Azeem Azhar's Exponential View

Azeem Azhar is joined by Richard Socher, CEO and founder of You.com, an AI chatbot search engine at the forefront of truthful and verifiable AI. They explore approaches to building AI systems that are both truthful and verifiable. The conversation sheds light on the critical breakthroughs in AI, the technical challenges of ensuring AI's reliability, and Socher's vision for the future of search.

As 2024 begins, leaders are facing increasing uncertainty and a host of difficult decisions. Azeem Azhar returns to bring clarity amid a complicated information landscape, with his analysis of 12 core themes that will shape the year ahead, including AI adoption, geopolitics, decentralization, the energy transition, and more.

Generative AI has a lot to offer health care professionals and medical scientists. This week, host Azeem Azhar speaks with renowned cardiologist, scientist, and author Eric Topol about the change he’s observed among his colleagues in the last two years, as generative AI developments have accelerated in medicine.

In this conversation, Azeem Azhar speaks with climate lead at Hugging Face, Sasha Luccioni, to shed light on the environmental footprint of AI, the pressing issues in AI deployment, and the potential paths to a more ethical and sustainable AI future.

AI is enabling new strides in autonomous driving. In this episode, Azeem Azhar joins the co-founder and CEO of Wayve, Alex Kendall, to explore how the AI revolution is opening new market opportunities for the auto industry. Wayve is a UK-based start-up that makes AI technology for self-driving vehicles.

Organizations across the world have been grappling with the opportunities and challenges of generative AI. In this episode, Azeem Azhar joins AI pioneer and entrepreneur Andrew Ng to debate whether we’re at an inflection point in the AI revolution.

Azeem Azhar speaks with Aravind Srinivas, the co-founder and CEO of Perplexity.ai, about the looming challenges in AI research and product development, such as user-centric design and the importance of open-source models.

The upheaval at OpenAI sent shockwaves through the tech world. Karen Hao, a contributing writer who covers AI at The Atlantic, joins Azeem Azhar to break down the ideologies and power struggles within OpenAI and their implications for the development of artificial intelligence. She also explains how these internal conflicts reflect broader challenges in AI development and governance.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is on every business leader’s agenda. How do you ensure the AI systems you deploy are harmless and trustworthy? This month, Azeem Azhar picks some of his favorite conversations with leading AI safety experts to help you break through the noise. Today’s pick is Azeem’s 2020 conversation with the pioneering AI scientist Fei-Fei Li, professor of computer science at Stanford University and the founding co-director of Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is on every business leader’s agenda. How do you ensure the AI systems you deploy are harmless and trustworthy? This month, Azeem picks some of his favorite conversations with leading AI safety experts to help you break through the noise. Today’s pick is Azeem’s 2021 conversation with veteran AI scientist Murray Shanahan, professor of cognitive robotics at Imperial College London and principal scientist at DeepMind.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is on every business leader’s agenda. How do you ensure the AI systems you deploy are harmless and trustworthy? This month, Azeem picks some of his favorite conversations with leading AI safety experts to help you break through the noise. Today’s pick is Azeem’s conversation with Joanna Bryson, a leading expert on the questions of AI governance and the impact of technology on human cooperation.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is on every business leader’s agenda. How do you ensure the AI systems you deploy are harmless and trustworthy? This month, Azeem picks some of his favorite conversations with leading AI safety experts to help you break through the noise. Today’s pick is Azeem’s conversation with Meredith Whittaker, president of the Signal Foundation. Meredith is a co-founder and chief advisor of the AI Now Institute, an independent research group looking at the social impact of artificial intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is on every business leader’s agenda. How do you ensure the AI systems you deploy are harmless and trustworthy? This month, Azeem picks some of his favorite conversations with leading AI safety experts to help you break through the noise. Today’s pick is Azeem’s conversation with Dr. Rumman Chowdhury, a pioneer in the field of applied algorithmic ethics. She runs Parity Consulting, the Parity Responsible Innovation Fund, and she’s a Responsible AI Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

As exponential technologies like artificial intelligence march on, the ability to make future-proof decisions is all the more important for leaders. Azeem Azhar’s new TV show and podcast, Exponentially with Azeem Azhar, goes beyond mainstream conversations about technology to explore new ways of thinking about our collective future. Guests include: Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and Vinod Khosla.

In his brief commentary, Azeem Azhar discusses the increasing complexity and capabilities of large language models (LLMs) and the transformative potential they hold.

In his brief commentary, Azeem Azhar lays out why the future of the Web is underpinned by AI, and what this means for the traditional business model of the internet.

In his brief commentary, Azeem Azhar shares his outlook on how artificial intelligence will change the labor market, drawing on research published by Goldman Sachs.

Drawing on Carlota Perez's framework, Azeem Azhar considers whether large language models, such as OpenAI's GPT-4, will drive a paradigm shift across our economies.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is dominating the headlines, but it’s not a new topic here on Exponential View. This week and next, Azeem Azhar shares his favorite conversations with AI pioneers. Their work and insights are more relevant than ever. Jürgen Schmidhuber is a recognized pioneer in the field of deep neural networks. His techniques form the basis of the modern AI systems used by billions of people daily on services like Google, Facebook, and the Apple iPhone. In 2019, Jürgen joined Azeem to discuss the next thirty years of artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is dominating the headlines, but it’s not a new topic here on Exponential View. Azeem Azhar shares his favorite conversations with AI experts. Their work and insights are more relevant than ever. Gary Marcus has a reputation for being a contrarian in the AI community. A neuroscientist, founder, and the author of Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust, Marcus has been a vocal critic of deep learning as the best way forward for AI. in 2019, he joined Azeem Azhar to discuss the alternatives for building better machine intelligence.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is dominating the headlines, but it’s not a new topic here on Exponential View. This week and next, Azeem Azhar shares his favorite conversations with AI pioneers. Their work and insights are more relevant than ever. DeepMind’s co-founder and CEO, Demis Hassabis, joined Azeem in 2020 to explore his company's progression from gaming to accelerating scientific discovery. In 2023, DeepMind’s parent company Alphabet announced consolidation of its biggest research units, DeepMind and Google Brain, into a new division led by Demis.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is dominating the headlines, but it’s not a new topic here on Exponential View. This week and next, Azeem Azhar shares his favorite conversations with AI pioneers. Their work and insights are more relevant than ever. OpenAI has stunned the world with the release of its language-generating AI, ChatGPT-4. In 2020, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman joined Azeem Azhar to reflect on the huge attention generated by the precursor to GPT-4 and what that could mean for the future research and development toward the creation of artificial general intelligence (AGI).

