Times Tech

Humanoid robots are all over social media: making beds, doing backflips, even outrunning Usain Bolt. But how much of it is real and how much is hype?

This week, Danny and Katie are joined by roboticist and co-founder of Bear Robotics Bren Pierce. He’s been building humanoid robots for more than twenty years.

They discuss how AI is finally giving robots ‘brains’ to understand the physical world, why China is winning the robot race and how long it will be until robots are folding laundry in our homes.

The Interview is our weekly conversation with the people shaping the future of technology.

Guest: Brennand Pierce, Co-founder and Chief Robotics Officer of Bear Robotics

Presenters:

Katie Prescott, Technology Business Editor, The Times

Danny Fortson, US West Coast Correspondent, The Sunday Times

Producer: Marnie Duke

Executive Producer: Priyanka Deladia

Image: Bear Robotics

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Anthropic has pledged to give away 5% of its shares to a fund that will make donations for the quote unquote “public good”. These shares could be worth between 75 and $100 billion.

Days later, Elon Musk posted on X that he would give one of his SpaceX shares to every child in America. These could be worth over $10 billion. So, what’s behind these recent pledges?

Danny and Katie question whether tech companies are finally taking accountability for their impact on society or whether this is just good PR.

Plus, a power outage at one of Google’s data centres in London that disrupted services at Royal Mail, Revolut, HSBC and Lloyds bank has renewed concerns about a lack of sovereign AI.

Watch on YouTube

Read more: How I helped to make Elon Musk’s flying car

Get in touch: [email protected]

Presenters:

Katie Prescott, Technology Business Editor, The Times

Danny Fortson, US West Coast Correspondent, The Sunday Times

Producer: Marnie Duke

Executive Producer: Priyanka Deladia

Image: Getty

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bending Spoons has become one of Europe’s most unusual tech companies by buying well-known tech businesses and rebuilding them. Katie Prescott speaks to CEO Luca Ferrari about taking the company public, choosing the US over Europe and transforming businesses such as AOL and Evernote.

He also explains why Bending Spoons never sells the companies it buys, and why being the CEO of a public company can feel “a little bit naked”.

Watch on YouTube

Get in touch: [email protected]

Presenters:

Katie Prescott, Technology Business Editor, The Times

Danny Fortson, US West Coast Correspondent, The Sunday Times

Producer: Marnie Duke

Executive Producer: Priyanka Deladia

Video Producer: Bronwen Latham

Image: Getty

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MI5 has warned that AI is "supercharging" security threats to the UK, while Britain’s AI minister said it was “inevitable” that Britain is going to be hacked by rogue AI agents.

Danny and Katie look at the growing security fears around AI, including the FBI investigating a case involving a former OpenAI employee accused of planting a covert recording device at the company’s San Francisco office.

This comes days after Jacob Coxon, the former Anthropic employee who warned about AI’s existential threat, raised alarms about the possibility of spies inside Anthropic and OpenAI. So, what does this tell us about the AI industry and the potential dangers it poses?

Plus, after years of predictions that AI will replace white-collar workers, Anthropic is reportedly hiring a human personal assistant for a salary of £145,000.

Watch on YouTube

Read more: Chatbot developer Anthropic seeks PA — but only humans need apply

Get in touch: [email protected]

Presenters:

Katie Prescott, Technology Business Editor, The Times

Danny Fortson, US West Coast Correspondent, The Sunday Times

Producer: Marnie Duke

Executive Producer: Priyanka Deladia

Image: Getty

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Five years after leaking thousands of internal Facebook documents, whistleblower Frances Haugen joins Times Tech to talk about The Social Reckoning, Aaron Sorkin’s new film about her story and the sequel to The Social Network.

She talks about Hollywood’s current obsession with Silicon Valley, how attitudes towards Big Tech have changed since she blew the whistle and what Mark Zuckerberg, Meta and today’s AI companies can learn from the social media era.

The Interview is our weekly conversation with the people shaping the future of technology.

Watch on YouTube

Get in touch: [email protected]

Presenters:

Katie Prescott, Technology Business Editor, The Times

Danny Fortson, US West Coast Correspondent, The Sunday Times

Producer: Marnie Duke

Executive Producer: Priyanka Deladia

Video Producer: Bronwen Latham

Image: Getty

Clip: NBC News

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

AI companies are investigating a growing number of incidents where agents have gone rogue and done things which would be considered crimes if committed by a human. But when AI causes serious damage, who is responsible and crucially, who pays?

