Ft Tech Tonic

Former Google employee James Williams talks to John Thornhill about his book: Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Resistance in the Attention Economy and why he turned to philosophy to try to understand how the tech industry is undermining our free will.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

John Thornhill talks to the social scientist Shoshana Zuboff about her book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, and what we need to do to reclaim the more benign impacts of the digital revolution.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

John Thornhill talks to Will Marshall, whose San-Francisco-based start-up is helping companies like Google and Monsanto, as well as governments and NGOs, to observe day-to-day changes on the earth’s surface using data gathered in space.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

John Thornhill talks to Taavet Hinrikus, co-founder of Transferwise, about shaking up the lucrative money transfer business and how he helped build a tech unicorn that is not only highly valued but is profitable too.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

John Thornhill talks to Chris Bishop, director of Microsoft’s Cambridge research lab, about the potential for exponential growth in the development of software, thanks to machine learning.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Robin Lovell-Badge, developmental biologist and geneticist, talks to FT science columnist Anjana Ahuja about the gene-edited babies controversy in China and about the potential for new gene-editing techniques to transform the treatment of diseases like cancer and muscular dystrophy.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

John Thornhill talks to Vivienne Ming, a theoretical neuroscientist, entrepreneur and artificial intelligence guru about her work in trying to make technology work for the benefit of humans  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The former Amazon executive tells John Thornhill how he applied the lessons he’d learnt at the US technology company to help transform Italians’ experience of dealing with government.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

John Thornhill talks to the academic and author Rachel Botsman about the evolution of trust in the digital age and the way technology has undermined our faith in institutions  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Nigel Toon, founder and chief executive of Graphcore, talks to John Thornhill about the chip technology his company is developing and its potential to speed the advance of machine learning.    See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

John Thornhill talks to Maja Pantic, Professor of Affective and Behavioural Computing at Imperial College in London, about her work testing the boundaries of human robot interaction.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Stewart Butterfield, co-founder and chief executive of San Francisco-based Slack tells John Thornhill how his fascination for technology that facilitates human interaction came about.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Physicist Zdenka Kuncic tells FT science editor Clive Cookson about the difference between software-based and hardware-based approaches to artificial intelligence and her work to develop autonomous intelligent systems for potential use in space and in medical devices  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sociologist Jonathan Lusthaus spent seven years talking to cyber criminals.  He tells Hannah Kuchler what he discovered about the extent of their involvement with organised crime and what he thinks it would take to persuade them to put their talents to better use. His book: Industry of Anonymity: Inside the Business of Cybercrime, was published by Harvard University Press.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Murali Doraiswamy, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, Duke University Health System, tells Shannon Bond about his research into potential technological solutions to neurological and mental health disorders.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Investor Alice Newcombe-Ellis tells John Thornhill about her strategy for discovering and investing in the next generation of disruptive technology companies  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Zia Chishti's latest business venture Afiniti uses artificial intelligence to match customers and employees, but he tells John Thornhill he sees the technology as evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, and offers his thoughts on the dos and don'ts of investing in AI.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hannah Kuchler talks to American social scientist and cyber security expert Andrea Little Limbago about the worrying lack of agreement among governments on how best to promote the beneficial aspects of the internet.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

John Thornhill talks to the New York Times journalist about his latest book: The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage and Fear in the Cyber Age.    See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Web Foundation president and CEO Adrian Lovett talks to John Thornhill about open data, net neutrality and widening global internet access.Web Foundation website  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.