After producing more than 160 episodes of Exponential View over the last six years, we’re taking a break to reflect on what we’ve learned and how the conversations we’ve hosted with leaders are changing our perspective on the future. While we percolate on the future of our podcast, we have a challenge for you: find all the phenomenal conversations we’ve hosted that you haven’t heard yet –and take alisten. (And please let us know which episodes helped you understand the world and your future!)

This episode is a special introduction to Cold Call, another podcast from Harvard Business Review. Host Brian Kenny explores Shield AI’s work with the U.S. government to develop autonomous combat robots. Harvard Business School professor Mitch Weiss and Brandon Tseng, Shield AI’s CGO and co-founder, join Brian to discuss the challenges start-ups face in working with the public sector, and how investing in new ideas can enable entrepreneurs and governments to join forces to solve big problems.

How do you talk about a product before anything like it exists? How do you guide the engineers building it and the marketing department who has to sell it? As co-creator of the iPod and iPhone, founder of the learning thermostat Nest, and with over 300 patents to his name, Tony Fadell is a serial entrepreneur who now focuses on investing. He tells Azeem Azhar how he uses opinion-based decision-making in his work, and why thinking like a product manager helps drive radical innovation.

Carbon recycling takes our polluting carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide and, with the help of bacteria, turns them into ethanol. This can replace oil as the basis for carbon-based chemicals industries (e.g., fertilizers, plastics, clothing, health and beauty products, etc.), as well as offering sustainable fuel and animal feed. Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech, joins Azeem Azhar to share her vision of the future where greenhouse gases provide a core contribution to our sustainable life.

Quantitative hedge funds, which rely on the work of employed mathematicians to develop complex trading strategies, are nothing new. But what if the mathematical work is outsourced to anyone, via a contest where the best predictions are rewarded with cryptocurrency? Richard Craib, founder of Numerai, explains to Azeem Azhar how his $70 million fund uses collective intelligence to perform well, despite the turmoil in the markets.

Hydrogen has long been hyped as a fuel of the future. It’s abundant and its waste product is water. But it’s only recently that the availability of cheap renewable energy has allowed hydrogen to be produced competitively without the use of fossil fuels. Azeem Azhar speaks with Raffi Garabedian, co-founder and CEO of Electric Hydrogen, to explore the market opportunity and roadmap to wide adoption of “green hydrogen.”

From The Jetsons to Back to the Future, flying cars are a staple of popular science fiction. German start-up Volocopter is working to turn that fiction into reality. Volocopter’s CEO Florian Reuter joins Azeem Azhar to explore how this radical new transport could transform our cities. They also break down the steps required to fulfill his vision of creating a door-to-door taxi service to rival Uber, via autonomous electric helicopters.

Web3’s ability to attach value and incentives to almost every part of human activity has radical implications not only for how businesses engage with their customers, but also for how people can self-organize to drive social change. Web3 investor and analyst Packy McCormick makes the case, in conversation with Azeem Azhar, that an optimistic outlook rooted in market dynamics can enable new sustainable businesses that operate for the public good.

As the gaming industry evolves to meet the challenges and opportunities of Web3, could it drive the mass adoption of crypto? Amy Wu leads investment, M&A, and gaming initiatives at cryptocurrency exchange FTX. She speaks with Azeem Azhar about how she evaluates crypto and Web3 as an investor, how she expects the gaming landscape to change in the next two years, and why the community that comes with NFT ownership is more important to her than potential profit.

What is the metaverse, how will we use it, and why might the financial innovations of Web3 and blockchain technology be crucial to its success? Citi’s Ronit Ghose, one of the world’s foremost analysts of technology’s influence on financial innovation, returns to the podcast to discuss how money will function in the metaverse.

Venture capitalists offer their investors outsized financial returns in exchange for taking on considerable risk. But what if that risk includes backing products where the economics of the end market aren’t clear? Moreover, what if the companies being supported have the non-financial goal of tackling climate change? As more money than ever pours into climate tech, Azeem Azhar speaks with Shayle Kann, a partner at Energy Impact Partners, about the challenges of investing in the net zero economy.

Today’s cancer therapies are difficult, expensive, and slow to create. But the combination of new computing and new biological technologies is leading to a better understanding of the human immune system, with the goal of offering a better class of cancer therapies. Azeem Azhar speaks with Immunai co-founder and chief technology officer Luis Voloch about how AI is unlocking the secrets of the immune system and opening new avenues for novel cancer treatments.

Danish start-up Seaborg Technologies has a blueprint for the future of power that uses a new type of nuclear reactor that is safe, can be manufactured quickly, and deployed on barges to any location worldwide. Seaborg CEO Troels Schönfeldt talks to Azeem Azhar about how the future of power stations could be sailing to your town soon.

We could soon be living more of our lives in immersive virtual worlds, but what will that look like and how will it affect us? New York University professor of philosophy and neural science David Chalmers discusses what the metaverse might offer us, the moral quandaries it could pose, and what our rights there might look like.

