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This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   What does it mean to be conscious? And why should we care? To answer that, we have the man who wrote the book: Being You: The New Science of Consciousness. Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, and a TED speaker with over 13 million views. He came on the show to help us understand more about consciousness because the debate over whether an AI has become conscious may not be far off--witness the furor over Blake Lemoine asserting that LaMDA had become sentient in 2022--and yet we have no good way of settling that debate. You may be sure that you're conscious, but good luck proving it to someone on the other side of a computer link. And whether an AI is conscious will have pivotal implications for governance, not to mention our collective self image. Even if you're sure an AI can't be conscious, the space the debate will occupy in our world will be huge. Anil is Editor-in-Chief of the academic journal Neuroscience of Consciousness, and has a PhD in artificial intelligence. Being You was a 2021 Book of the Year for The Guardian, The Economist, The New Statesman, and Bloomberg Business. In part 1, Anil talks about how he got started in this field, distinctions of wakefulness, intelligence, self, phenomenology, Nagle's definition, Anil's three aspects of consciousness, ex Machina, and... zombies. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.        

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   The book Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective, is not just a management/leadership motivational book. Its authors, Kenneth Stanley and Joel Lehman, are AI researchers who stumbled upon a life truth while conducting experiments in genetic algorithms. With the help of the PicBreeder program, they demonstrated that what we think we know about achieving goals is wrong. That pursuing an ambitious goal by following the direction that seems to make the most progress towards it is counterproductive. AI proved to them that all that conventional wisdom about OKRs is harmful. And sent them on a mission to convey that learning to the rest of the world. In part 2 of our interview, hear about how their passion for this discovery grew, and how to apply the principles in your own life and organizations. Ken was previously Charles Millican Professor of Computer Science at the University of Central Florida; Joel is a machine learning researcher interested in algorithmic creativity, AI safety, and artificial life. Both were at Uber AI Labs, where Ken was head of Core AI research and Joel was a founding member, and they were both again at OpenAI, co-leading the Open-Endedness team (studying algorithms that can innovate endlessly). All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.        

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   The book Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective, is not just a management/leadership motivational book. Its authors, Kenneth Stanley and Joel Lehman, are AI researchers who stumbled upon a life truth while conducting experiments in genetic algorithms. With the help of the PicBreeder program, they demonstrated that what we think we know about achieving goals is wrong. That pursuing an ambitious goal by following the direction that seems to make the most progress towards it is counterproductive. AI proved to them that all that conventional wisdom about OKRs is harmful. And sent them on a mission to convey that learning to the rest of the world. Hear how AI achieved such a startling change of heart in part 1 of our interview, the first time both of them have been interviewed together. Ken was previously Charles Millican Professor of Computer Science at the University of Central Florida; Joel is a machine learning researcher interested in algorithmic creativity, AI safety, and artificial life. Both were at Uber AI Labs, where Ken was head of Core AI research and Joel was a founding member, and they were both again at OpenAI, co-leading the Open-Endedness team (studying algorithms that can innovate endlessly). All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.        

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   "How Might Transhumans Control Superintelligence?" That's the provocative title of a new paper by a returning guest, futurist Tony Czarnecki. Tony is a member of the Chatham House, and the Managing Partner of Sustensis, both in London. Sustensis is a think tank for inspirations for humanity’s transition to coexistence with superintelligence.  Terms like "futurist," "transhuman," and "superintelligence" may have persuaded you that this is a discussion rooted in the far future, but Tony argues how we are heading for a "tipping point" in 2030. In part 2, we talk about how "transhuman" evolution comes into play and what sort of changes we might undergo as a species. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.        

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   "How Might Transhumans Control Superintelligence?" That's the provocative title of a new paper by a returning guest, futurist Tony Czarnecki. Tony is a member of the Chatham House, and the Managing Partner of Sustensis, both in London. Sustensis is a think tank for inspirations for humanity’s transition to coexistence with superintelligence.  Terms like "futurist," "transhuman," and "superintelligence" may have persuaded you that this is a discussion rooted in the far future, but Tony argues how we are heading for a "tipping point" in 2030. In part 1, we unpack that timetable and why 2030 is so important. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.        

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   In our now-traditional end-of-year episode, we look back on the year to date and forward to the year to be. I am joined by previous guests David Wood, chair of the London Futurists and author of the recent book The Singularity Principles: Anticipating and managing cataclysmically disruptive technologies, and Dan Turchin, host of the AI and the Future of Work podcast and CEO of PeopleReign. Together, we review what happened with AI in 2022 and how our predictions fared, and then make some predictions for 2023. We also have a lot to say about what ChatGPT has done and will do to the business landscape. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.        

