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Tech CEOs Are Selling You the Future
Carissa Véliz joins Thinking on Paper to examine how AI forecasts, platform algorithms and prediction markets can influence the future they claim only to predict.
Predictions aren’t always neutral descriptions. When they come from powerful technology companies, executives, platforms or financial markets, they can change investment, policy and public behaviour. A forecast may become a self-fulfilling prophecy because people act as though its outcome is inevitable.
The conversation begins with a broader question about the good life, curiosity and what the analogue world offers that digital systems often remove. It then turns to the institutions increasingly making predictions about people and society.
In this episode, we discuss:
How AI predictions influence human behaviour
Why forecasts can become self-fulfilling prophecies
How technology executives shape expectations about the future of AI
Whether AI hiring tools reinforce existing assumptions about workers
How TikTok and other recommendation systems direct attention
Why engagement-maximising algorithms reward harmful content
How prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket work
Whether prediction markets measure beliefs or help create outcomes
How platforms exploit the human desire for certainty and security
What the Molly Russell case reveals about algorithmic recommendation
Why comedy and serendipity resist predictive systems
How citizens can make more deliberate choices about technology and belief
What Epicureanism offers that digital optimisation cannot
Carissa argues that people should treat influential predictions as interventions rather than passive forecasts. The more reach and authority a prediction has, the greater its ability to reorganise the world around itself.
This conversation examines how to resist technological prophecy by preserving uncertainty, curiosity and the freedom to choose futures that algorithms haven’t already selected.
Please enjoy the show.
--
Thinking on Paper is a technology podcast about AI, computing, science, and the systems shaping the future.
📺 Watch On YouTube:
🎧 Listen to every podcast
📺 Follow us on Instagram
🏠 Follow us on X
🏠 Follow Jeremy on LinkedIn
To suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: [email protected]
--
CHAPTERS
(00:00) Intro
(01:00) What is the good life?
(02:00) Why knowing yourself matters more than strategy
(04:44) The analog world vs the digital world
(06:45) How prophecies exploit our need for security
(08:47) Ancient Rome
(10:11) The illusion of safety
(12:27) When predictions work
(15:00) Altman, Amodei, Huang
(28:29) How to resist prophecies
(29:53) Prediction markets
(31:49) TikTok, algorithms, and the Molly Russell case
(36:08) Engagement algorithms
(40:54) Self-fulfilling prophecies
(43:44) Comedy
(46:59) Seinfeld
(52:16) Karikó
(53:40) Serendipity
(56:13) Why Epicurus beats the Stoics
View all episodes
By Mark Fielding and Jeremy GilbertsonCarissa Véliz joins Thinking on Paper to examine how AI forecasts, platform algorithms and prediction markets can influence the future they claim only to predict.
Predictions aren’t always neutral descriptions. When they come from powerful technology companies, executives, platforms or financial markets, they can change investment, policy and public behaviour. A forecast may become a self-fulfilling prophecy because people act as though its outcome is inevitable.
The conversation begins with a broader question about the good life, curiosity and what the analogue world offers that digital systems often remove. It then turns to the institutions increasingly making predictions about people and society.
In this episode, we discuss:
How AI predictions influence human behaviour
Why forecasts can become self-fulfilling prophecies
How technology executives shape expectations about the future of AI
Whether AI hiring tools reinforce existing assumptions about workers
How TikTok and other recommendation systems direct attention
Why engagement-maximising algorithms reward harmful content
How prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket work
Whether prediction markets measure beliefs or help create outcomes
How platforms exploit the human desire for certainty and security
What the Molly Russell case reveals about algorithmic recommendation
Why comedy and serendipity resist predictive systems
How citizens can make more deliberate choices about technology and belief
What Epicureanism offers that digital optimisation cannot
Carissa argues that people should treat influential predictions as interventions rather than passive forecasts. The more reach and authority a prediction has, the greater its ability to reorganise the world around itself.
This conversation examines how to resist technological prophecy by preserving uncertainty, curiosity and the freedom to choose futures that algorithms haven’t already selected.
Please enjoy the show.
--
Thinking on Paper is a technology podcast about AI, computing, science, and the systems shaping the future.
📺 Watch On YouTube:
🎧 Listen to every podcast
📺 Follow us on Instagram
🏠 Follow us on X
🏠 Follow Jeremy on LinkedIn
To suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: [email protected]
--
CHAPTERS
(00:00) Intro
(01:00) What is the good life?
(02:00) Why knowing yourself matters more than strategy
(04:44) The analog world vs the digital world
(06:45) How prophecies exploit our need for security
(08:47) Ancient Rome
(10:11) The illusion of safety
(12:27) When predictions work
(15:00) Altman, Amodei, Huang
(28:29) How to resist prophecies
(29:53) Prediction markets
(31:49) TikTok, algorithms, and the Molly Russell case
(36:08) Engagement algorithms
(40:54) Self-fulfilling prophecies
(43:44) Comedy
(46:59) Seinfeld
(52:16) Karikó
(53:40) Serendipity
(56:13) Why Epicurus beats the Stoics