As war returns to Europe, General Sir Richard Barrons, former commander of the UK’s Joint Forces Command (whose remit included military intelligence, special forces, and cyber), joins Azeem Azhar to explore how technology is changing warfare and why we must take a more active role in stewarding peace. (This episode was originally broadcast on October 23, 2019.)

Many experts expected Russia’s war with Ukraine to be accompanied by a large-scale cyberattack, but that hasn’t yet materialized. Azeem Azhar speaks to Robert Hannigan, the former head of GCHQ (the UK’s equivalent to America’s NSA), to find out how the conflict is playing out in cyberspace and what might happen next.

Technology is making traditional agriculture more efficient, but farming still has its problems. It takes a huge amount of land and can be energy- and water-intensive. In addition, produce needs to be transported to customers, often over great distances. Daniele Modesto, CEO of ZERO Farms, explains the role building upward will play in the future of farming and why his technology could be used to produce more than just food.

Science is getting better at re-engineering micro-organisms for all kinds of uses, from better medical treatments to more durable materials. But there are still hurdles to overcome, including scaling. Boston-based Ginkgo Bioworks was one of the first billion-dollar companies in the synthetic biology space. The NYSE-listed company uses machine learning and automation to coax biology to work at industrial scale. COO Reshma Shetty talks to Azeem Azhar about the company’s technology, business model, and how big she thinks synthetic biology could become.

Eighty percent of urban trips are less than two miles long. So why do so many of us make them in big, inefficient, and expensive vehicles? Micromobility analyst Horace Dediu joins Azeem Azhar to discuss why many more of us will soon be getting around cities on electric scooters, bikes, and buggies and how that could change our lives for the better.

Seventy-five percent of the total value of US companies that have floated since 1995 has been created by venture-backed firms, including Alphabet, Facebook, and countless others. But how did an obscure investment strategy become the engine of modern innovation and where might it go next? Sebastian Mallaby, author of an excellent new book, The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future, joins Azeem Azhar to discuss the history (and future) of venture capital.

Nutritional science has long been one-size-fits-all. Advice on a healthier diet has long been generic, failing to consider the huge variance of our bodies. ZOE is trying to change that by combining new research on our microbiomes with AI and machine learning. The healthtech startup offers dietary advice tailored to an individual’s microbiome – the unique makeup of microorganisms present in our gut – to change the way we  eat for the better.

The workings of the brain have long puzzled scientists and philosophers, but the last twenty years have been a golden age for consciousness research. Neuroscientist Anil Seth explains his theories on consciousness and why unlocking the secrets of our mind will transform medicine, AI, and virtual reality.

Companies of all sizes and sectors have committed to net-zero emissions targets, but getting there is not straightforward. Measuring carbon dioxide output is tricky, carbon markets are fragmented, and the quality of offsets varies hugely. Michelle You, co-founder and CEO of Supercritical, is on a mission to help companies better measure, reduce, and remove carbon emissions – and her first target is the tech sector.

Some people see cryptocurrencies as speculative assets with no real utility at best, a Ponzi scam at worst. For others, they’re the future of money. Do Kwon, founder and CEO of Terraform Labs, the company behind the Terra blockchain, discusses his vision for a decentralized financial ecosystem with Azeem Azhar.

Azeem Azhar sets out his vision for 2022 and shares the trends that he thinks will change our world this year. Some changes are hurtling down the pike, like the growth of Web 3.0 and the metaverse, while others are rumbling along more slowly: the continued dominance of Big Tech and the tireless march of artificial intelligence.

As 2021 draws to a close and Covid cases spike, it’s easy to think not much has changed. But in between pandemic waves, we’ve made major progress in science and technology. And that progress gives us clues about how the future might play out. Azeem Azhar reflects on the tech trends we’ve seen this year and key shifts in industry and society that are changing cities, the labor market, and the superconductor business.

Andreessen Horowitz general partner Andrew Chen and host Azeem Azhar have something in common: they were both tech company insiders and early-stage investors before becoming authors. They explore why they decided to write their books, how writing intersects with their day jobs, and whether they’d do it all again.

Quantum computing won’t be an incremental improvement – it will represent a step-change in the power of the computing technology that underpins our modern economy. Exponentially faster computing won’t just help us solve problems more quickly – it will allow us to get the answers to questions that have been impossible to answer. Chad Rigetti, founder and CEO of Rigetti Computing, speaks to Azeem Azhar about just how revolutionary quantum computing will be.

Nuclear fusion seems to have been “twenty years away” forever, but recent advances could mean fusion is finally on its way to becoming part of our energy mix. Azeem Azhar speaks to Nick Hawker, co-founder and CEO of First Light Fusion, and explores how their “projectile fusion” approach might produce abundant, sustainable energy.

Murray Shanahan, professor of cognitive robotics at Imperial College London and a senior research scientist at DeepMind, joins Azeem Azhar to discuss AI: where developments have exceeded expectations, where they have fallen short, and what the next steps are towards an artificial general intelligence.

Former Greek Finance Minister, economist, and bestselling author Yanis Varoufakis joins Azeem Azhar to discuss his speculative novel Another Now. The book isn’t pure fiction; it’s an optimistic vision of what our society could yet become -- a world where mass organization, technological progress, and an overhaul of companies and markets have made society more equitable.

Investors Nathan Benaich and Ian Hogarth co-author the influential, annual “State of AI” report. They join Azeem Azhar to discuss breakout developments in disparate fields, from defense to medical biology. And they offer their take on the flood of new investments into AI and how we can best keep the technology safe for humanity.