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   The AI arms race between China and the United States continues to heat up following China's declaration that they intend to lead the world in all aspects of AI by 2030. Handel Jones has over 50 years of experience in the electronics industry and consulting for International Business Strategies for over 30 years, supporting governments and corporations globally, analyzing technology and predicting corporate and government strategy and market trends. His new book is When AI Rules the World: China, the US, and the Race to Control a Smart Planet, and so he is just the person to tell us what's happening with AI in China. This interview will be of enormous use to anyone who is in or adjacent to international relations, educational strategies, or microcomputer technology supply chains. In the second half of the interview we discuss China’s development of its transportation infrastructure, developments in space, and different attitudes towards AI development between China and the West. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.        

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   The AI arms race between China and the United States continues to heat up following China's declaration that they intend to lead the world in all aspects of AI by 2030. Handel Jones has over 50 years of experience in the electronics industry and consulting for International Business Strategies for over 30 years, supporting governments and corporations globally, analyzing technology and predicting corporate and government strategy and market trends. His new book is When AI Rules the World: China, the US, and the Race to Control a Smart Planet, and so he is just the person to tell us what's happening with AI in China. This interview will be of enormous use to anyone who is in or adjacent to international relations, educational strategies, or microcomputer technology supply chains. In part 1 we discuss Chinese attitudes towards privacy and surveillance, their education strategy for AI, the impact of the recent sanctions on both their plans for Taiwan and the economic outlook in the West, and differences in patterns of innovation between the West and China.  All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.        

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   The legend of Alan Turing continues to grow; but what was his real contribution to today's world? To get a solid idea of the size and shape of Turing's legacy, I turned to Jonathan Bowen, co-author of The Turing Guide, a comprehensive account of Turing's life and times. Jonathan is is a fellow of the British Computer Society, a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Emeritus Professor at London South Bank University, and an adjunct professor or visiting professor of many universities. Turing, of course, was notable for his role at Bletchley Park in WWII decoding the ENIGMA transmissions, estimated by some at personally shortening the war by two years or longer. But this did not come to light for decades afterwards due to official secrets. Turing is famous in computer science for the Turing Machine and in AI for the Turing Test. But there is even more to him. In part 2 you can hear Jonathan tell us about what Turing did after the war, his work in biology and quantum physics, and the club that sparked so much of Turing's collaborations. (A full list of links provided by Jonathan is in the transcript.) All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.        

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   The legend of Alan Turing continues to grow; but what was his real contribution to today's world? To get a solid idea of the size and shape of Turing's legacy, I turned to Jonathan Bowen, co-author of The Turing Guide, a comprehensive account of Turing's life and times. Jonathan is is a fellow of the British Computer Society, a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Emeritus Professor at London South Bank University, and an adjunct professor or visiting professor of many universities. Turing, of course, was notable for his role at Bletchley Park in WWII decoding the ENIGMA transmissions, estimated by some at personally shortening the war by two years or longer. But this did not come to light for decades afterwards due to official secrets. Turing is famous in computer science for the Turing Machine and in AI for the Turing Test. But there is even more to him. In part 1 you can hear Jonathan tell us about Turing's real contributions at Bletchley Park, where Turing ranks in the history of science, what Jonathan would have put in The Imitation Game, and Turing's connection with Oxford University. (A full list of links provided by Jonathan is in the transcript.) All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.        

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   Welcome to the Matrix... er, Metaverse. Everywhere you turn, you hear more about the metaverse... but what is it, aside from a giant bet by Facebook's founders in changing their company's name? Mark van Rijmenam, a future tech strategist who thinks about how technology changes organizations and society, is here to tell us. He has a PhD in management from the University of Technology Sydney on how organizations should deal with Big Data, Blockchain and (Responsible) AI. He is the founder of Datafloq and the author of the book Step into the Metaverse: How the Immersive Internet Will Unlock a Trillion-Dollar Social Economy.  In part 2 we talk about practical use cases of the metaverse, and some of the opportunities and problems of having a virtual identity there. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.        

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   Welcome to the Matrix... er, Metaverse. Everywhere you turn, you hear more about the metaverse... but what is it, aside from a giant bet by Facebook's founders in changing their company's name? Mark van Rijmenam, a future tech strategist who thinks about how technology changes organizations and society, is here to tell us. He has a PhD in management from the University of Technology Sydney on how organizations should deal with Big Data, Blockchain and (Responsible) AI. He is the founder of Datafloq and the author of the book Step into the Metaverse: How the Immersive Internet Will Unlock a Trillion-Dollar Social Economy.  In part 1 we talk about the definition of the metaverse, how you might experience it now, and its economic impact. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.        

