Thinking On Paper

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.

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Thinking on Paper is a technology podcast about AI, computing, science, and the systems shaping the future.

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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

The AI meme war between the US and Iran has evolved into an absolute shit show. If you thought it was awful a few weeks ago, you ain't seen nothing yet.

AI-generated Lego propaganda videos were a curiosity. Sometimes funny, often violent, always troublesome and never diplomatic, they quickly gained millions of views across social media... because social media.

The White House Twitter (X) account was responsible for the US videos.

An Iranian media company called Explosive Media, the Iranian. America, either put off by the global consensus that it was losing the war, or bored, switched their AI models to tax season (with equal ineptitude).

Iran, losing the guns and missiles part of the war, has changed tact. Explosive Media turned up the heat. And was duly banned from YouTube. Which could of unleashed the beast. Now Iranian embassies are posting them on Twitter (X) and US creators are using the same format to mock it all with Lego.. Just watch it yourself. And let us know what you think.

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TIMESTAMPS

(00:00) Explosive Media

(00:38) US Bowling Iran

(01:52) Trump's Mask

(03:20) Blockade, Blockade

(06:28) Drunken Hegseth

(08:00) Truth

This episode of Thinking on Paper uses Space to Grow to examine who has the right to mine the Moon, extract resources from asteroids and build commercial activity beyond Earth.

The Outer Space Treaty prohibits national sovereignty over celestial bodies, but it leaves important questions unresolved. Can companies own the resources they extract? Who grants mining rights? What happens when commercial claims, national security interests and international law collide?

In this episode, we discuss:

• Who owns the Moon and other celestial bodies
• Whether companies can legally mine lunar resources
• How asteroid mining could work
• What the Outer Space Treaty says about ownership
• Why the Moon Treaty has limited international support
• The difference between owning territory and owning extracted resources
• Which companies are trying to build a space-resource economy
• How property rights could affect investment in lunar infrastructure
• The role of the US Space Force in the commercial space economy
• How China’s space programme is shaping strategic competition
• Why anti-satellite weapons threaten civilian and commercial systems
• Whether competition for space resources could reproduce conflicts on Earth
• 
  

The central legal problem is that space treaties were written before private companies could realistically reach the Moon, operate spacecraft at scale or plan commercial extraction.

This conversation examines whether existing space law can govern a growing off-world economy, and how resource competition could affect security, diplomacy and the future of human activity in space.

Please enjoy the show.

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Thinking on paper is a technology podcast on The Social, Environmental, Cultural & Business Impacts Of Technology.

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Chapters

(00:00) Global Conflict

(02:04) Human Nature

(03:28) Asteroid Mining

(05:53) Space Mining

(11:05) The Space Resource Exploration Act

(13:01) Space Mining Legislation

(17:19) Philosophical Perspectives

(20:14) National Security in Space

(20:40) Government in Space Innovation

(21:34) National Security

(23:10) Weaponization of Space

(24:47) The Prisoner's Dilemma

(26:40) Humanity's Moral Compass

(27:03) The Future of Humanity in Space

This episode of Thinking on Paper examines the largest space technology funding rounds of 2026 and what they reveal about the direction of the commercial space economy.

Investment is moving beyond satellite launches and communications. Companies are now raising capital for orbital data centres, private space stations, reusable rockets, alternative navigation systems, weather intelligence, secure communications and national-security infrastructure.

We count down funding rounds involving:

• Starcloud

• Xona Space

• Tomorrow.io

• PLD Space

• Stoke Space

• Axiom Space

• CesiumAstro

• Vast

• Sierra Space

• China’s iSpace

The episode covers:

• Why investors are backing space-based data centres

• The business case for commercial space stations

• How Xona Space and other companies are developing alternatives to GPS

• Why reusable launch systems continue to attract capital

• The growth of secure satellite communications

• How space-based weather intelligence is becoming a commercial market

• Whether microgravity research can support viable businesses

• Why defence and national-security funding are becoming more important

• How private investment is shaping competition between the United States, Europe and China

• What the largest funding rounds suggest about the next phase of the space economy

The companies raising the most capital aren’t all pursuing the same market, but several themes recur: sovereign infrastructure, lower launch costs, persistent Earth observation, orbital computing and a shift from individual spacecraft towards complete space-based systems.

This conversation follows the money to understand which technologies investors believe can move from ambitious engineering projects to durable commercial infrastructure.

Please enjoy the show.

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🎧 Listen to every podcast⁠

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To suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: [email protected]

Chapters

(00:00) Starcloud

(00:52) Xona Space

(03:27) Tomorrow IO

(06:01) PLD Space

(08:00) Stoke Space

(10:18) Axiom Space

(12:29) Cesium Astro

(14:50) VAST Space

(19:02) Sierra Space

(21:47) I-Space (Beijing Interstellar Glory Space Technology Ltd.)

The Martens Clause says that when written law runs out of steam, humanity still has obligations under the laws of humanity.

This episode asks whether that old idea from the 1899 Hague Peace Conference can help govern new technologies that move faster than law: AI, autonomous weapons, military AI, space mining, space governance, and the race to build beyond Earth.

The conversation moves from Nuremberg, the Corfu Channel, and Nicaragua to AI safety, black-box systems, tech accountability, and whether “not explicitly illegal” should ever mean “automatically allowed.”

Please enjoy the show. And keep the peace.

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Thinking on Paper is a technology podcast about AI, computing, science, and the systems shaping the future.

🎧 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]

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(00:00) The First Peace Conference: A Historical Perspective

(07:37) The Martin's Clause: Implications for Modern Governance

(10:05) Space Tech and the Outer Space Treaty

(13:58) AI and the Need for Ethical Frameworks

(17:21) Accountability in Technology Deployment

(22:56) The Future of Humanity: Collaboration vs. Competition

This episode of Thinking on Paper, we look at how artificial intelligence is moving from military planning into intelligence analysis, targeting and battlefield operations.