Renewable energy is the future of our power systems, but relying on solar, wind, etc. will require a more reliable and resilient grid. Energy storage will be essential, and Malta Inc.’s molten-salt system is one of the most innovative and promising technologies in the field. CEO Ramya Swaminathan joins Azeem Azhar to discuss why energy storage is so crucial to fighting climate change, how it could affect the economics of energy, and why the electric grid of the future will be more technologically diverse and complex than today’s.

Hopin is one of the fastest-growing startups in history. The virtual events company had six employees in February 2020, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. A year and a half later, it employs more than eight hundred and is valued at almost $8 billion. Founder and CEO Johnny Boufarhat joins Azeem Azhar to discuss seizing the opportunity the pandemic presented, learning to lead at one of the fastest-growing startups in history, and why he dreams of a future in which a founder’s location is no impediment to success.

Governments and companies have committed to net-zero emissions by 2050, but it’s not clear how they plan to get there – or how much it will cost. Michele Della Vigna, who runs the Carbonomics research program at Goldman Sachs, has dug into the economics behind a transition to net-zero emissions. On the eve of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), he and Azeem Azhar discuss how capital markets, new technology, and government coordination could combine to accelerate the transition to a greener economy.

Ford has been making cars for 118 years -- nearly all of them with internal combustion engines. It now faces the biggest challenge in its history. Hau Thai-Tang, Ford’s chief product platform and operations officer, joins Azeem Azhar to discuss electrification, mobility, and the future of one of the titans of the industrial age.

Fighting the climate crisis requires investment, innovation, and on-the-ground know-how. Dawn Lippert works at the intersection of all three. She’s the founder and CEO of Elemental Excelerator, a non-profit incubator that helps climate-focused startups deploy and scale their technologies. She joins Azeem Azhar to discuss how innovative climate tech companies can make it to market, and why workers at Silicon Valley’s biggest companies are flocking to fight climate change.

Google, Facebook, Apple, and Uber are just some of the enormous companies that derive part of their value from network effects: the more users they have, the more value they provide. Serial entrepreneur and early-stage investor James Currier is one of the world’s foremost experts on networks, and on the companies that use them best. He joins Azeem Azhar to discuss how companies with network effects dominate markets, and why their influence will likely continue to grow.

Kim Stanley Robinson, the legendary science-fiction novelist, has a private utopian hope: “to dodge a mass extinction event.” He joins Azeem Azhar to explore his recent novel, The Ministry For the Future, and what it would take for institutions, individuals, and emerging technologies to save millions of lives.

Facebook serves 34 percent of the world’s population and decides who to block and what to censor. How should governments regulate this startling power? Nick Clegg, the UK’s former deputy prime minister and now vice president of Global Affairs and Communications at Facebook, joins Azeem Azhar to explore how governments might reassert control in the exponential age.

Visa processes more than 500 million transactions every day. How is the world’s largest digital payment platform adapting to new technologies and fresh competition? Charlotte Hogg, executive vice president and CEO of its European operations, joins Azeem Azhar to explore the evolving ecosystem of digital payments.

From predictive policing to automated credit scoring, algorithms applied on a massive scale, gone unchecked, represent a serious threat to our society. Dr. Rumman Chowdhury, director of Machine Learning Ethics, Transparency and Accountability at Twitter, joins Azeem Azhar to explore how businesses can practice responsible AI to minimize unintended bias and the risk of harm.

AI hackers are coming, and it’s not just our computer networks at risk – our laws and regulations are also vulnerable. Bruce Schneier, internationally renowned security technologist and fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, joins Azeem Azhar to explore how humans have always exploited loopholes in rule-based systems, and how that will change as AIs become more powerful.

Could we have a financial industry without banks or brokers? That’s the vision of decentralized finance – or DeFi – in which financial products are built from tamper-proof digital smart contracts interacting with blockchains. Sergey Nazarov, co-founder of Chainlink, joins Azeem Azhar to explore the promise of this emerging sector to bring greater transparency, control, and yield for both customers and businesses.

AI can offer a new type of competitive advantage, but entrepreneurs need to know what it is and how to unlock it. Ash Fontana, author of The AI First Company and managing director at Zetta Venture Partners – a firm that exclusively invests in early-stage AI startups, joins Azeem Azhar to explore the risks and rewards of applying AI to business problems.

Using forests to offset a company’s carbon emissions has been dismissed as “greenwashing.” But Diego Saez Gil argues that a verifiable and transparent global market in carbon credits is a vital tool to mitigate climate change. In part 2 of their discussion, he joins Azeem Azhar to explore how his company, Pachama, uses technology to connect farmers and ecologists with climate-conscious corporations in an effort to evolve the global carbon marketplace.

How do we build a market for carbon offsets that is both trustworthy and effective? Diego Saez Gil, co-founder and CEO of Pachama, believes he has the answer. In part 1 of the conversation, Diego joins Azeem Azhar to explore how AI, satellites, and LiDAR can be leveraged to verify the conservation efforts of farmers, NGOs, and governments and help lay the foundation for sustainable work against climate change.

Kenneth Cukier, senior editor at the Economist, and Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger, professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at the University of Oxford, argue that because AI systems have no causal model of the world, they lack the human capacity for imagination and decision-making. Azeem Azhar explores their contention that we should not rely on AI to provide solutions to our problems. Rather we should systematically challenge how we frame our problems in order to produce breakthrough insights and innovations — then use AI to help enact those solutions.

In less than a decade France has gone from tech backwater to the startup engine of the EU. It recently celebrated its 12th company to achieve a $1 billion valuation and is well on the way to President Macron’s goal of “25 unicorns by 2025.” Kat Borlongan, director of La French Tech, joins Azeem Azhar to explore how her government taskforce has been working to effectively drive growth in the French startup scene.

Turning a corporate climate pledge into reality is a complex endeavor. Watershed, a software startup co-founded by Christian Anderson, is committed to using data to cut corporate emissions fast. In conversation with Azeem Azhar, Christian shares the challenges of putting this dream into practice.