Katie’s been speaking to London’s major insurers who have been war-gaming scenarios where AI causes harm and asking who would ultimately pick up the bill.

This week, Yoshua Bengio, chair of the International AI Safety Report said that a “dangerous myth” about agent hacks has gained traction. He warned that these aren't just cybersecurity glitches but a bigger problem built into how we design and train AI. Danny and Katie ask whether he’s right, and if AI hacks like Hugging Face can be avoided in the future.

Plus, they discuss the unexpected consequences of Trump’s new ‘super intelligence’ rebrand and why a spelling mistake in his AI pact with tech leaders has made the internet laugh.

Watch on YouTube

Read more: Who will put the brake on AI? Count on lawyers and underwriters

Get in touch: [email protected]

Presenters:

Katie Prescott, Technology Business Editor, The Times

Danny Fortson, US West Coast Correspondent, The Sunday Times

Producer: Marnie Duke

Executive Producer: Priyanka Deladia

Video Producer: Bronwen Latham

Image: Getty

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of The Times Tech Podcast is in paid partnership with ServiceNow.

How do you navigate the rapid pace of AI development in business?

With Matt Higham, ServiceNow’s chief digital and technology officer for UK and Ireland, we ask how companies can use AI governance to dodge the pitfalls thrown up by AI, and embrace the opportunities safely.

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This week, Danny speaks to Amjad Masad, co-founder and CEO of Replit, a ‘vibe-coding’ company which enables anyone – coder or not – to build software simply by telling AI what they want it to do.

Amjad makes the case that we’ve lost the original joy of computing, leaving everyday users "at the mercy" of Silicon Valley giants.

He also pushes back on the current wave of AI doomerism, arguing that apocalyptic fears are overblown and that focus should shift toward real-world accountability, including strict penalties for companies whose AI agents go rogue.

Watch on YouTube

Get in touch: [email protected]

Presenters:

Katie Prescott, Technology Business Editor, The Times

Danny Fortson, US West Coast Correspondent, The Sunday Times

Producer: Marnie Duke

Executive Producer: Priyanka Deladia

Video Producer: Bronwen Latham

Image: Replit

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Warnings that AI is going to kill us are once again abounding.

This week, Anthropic’s long awaited IPO prospectus was leaked. In it, the company warns that its technology poses “catastrophic or existential risks to humanity” while simultaneously asking investors to finance their $518 billion AI buildout. Danny and Katie break down the contradictions at the heart of the prospectus and question why Dario Amodei is asking investors to fund doom.

Meanwhile, amid mounting safety concerns, President Trump invited tech leaders to the White House to talk regulation. Leaders of Anthropic, Google, Meta, Nvidia, OpenAI and SpaceXAI agreed to sign a voluntary self-policing pact and to rebrand AI as “super intelligence”. But when Silicon Valley sets its own rules, can we ensure they will keep us safe?

Watch on YouTube

Get in touch: [email protected]

Presenters:

• Katie Prescott, Technology Business Editor, The Times
• Danny Fortson, US West Coast Correspondent, The Sunday Times

Producer: Marnie Duke

Executive Producer: Priyanka Deladia

Video Producer: Bronwen Latham

Clip: Saturday Night Live

Image: Getty

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ordnance Survey might just be the oldest tech company around. For 235 years, it has been mapping out every single metre of the UK – no matter how remote. And that data plays a huge part in how we use technology today; think of the many apps we use that rely on maps. The average person in the UK uses some element of Ordnance Survey mapping data 42 times a day.

Its CEO, Nick Bolton, joins Danny and Katie to discuss how the company has evolved from the days of paper maps to supplying to the likes of Apple and Google, why it’s building a map you can talk to, and how AI is changing geospatial mapping.

The Interview is our weekly conversation with the people shaping the future of technology.

Watch on YouTube

Get in touch: [email protected]

Presenters:

• Katie Prescott, Technology Business Editor, The Times
• Danny Fortson, US West Coast Correspondent, The Sunday Times

Producer: Marnie Duke

Video Producer: Bronwen Latham

Executive Producer: Priyanka Deladia

Image: Ordnance Survey

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.