Using a White House memorandum on America’s military AI strategy, Mark and Jeremy explore the push to build an AI-first warfighting force. The objective is to process information, identify threats and execute decisions faster than an adversary. That creates a central conflict between military speed and human control.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How AI is being used in modern warfare

• What Project Maven does

• How AI supports intelligence analysis and military targeting

• What the military kill chain is

• How AI could accelerate decisions across the kill chain

• The development of autonomous weapons systems

• Whether humans will remain involved in lethal decisions

• How AI-generated intelligence could produce false or misleading conclusions

• Why the United States sees China as its principal military AI competitor

• The role of companies such as Anthropic and defence technology firms

• What an open AI arsenal could mean for military procurement

• Why the Pentagon is competing for AI researchers and engineers

• Whether faster military systems make conflict less likely or easier to escalate

AI could help militaries process large volumes of data, identify targets more precisely and reduce the time between detection and response. It could also compress decision-making to the point where human review becomes a strategic disadvantage.

The central question isn’t only whether military AI works. It’s who controls these systems when speed becomes the priority, and who remains accountable when intelligence, targeting and battlefield decisions are executed through software.

Please enjoy the show.

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🎧 Listen to every podcast⁠

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To suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: [email protected]

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Chapters

(00:00) Department of War

(00:58) Executive Order 14179

(01:59) China

(04:36) Anthropic

(07:20) Pace Setting Projects

(08:28) Kill Chain

(10:22) Palmer Luckey

(11:53) The AI Open Arsenal

(13:57) The War Time Approach

(16:46) AI Talent Acquisition

(18:54) Speed wins

Iran made an AI Lego propaganda video about the United States. It was kind of funny. The US replied with Grand Theft Auto, Wii Sports, and Call of Duty. It wasn't. Children's toys and video games to push a distorted view of war at kids and morons on Twitter. Oh how they'll laugh. This is our first reaction video. Probably be our last.

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🎧 Listen to every podcast⁠

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To suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: [email protected]

Timestamps

(00:00) What Is Propaganda?

(00:36) Iran Lego Propaganda Video

(02:45) Reaction

(06:55) Whitehouse GTA Iran War Video

(09:07) Epic Fury - US Wii Sports Video

(13:22) Call Of Duty Iran War Video

More than 1.2 million pieces of space junk big enough to destroy a satellite are now circling Earth, according to the European Space Agency. Every collision creates more, and the cascade known as Kessler Syndrome could make parts of low Earth orbit unusable. So who cleans it up, and who pays?Our Space to Grow book club continues. With Matthew Weinzierl and Brendan Rosseau's book as our guide, we look at how orbital debris got this bad, the economics of satellite collisions and space insurance, and why today's deorbit rules may not be enough to keep low Earth orbit usable.We look at companies such as Astroscale that are trying to build a business out of active debris removal, and at the hardest question of all: who pays to clean up an orbit everyone shares?We also ask what happens when so much of the space economy depends on one company. With governments relying on SpaceX for launch and Starlink for communications, is SpaceX a monopoly?Low Earth orbit now underpins communications, navigation, Earth observation, defence and finance. If we keep launching without a way to deal with the debris, space becomes a classic tragedy of the commons.Please enjoy the show.

--

🎧 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]

--

Timestamps

(00:00) Space junk

(06:21) Kessler syndrome

(10:57) Space Insurance

(13:50) Government intervention

(20:26) Active debris removal

(22:37) Astroscale

(24:53) Who pays

(26:26) Is SpaceX a monopoly

(29:08) NASA Administrator

(33:04) Space governance

Conductor Quantum founder Brandon Severin joins Thinking on Paper to explain Google’s latest quantum breakthrough, the race to scale beyond today’s experimental systems, and why the future of computing may depend on controlling individual electrons.

From spin qubits and trapped ions to semiconductor manufacturing, AI driven quantum control, drug discovery, and cryptography, the conversation maps the emerging architecture of the quantum industry.

Have fun with this one. We did.

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Brandon Severin: https://www.conductorquantum.com/

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Timestamps

(00:00) Introduction: spin qubits and the quantum scaling problem

(03:47) Trapped ions vs spin qubits: fidelity, coherence, and tradeoffs

(06:14) What qubit fidelity means and why it determines scaling limits

(08:25) What is a spin qubit? Building from the transistor up

(11:06) Semiconductor fabrication as quantum computing's manufacturing advantage

(15:00) The quantum circus: superposition, measurement, Schrödinger's cat

(17:17) Shuttling qubits — moving electrons across a chip

(20:33) How AI automates quantum calibration (the control problem)

(25:00) Quantum scaling vs AI scaling: the GPU parallel

(29:08) Quantum startup culture and the AI generation gap

(32:59) Building for a million qubits — rocket ships vs ladders

(36:52) Why quantum is taking so long: talent, concentration, and meaning

(39:43) What seems impossible now that will be routine in 20 years

Quantum computing for materials is moving closer to practical use because quantum computers, GPUs, CPUs, and AI coding tools are beginning to work together.

Pranav Gokhale explains how future battery design could depend on simulating electrons, splitting materials problems between GPU workflows and quantum subroutines, and using Hamiltonian simulation where classical computers fall short.

The conversation connects logical qubits, Nvidia, quantum-GPU orchestration, material science, chemistry, drug discovery, and why 2028 could be an important threshold for early quantum applications.

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Other ways to connect with us:

• ⁠Listen to every podcast⁠

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• Follow Jeremy on ⁠LinkedIn⁠

• Read our ⁠Substack⁠

• Email: [email protected]