Livestock is responsible for 15 percent of global greenhouse emissions. Could meat grown in labs offer a sustainable – and palatable – future? Didier Toubia, CEO and co-founder of cultured meat start-up Aleph Farms, joins Azeem Azhar to explore the biotech, ethics, and economics of making beef without cows.

AI is not just code and algorithms. It’s an industry built on a global network of resource extraction, human labor, and data collection. Kate Crawford, senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research and research professor of communication and science and technology studies at USC Annenberg, joins Azeem Azhar to explore the far-reaching impacts of AI and to consider the urgent case for proper governance and regulation of the industry.

IonQ is the first company solely focused on quantum computing to go public, with its quantum computers accessible via the cloud today. The company’s co-founder/chief scientist Chris Monroe and president/CEO Peter Chapman join Azeem Azhar to explore how they turned cutting-edge research into a scalable product. They also discuss the engineering challenges that remain before quantum systems not only surpass the fastest supercomputers, but also become widely available.

Meltem Demirors, Chief Strategy Officer at CoinShares, joins Azeem Azhar to explore the potential and politics of cryptocurrencies: from the ideological origins of Bitcoin to the new wave of decentralized financial products that could disrupt traditional finance.

Atlassian, the enterprise software innovator, is helping to drive disruption across the world of work. Co-founder and co-CEO Scott Farquhar joins Azeem Azhar to explain how, during a global pandemic, they nearly doubled the size of their workforce, why the workplace will never be the same after Covid-19, and what the implications are for companies and employees who increasingly operate remotely, asynchronously, and in flatter hierarchies.

Cade Metz, technology correspondent at The New York Times, joins Azeem Azhar to discuss his new book Genius Makers. In it, he tells the story of the pioneers who brought AI out of academic labs, sparking a Big Tech arms race and transforming our everyday lives.

What are universities for? Are they an elite pipeline for elite jobs, or can they meet the needs of societies transforming amid technological advances? Azeem Azhar explores the role of higher education in research, innovation, and progress with Geraint Rees, Dean of Faculty of Life Sciences at University College London and a leader of their AI strategy.

Chris Urmson, co-founder and CEO of the self-driving technology startup Aurora, joins Azeem Azhar to explore the state-of-play of self-driving technology, the criticisms the tech must address, and the huge challenges to be overcome before we trust a computer to drive our kids to school.

Social networks polarize communities and spread misinformation. Professor Sinan Aral, director of MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy and author of The Hype Machine, joins Azeem Azhar to explore what makes these networks so powerful and how we can engineer our way to a healthier online ecosystem.

Could deep tech bring about an age of abundance? Matt Ocko, co-founder and managing partner of Data Collective Venture Capital, joins Azeem Azhar to explore the art of investing in startups that aim to transform entire industries with radically cheaper, cleaner products.

From an insurance giant to an incubator of cutting-edge tech companies, Ping An’s evolution is impressive and unique. Chief Innovation Officer Jonathan Larsen joins Azeem Azhar to explore how the China-based holding conglomerate has managed such agility at immense scale.

“Quantum computing is to conventional computing what a warp drive is to a bicycle,” says Jeremy O’Brien, CEO of PsiQuantum. He joins Azeem Azhar to explore the exponential advantage quantum computing will bring to problems across science and industry, and how he’s using photonics to build the first productive quantum computer.

Regina Dugan, CEO of new biomedical non-profit Wellcome Leap and former director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the U.S., joins Azeem Azhar to explore how she approaches delivering breakthrough technologies and why she has now set her sights on global health.

Cory Doctorow, award-winning author, technologist, and founder joins Azeem Azhar to explore the power of big tech monopolies and how a future wave of antitrust lawsuits could unleash innovation across the sector.

Azeem Azhar reflects on how Covid-19 has affected technology and our lives in 2020 and why the effects of the pandemic will be felt for many years to come.

Cory Doctorow, award winning author, technologist, and founder, joins Azeem Azhar to explore how we can harness massive collective action and exponential technologies to mitigate climate change.

Leila Rastegar Zegna, general partner and co-founder of Kindred Capital, joins Azeem Azhar to explore a new model for venture capital, where startup founders become partners in the fund. This new approach aims to align incentives for entrepreneurs and investors, in order to build a healthier innovation community.

Jesper Brodin, CEO of Ingka Group, joins Azeem Azhar to explore IKEA’s goal to be a net reducer of carbon emissions by 2030 – while still growing its business.

Kai-Fu Lee, AI pioneer and investor, joins Azeem Azhar to explore the evolution of China’s vibrant tech sector, the rise of consumer-facing robots, the consequences for labor, and the future of educational technologies.

Zymergen CEO Joshua Hoffman joins Azeem Azhar to explore how cutting-edge bioengineering, robotics, and machine learning are helping create a new generation of high-performance, environmentally sustainable materials for the 21st Century.

Investor Chamath Palihapitiya joins Azeem Azhar to explore the dysfunctional relationship between capital and companies, why he loves a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company), and why he’s championing a new wave of climate change innovators. Note: Portions of the conversation that had been removed in an earlier version of this episode have been reinstated for greater clarity.

“The time for vertical farming is here,” says Mike Zelkind, co-founder and CEO of 80 Acres Farms. He joins Azeem Azhar to explore what’s broken in the food supply chain, and how a new breed of high-tech, indoor farms could deliver better, tastier food using a fraction of the resources.

Yale professor Nicholas Christakis argues that we can expect this current phase of the Covid-19 pandemic to end in 2022. In conversation with Azeem Azhar, Christakis explains why we need to brace for what comes next.

