unexpected longevity of bats
*) Steve Austad and a wide range of long-lived animal species, as featured in his recent new book "Methuselah's Zoo"
*) Michael Levin and the role of bioelectrical networks in the coordination of cells during embryogenesis and regeneration
*) Filling four days of talks - "not an issue at all"
*) A special focus on "the hard problems of aging"
*) The work of the LEV (Longevity Escape Velocity) Foundation and the vision of Aubrey de Grey
*) Various signs of growing public interest in intervening in the biology of aging
*) A look back at a conference in London in 2010
*) Two events in 2013: academic publications on "hallmarks of aging", and Google's creation of Calico
*) Multi-million dollar investments in longevity are increasingly becoming "just pocket change... par for the course"
*) Selective interest from media and documentary makers, coupled with some hesitancy
*) Playing tennis at the age of 110 with your great grandchildren - and then what?
*) The possibility of "a ChatGPT moment for longevity" that changes public opinion virtually overnight
*) Why the attainment of RMR (Robust Mouse Rejuvenation) would be a seminal event
*) The rationale for trying a variety of different life-extending interventions in combination - and why pharmaceutical companies and academics have both shied away from such an experiment
*) The four treatments trialled in phase 1 of RMR, with other treatments under consideration for later phases
*) A message to any billionaires listening
*) A message to any politicians listening: the longevity dividend, as expounded by Andrew Scott and Andrew Steele
*) Another potential seminal moment: the TAME trial (Targeting Aging with Metformin), as advocated by Nir Barzilai
*) Why researchers who wanted to work on aging had to work on Parkinson's instead
*) Looking ahead to 2033
*) The role of longevity summits in strengthening the longevity community and setting individuals on new trajectories in their lives
*) The benefits of maintaining a collaborative, open attitude, without the obstacles of NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements)
*) Options for progress accelerating, not just from exponential trends, but from intersections of insights from different fields
*) Beware naïve philosophical concerns about entropy and about the presumed wisdom of evolution
*) The sad example of campaigner Aaron Schwartz
*) Important roles for decentralized science alongside existing commercial models

Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain Declaration