Provoke.fm Media

Marcus “Bellringer” Bell is a musical polymath: songwriter, producer and technological pioneer. His credits include collaborations with Beyoncé, Niki Minaj, Snoop Dogg, Timbaland and music featured by Amazon, HBO, Netflix. Marcus has used AI to generate tens of thousands of songs in multiple genres. He uses AI to design agents, personas, and new tools for musical expression and personal growth. He joins the Futurists to talk to Rob Tercek about AI and the creative process. 

In this episode, Paolo Sironi speaks with Jean-Philippe Desbiolles author of the updated book AI Will Be What You Make of It (originally published in 2019). Desbiolles argues that AI’s impact on banking and society will ultimately be determined by human choices, not technology. He introduces the concept of a “co-era,” in which AI functions as a collaborative co-worker rather than a simple tool, requiring humans to develop “let-go” behaviors while staying in control.The discussion explores how banks can move beyond pilots by adopting a “cognitive factory” operating model to scale AI across business lines and processes. Desbiolles also examines the rise of agentic AI, which creates complex four-way relationships between customers, bankers, and their respective intelligent agents, fundamentally reshaping customer relationship management. Central to the conversation is the need to build trust through operational ethics frameworks, transparency, and responsible adoption to achieve real ROI. Desbiolles emphasizes that AI is driving a holistic transformation of organizations and society, and that success depends on placing humans at the center to create a virtuous cycle rather than a vicious one.

In this episode of Breaking Banks Africa, host Matteo Rizzi sits down with Premier Oiwoh, Managing Director and CEO of Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), to explore how digital payment infrastructure is transforming Africa’s largest economy. Premier shares how NIBSS powers Nigeria’s payment ecosystem behind the scenes, driving interoperability, resilience, and innovation through instant payments and open APIs. The conversation covers the launch of the National Payment Stack, the role of digital public infrastructure, and why zero-cost instant payments could accelerate financial inclusion and economic growth. They also discuss the importance of trust, digital identity, financial literacy, and collaboration between banks, fintechs, regulators, and entrepreneurs. Looking beyond Nigeria, Premier outlines the actions needed to strengthen cross-border payments and build a more connected African financial ecosystem. This episode offers valuable insights into the future of payments, inclusion, and fintech innovation across the continent.

What if AI could replicate your consciousness?

Listen as Brett King connects with Paolo Sironi, host of Provoke.fm‘s The Banker’s Bookshelf about Paolo’s latest book, Quantum Sapiens.

Paolo’s foray into literary fiction explores the intersection of quantum gravity, philosophy, and the future of human consciousness in an AI-driven world, providing a unique way to explore complex topics.

Available at major bookstores and on Amazon, Quantum Sapiens is a haunting novel blending scientific speculation, the frontiers of artificial intelligence, theories of consciousness and urgent ethical questions into a compelling narrative.

Join Paolo and Brett as they dive into the “hard problem” of consciousness and how technology like AI acts as a mirror for the human experience.

What if AI could replicate your consciousness?

Listen as Breaking Banks host Brett King connects with Paolo Sironi, host of Provoke.fm‘s The Banker’s Bookshelf about Paolo’s latest book, Quantum Sapiens.

Paolo’s foray into literary fiction explores the intersection of quantum gravity, philosophy, and the future of human consciousness in an AI-driven world, providing a unique way to explore complex topics.

Available at major bookstores and on Amazon, Quantum Sapiens is a haunting novel blending scientific speculation, the frontiers of artificial intelligence, theories of consciousness and urgent ethical questions into a compelling narrative.

Join Paolo and Brett as they dive into the “hard problem” of consciousness and how technology like AI acts as a mirror for the human experience.

In this episode of Social Currency, Tyler Seydel and Eric Schurr sit down with Kyle Rushman, Vice President, Prepaid Sales & Business Development at Usio, to explore how mission-driven fintech is reshaping financial access for underserved communities. From prepaid innovation to rapid-response payment solutions during crises, Kyle shares how technology can deliver financial wellness at scale—while keeping people and communities at the center.

Paul Osterman, MIT labor economist and author of Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment , tells Rob Tercek about the fastest-growing category of the US workforce in the age of artificial intelligence. According to Osterman, a rising number of employers prefer to hire three categories of “disposable workers” with no long-term stake in the company.  Today, such workers comprise more than 35% of the entire US workforce. The employers get the benefit of flexibility, and they push the risk and uncertainty onto the workforce. This interview covers the social, political, and organization consequences of the shift. And it anticipates how the deployment of AI will intensify the trend. 

Adrian Woolfson, the CEO and co-founder of the biotech company Genyro, joins the Futurists to chat about the audacious vision that animates his book On The Future of Species. Woolfson conceives of a Artificial Biological Intelligence that will unify diverse fields of genomic research into a new system that enables humans to design and create new species of life. According to Woofson, this marks an unprecedented moment on earth. For the first time ever, natural selection is no longer the only means for species to evolve. Humans can generate new life from first principles. This is true authorship of living organisms. Woolfson unpacks his grand concepts for host Robert Tercek in a lively discussion that spans synthetic biology, ethics, physics and the economics of food, medicine, health care and more.

In this episode of Breaking Banks host Brett King sits down with Farbod Sadeghian, Founder and Executive Chairman of TheBlock. Based in Dubai, TheBlock is a fintech collaboration space dedicated to fintech, blockchain development, and crypto, bringing together fintech, AI, and capital markets to build the next economy of virtual assets,

The conversation covers the origin story of TheBlock and the UAE’s regulatory landscape—specifically the Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA). They also discuss how TheBlock is building a virtual asset community that enables faster speed to market through direct collaboration with onsite advisors and strategic partners.

By connecting people, infrastructure and opportunities, TheBlock offers end-to-end support to help companies launch, operate and scale within the digital economy.

If in Dubai, stop by! 

In 2024, Bay Raitt and Rob Tercek co-founded a generative AI startup with experts in machine learning and computer graphics to build agentic tools and workflows optimized for artists. Bay is a polymath: an artist, storyteller, animator, game designer, comic book author. He plays LLMs like a virtuoso performer. In this episode, Bay shares his views on the current state of AI models, trends in vibe coding, the importance of stories with a human heartbeat, context wielding as a creative art, how AI “slop cannons” will get paved over by agentic visualizers, how to build a deeper creative relationship with Claude, how AI can help writers harmonize with the past, how to summon the ghost of Dorothy Parker, how to hypnotize an LLM like a king cobra, why AI sucks when people use artless prompts, AI psychosis, and why Voltaire judged people by their questions not their answers.