Ownership of personal data is a form of power – and that power is concentrating in the hands of governments and big tech. Should we be worried? Dr. Carissa Véliz, from the Institute for Ethics in AI at the University of Oxford, joins Azeem Azhar to discuss her new book “Privacy is Power.”

Facebook’s Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer joins Azeem Azhar to explore how they built the infrastructure powering the social network, why AI and virtual reality are the core of its future, and how the company approaches content moderation.

DeepMind’s co-founder and CEO, Demis Hassabis, joins Azeem Azhar to explore his company's progression from gaming to accelerating scientific discovery.

Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s first digital minister, joins Azeem Azhar to discuss how the Taiwanese Government is using the Internet as a space for civic participation, dialogue, and consensus building.

OpenAI stunned the world with the release of the world’s most impressive language-generating AI. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman joins Azeem Azhar to reflect on the huge attention generated by GPT-3 and what it heralds for the future research and development toward the creation of a true artificial general intelligence (AGI).

As we wrap up the season and head off to a short summer break, Azeem Azhar reflects on what he learned from his conversations with technology and business leaders on the podcast -- and how those insights may help us understand where the world is headed.

A thriving global economy depends on more than just free markets. Harvard Business School professor Rebecca Henderson offers a fresh vision of purpose-driven capitalism, where companies can make good profits by doing the right thing.

Drug discovery, novel materials, and genetic engineering are some of the topics under the microscope in Azeem Azhar’s discussion with Andreessen Horowitz general partner Vijay Pande. They explore the extraordinary possibilities that are opening up at the intersection of biology, engineering, and innovation.

Starting a company with a stranger is not the traditional path for many entrepreneurs, but this is one of the basic principles of Entrepreneur First (EF), the world’s leading talent investor. Matt Clifford, EF’s CEO and co-founder, joins Azeem Azhar to explain why he invests in founders before they have a business idea and other novel approaches to venture capital and innovation.

As the Covid-19 pandemic forces companies to rethink their workflows and structures, Azeem Azhar speaks with Daniel Hulme, CEO of Satalia, whose company runs as a decentralized swarm. There are no managers, no strict job roles, and no vacation limits. Yet, the company delivers artificial intelligence solutions to its customers. How does it work?

Companies increasingly use digital systems to hire, fire, and monitor their employees. But who is keeping employers in check? Former union leader and AI ethics expert, Dr. Christina Colclough joins Azeem Azhar to discuss how to empower employees in the digitally-enabled workplace.

How do we build better cities after the coronavirus crisis? The World Bank’s Sameh Wahba joins Azeem Azhar to discuss how the World Bank partners with technologists to help cities on the frontline of the pandemic, and how the dynamism of urban density can be harnessed to build the livable and inclusive cities of the future. Note: We updated one sentence in this interview for clarity.

After ImageNet transformed AI vision, superstar Stanford computer science professor Fei-Fei Li has turned her attention to advancing healthcare. She joins Azeem Azhar to discuss her new approach to AI development, which incorporates interdisciplinary collaboration and focuses on ethical, real-world impact.

Nasdaq has evolved from being the world’s first digital marketplace to a global technology company. CEO Adena Friedman joins Azeem Azhar to discuss how their digital operation has become the model for markets around the world, the surprising importance of regulation as a driver of innovation, and how Nasdaq prepared to keep functioning during the pandemic lockdown.

The Fung Group coordinates some of the world’s largest and most complex supply chains. Pamela Mar, EVP for Knowledge and Applications at Fung, joins Azeem Azhar to explore how developing digital connectivity can help to counteract the devastating repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic.

For the first time in history, there are more people on the planet over 65 years old, than under five. How do we adapt to this demographic transformation? Camilla Cavendish, award-winning journalist and former Director of Public Policy for UK Prime Minister David Cameron, joins Azeem Azhar to explore the immense cost and new potential of this brave old world.

Harvard geneticist David Sinclair joins Azeem Azhar to discuss his pioneering research into the pathways and processes responsible for aging, and the new treatments that could keep us younger for longer.

President Kersti Kaljulaid joins Azeem Azhar to explore how legal and technological innovations have helped Estonia create the most advanced e-government in the world, and how this digital republic is navigating the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ramez Naam, clean energy investor and technologist, joins Azeem Azhar to discuss the economic and industrial forces that are accelerating us towards a zero-carbon future, as well as the major challenges that remain.

Alphabet Inc.’s X (formerly Google X) creates the most daring innovations to tackle the world’s biggest problems. CEO Astro Teller joins Azeem Azhar to explain how he creates a culture of radical creativity and nurtures the audacity to fail.

Softbank Vision Fund Senior Managing Partner, Deep Nishar joins Azeem Azhar to discuss how the confluence of AI, genomics, and automation are opening up new possibilities in biotech and materials science.

The COVID-19 pandemic will cause an economic crisis never seen before, says equity analyst Pierre Ferragu. He joins Azeem Azhar to discuss how this crisis will affect the technology industry, in particular, in the short and long term.

How effective is science at tackling COVID-19, and how will the pandemic evolve next?

Muneeb Ali, co-founder and CEO of Blockstack, a decentralized computing network, joins Azeem Azhar to discuss rebuilding the internet to give control back to users.

Hilary Cottam, social entrepreneur and author of the acclaimed book, “Radical Help,” joins Azeem Azhar to discuss the future of welfare in the exponential age.

Physicist and author, Cesar Hidalgo joins Azeem Azhar to discuss how understanding knowledge leads to insights on everything from the economic value of megacities to how to moralize machines.

Airtable founder Howie Liu and Azeem Azhar discuss what it means to create a new $100 billion market category.

Geopolitical expert Ian Bremmer joins Azeem Azhar to discuss how the forces of technology are shaping and threatening global stability.