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   Will tomorrow's robots be invented... or grown? Mark Lee, Emeritus Professor of Intelligent Systems in the Department of Computer Science at Aberystwyth University in Wales, works in the new field of Developmental Robotics. That's creating computational models of infant development for novel robot learning techniques, and he has trained their humanoid iCub robot from the equivalent of a developmental stage of newborn to nine-month-old. Hence the title of his recent book, How to Grow a Robot: Developing Human-Friendly, Social AI. In part 2, we talk about crossovers between robotics and neuroscience, conversational robots, and what it might be like in a world where you could go down to your local park and made a robot and have a and meet a robot and have a conversation on a bench. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.        

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   Will tomorrow's robots be invented... or grown? Mark Lee, Emeritus Professor of Intelligent Systems in the Department of Computer Science at Aberystwyth University in Wales, works in the new field of Developmental Robotics. That's creating computational models of infant development for novel robot learning techniques, and he has trained their humanoid iCub robot from the equivalent of a developmental stage of newborn to nine-month-old. Hence the title of his recent book, How to Grow a Robot: Developing Human-Friendly, Social AI. In part 1 we talk about what meaning means to a robot, some connections with Alan Turing, the role of curiosity, and the relationship of computer vision to interpreting the 3-D world. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.        

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   How do you like the experience of calling Customer Service? Yeah... me too. But Dan Turchin is out to change that. Dan is a serial entrepreneurial leader who is passionate about changing the future of work. He’s doing that currently as the CEO of PeopleReign, which automates the lifecycle of service requests - those problems people inside a business might have - through AI. He's run AI-centric businesses like InsightFinder and Aeroprise, and been a senior director at BMC and ServiceNow. In part 2 we talk about Dan's vision of optimism for the future of work with AI and his mission with his podcast. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.        

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   How do you like the experience of calling Customer Service? Yeah... me too. But Dan Turchin is out to change that. Dan is a serial entrepreneurial leader who is passionate about changing the future of work. He’s doing that currently as the CEO of PeopleReign, which automates the lifecycle of service requests - those problems people inside a business might have - through AI. He's run AI-centric businesses like InsightFinder and Aeroprise, and been a senior director at BMC and ServiceNow. We talk about how he got into this field and what it takes to go beyond the usual irritating chatbot. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.        

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   Do you have questions about autonomous vehicles (AVs) and the contradictory headlines about them? Me too. So I invited Paul Newman, founder and CTO of Oxbotica, a UK creator of software for AVs, to come on the show and clear up the hype and heat around self-driving cars. He is the BP chair of Information Engineering at the University of Oxford and director of the Oxford Robotics Institute, and in 2020 he was awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering Medal for outstanding commercialization of engineering innovation. Paul is really passionate about vehicle autonomy. In this second part he talks about how AVs should handle situations they're not prepared for, regulatory requirements, and what sort of schedule future deployments might follow. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.        

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   Do you have questions about autonomous vehicles (AVs) and the contradictory headlines about them? Me too. So I invited Paul Newman, CTO of Oxbotica, a UK creator of software for AVs, to come on the show and clear up the hype and heat around self-driving cars. He is the BP chair of Information Engineering at the University of Oxford and director of the Oxford Robotics Institute; he serves as a science advisor to the Prime Minister and adviser to the UK Department of Transport, and in 2020 he was awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering Medal for outstanding commercialization of engineering innovation. Paul is really passionate about vehicle autonomy. Join us in this first part where he distinguishes for us the conditions when a vehicle may operate autonomously sooner rather than later, and defines the Operational Design Domain... and we journey from the Gulf of Mexico to the mines of Australia to the plains of Mars. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.        

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   Don't Panic! Our returning guest, Robbie Stamp, is a friend and associate of the late Douglas Adams and was an executive producer on the 2005 movie of the HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But he is also CEO of Bioss International, a global consultancy helping clients focus on decision-making in conditions of complexity, and founder with Adams of the Digital Village. Get ready to think about Life, the Universe, and Everything in this interview conclusion, as TEDx speaker, historian, and philosopher Robbie covers ground from how Douglas' way of thinking can shape our view of AI, to the meaning of empathy and creativity in light of AI's recent developments. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.        

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   Don't Panic! This week's guest, Robbie Stamp, was a friend and associate of the late Douglas Adams and was an executive producer on the 2005 movie of the HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But he is also CEO of Bioss International, a global consultancy helping clients focus on decision-making in conditions of complexity, and founder with Adams of the Digital Village. TEDx speaker, historian, and philosopher, Robbie takes us on a wild romp ranging from how much agency we have in a world of AI making decisions about our lives, to the sentience of Marvin the Paranoid Android. Grab your towel. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.