Renowned crisis manager, lawyer, author, and television producer, Judy Smith, the inspiration for the TV show “Scandal,” joins Azeem Azhar to discuss what tech businesses need to know to stay on top of their reputation in an era of instantaneous news and activist employees.

Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, joins Azeem Azhar to discuss how regulation can advance the technology industry and innovation.

We've already been living with artificial decision-making machines for hundreds of years -- we call them corporations and states. That’s the argument David Runciman makes in conversation with Azeem Azhar in this week’s episode. Runciman is professor of politics at Cambridge University and host of the “Talking Politics” podcast. He and Azeem discuss what this reframing of artificial intelligence can teach us about navigating the hurdles it presents.

Reshma Sohoni, co-founder and managing partner Seedcamp (a seed-stage fund focusing on Europe), joins Azeem Azhar to discuss what it takes to build a thriving startup ecosystem outside Silicon Valley, and how some of Europe’s most successful startups were created.

One of the leading pioneers in the field of nanotechnology, physicist Sonia Contera joins Azeem Azhar to discuss how advances in biology, computing, and physics are bringing about another tech revolution that will change our lives.

Nicole Eagan, CEO of Darktrace, one of the world’s leading cybersecurity firms, joins Azeem Azhar to discuss how artificial intelligence is opening a new battlefield for hackers, governments, and private companies alike.

Vaclav Smil, preeminent expert on energy history and development, joins Azeem Azhar to discuss what is required for our fossil fuel-dependent civilization to transition to a sustainable energy system.

Meredith Whittaker, co-director of the AI Now Institute and one of the organizers of the Google Walkout in 2018, joins Azeem Azhar to discuss how discrimination and bias are influencing the development of artificial intelligence, and how tech workers are working to change their industry for the better.

The reinvention of craftsmanship started in Silicon Valley, and it’s spreading and reshaping the rules of work. This is the thesis of Laetitia Vitaud’s latest book, “Du labeur à l’ouvrage (From Labor to Work)," which explores how technology is unbundling the Fordist compact between corporation and worker and forcing a new employment paradigm for the digital age.

Azeem Azhar and Binyamin Appelbaum discuss how a group of free-market economists managed to reshape our modern world. They promised growth and broad prosperity, but instead left us with fractured societies and weakened democracies. Appelbaum is the author of the new book, "The Economists’ Hour," a deep dive into the history of ideas that formed capitalism, as we know it.

Gary Marcus has a reputation for being a contrarian in the AI community. Over the past several years, Marcus, a neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and the author of “Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust,” has been a vocal critic of deep learning as the best way forward for AI. Marcus joins Azeem Azhar to discuss the alternatives for building better machine intelligence.

Peace is fragile, especially when anyone can use open source technology to build a weapon to inflict harm, online and offline. General Sir Richard Barrons, former Commander of the UK’s Joint Forces Command, makes the case to Azeem Azhar that, as the definition of warfare is changing, we all need to take a more active role in stewarding peace.

Economist Carlota Perez joins Azeem Azhar to discuss the life cycle of technology revolutions and how they ultimately change every aspect of society. Perez is optimistic about the future -- she explains how we can harness technology to foster green growth and global development.

Andrew Ng, former leader of Google’s and Baidu’s AI divisions, joins Azeem Azhar to discuss how businesses should approach AI adoption, and how machine intelligence will change industries and our work.

Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the UK, joins Azeem Azhar in conversation about how the technology industry and policy makers can work together to amplify their potential to serve the public good. Regulating big tech, as Blair explains, is only a small part of the solution in a necessary effort to transform our society and economy for the exponential age.

A sneak peak of the new season of Azeem Azhar’s Exponential View podcast. This is the show that bridges the gap between two cultures: technology & science on the one hand, and business & society on the other. Azeem’s conversations help you better understand how the tech revolution is changing our world. Season launch: Wednesday, October 2, 2019.

Investors Carina Namih and Gigi Levy-Weiss come together with LabGenius founder James Field and science writer Oliver Morton to explore the opportunity of engineering biology to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges.

Leading AI researchers De Kai and Joanna Bryson join Azeem Azhar to discuss the state of governance and accountability in the age of AI.

Daniel Schreiber, Lemonade’s CEO and cofounder, joins Azeem to discuss how the company is using artificial intelligence to disrupt a legacy industry by realigning incentives with the values that customers care about.

Stuart Russell, coauthor of the standard text on AI, “Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach,” joins Azeem Azhar to discuss the progress of AI research and implementation and how to ensure the outcomes are beneficial.

“All digital infrastructure is used to shape human behavior in the direction that will be successful in the marketplace,” says Shoshana Zuboff, whose latest book, "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism," is a primer for understanding how technology companies are shaping our economy and society.

Jürgen Schmidhuber is a recognized pioneer in the field of deep neural networks. His techniques form the basis of the modern AI systems used by billions of people daily on services like Google, Facebook, and the Apple iPhone. Jürgen joins Azeem to discuss the next thirty years of artificial intelligence.

W. Brian Arthur, one of the founders of the discipline of complexity economics, explores the impact artificial intelligence and automation will have on the economy.

Citigroup leading analyst Ronit Ghose, Lemonade Insurance founder and CEO Daniel Schreiber, and OakNorth Bank founder and CEO Rishi Khosla discuss the new possibilities that AI offers the finance industry. Those who manage to use this emerging technology to reduce friction for customers will win.

Accenture’s Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, Paul Daugherty, discusses how to successfully integrate AI in your business: Do not think of it as bolt-on tech, but rather, as an opportunity to reimagine everything you do.

“We’re not even close to developing fully driverless cars,” urges Duke University professor Missy Cummings, a former fighter pilot and the director of the Humans and Autonomy Lab at Duke. She explores where automation currently is and paints a picture of the future with humans as integral parts of autonomous systems.

Theoretical physicist and founder of Genomic Prediction, Michigan State University senior vice president Stephen Hsu discusses the extraordinary developments in predictive genomics and digs into the ethical minefield that lies ahead: is the door now open to designer babies?

Eric Topol, the foremost expert in artificial intelligence in medicine, explores how the technology promises to revolutionize healthcare, making life better for both doctors and patients.

World-renowned economist Mariana Mazzucato discusses the role of the state as a value creator and how we can apply mission-oriented models of innovation to solve today’s burning challenges.

AI researcher and entrepreneur Trent McConaghy discusses how blockchain will unlock the value of data by bridging the gap between the AI haves and have-nots and, in turn, helping to create the data economy.

University of Bath professor Joanna Bryson, a leading AI researcher, discusses the opportunities and consequences of developing human-like computational intelligence.

Investor Cathie Wood, one of Bloomberg’s 50 people who defined global business in 2018, discusses the five innovation platforms shaping our future and strategies for investing in them.

Parag Khanna, a leading international relations expert, recently published the new book "The Future Is Asian: Commerce, Conflict and Culture in the 21st Century." He talks about the law of technology diffusion, breaks common myths about Asia's development, and questions whether the future belongs to cities or nation-states.

Elif Shafak, an award-winning British-Turkish author and human rights activist, discusses the polarization of culture springing out of the foundations of the open internet, and the ways to tackle the pervasive issues in today's digital technology sphere.

Marietje Schaake, a Dutch politician and member of the European Parliament (MEP) from the Netherlands, talks to Azeem Azhar about the governance of cyberspace, the responsibility of technology companies, and the new era of geopolitical competition in cyberspace.

Emil Eifrem is the CEO and cofounder of Neo4j, the graph database platform powering some of the largest companies today. He is the creator of the property graph model, and he coined the term "graph database" to describe the technology that would change how we understand big data.

Jack Clark, the policy director at OpenAI, discusses the state of artificial intelligence development, the geopolitics of technology, and the implications of automation on society.

Gina Neff, a senior research fellow and associate professor at the University of Oxford, explores technology development from a sociological perspective, as well as the implications of self-tracking and the quantified self for the individual and society.

Michael Liebreich, a leading global expert on clean energy and transportation, discusses the significance of the U.S. National Climate Assessment and IPCC's report, the importance of staying below two degrees, and the role of exponential technologies in transitioning to renewables.

Casper Klynge, the world's first tech ambassador, with a global mandate and staff in Copenhagen, Silicon Valley, and Beijing, assesses the current alignment between some of the largest technology companies and nation-states and discusses the role of technology in fostering democracy and innovation.

Kate Raworth, senior visiting research associate at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, discusses the Doughnut economics framework as the essence of rethinking economics for a world inhabited by 10 billion people and hit by climate change and social justice struggles. Kate sets a vision for an equitable and sustainable future.

Anousheh Ansari, the world's first female private space explorer and the first Iranian astronaut in space, discusses the ways space development could help us tackle climate change and pollution and achieve sustainable crypto mining. She shares about her journey to become a space explorer, her time on the International Space Station, and her role as the CEO of XPrize.

Lisa Witter, an award-winning executive, a serial entrepreneur, and the cofounder and executive chairman of Apolitical, discusses reviving trust in government, the road map for building the public service workforce of the future, and the role of agile in governance.

Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts, a UK organization committed to finding practical solutions to societal problems, discusses the well-being economy, the meaning of good work in an age of automation, and the state of democracy.

Andrew Yang, an entrepreneur and author who is standing for president in the 2020 U.S. election, discusses the core ideas behind his platform, why they are necessary, and how to get there.

Reid Hoffman dives deep into Silicon Valley's attitudes toward government, the role of the state in innovation, and maintaining techno-optimism.

Entrepreneur and investor Elad Gil talks about Silicon Valley, scaling companies from 10 to 10,000 employees, the state of blockchain, and how blockchain and artificial intelligence will overlap.

Azeem Azhar and Dr. Mariarosaria Taddeo, deputy director of the Digital Ethics Lab at the Oxford Internet Institute, unpack the state of cybersecurity and warfare, the complex symbiosis between governments and criminal actors, and the ways digital technologies are changing cyber warfare.

Azeem Azhar speaks with venture capitalist Bill Janeway about the three-player game between the mission-driven state, financial speculators, and markets in the innovation economy. Are we stuck on the dark side of this configuration? How do we move forward?

Kai-Fu Lee, a VC investor, technology executive, and one of the most prominent figures in the Chinese internet sector and AI, discusses the Chinese government's techno-utilitarian approach to technology, the ambition of China's technology founders, and the future of job automation.

Azeem Azhar's Exponential View podcast is back, exploring the intersection of political economy and exponential technologies.

We’ve experienced a manifestation of new behaviors, driven by the underlying shifts around the democratic process: the transition from broadcast media to niche media moderated by dominant social media platforms. Have these behaviors hacked our democracy? For better or for worse? Azeem discusses these questions with Carole Cadwalladr, Luciano Floridi, Hari Kunzru, Tom Loosemore.

Dr. Danny Lange, VP of AI and machine learning at Unity, discusses the role of machine learning technologies in revolutionizing the ways games are developed and monetized. Dr. Lange talks about the significance of the undergoing paradigm shift in computing, the OODA loop in machine learning, and what happens to software engineers when their trade becomes obsolete.

Author Philip Auerswald talks about “code” in a broader meaning of the word — it is the “how” of human productivity, the manner in which we create, refine, and implement the infrastructure that forms a human society. The advancements of code, from the Neolithic era to the modern times, have driven identity and work reinvention.

Scott Santens, a writer and an advocate for universal basic income, talks about why he believes “citizen's salary” is a necessary measure for our societies to deal with tech unemployment by providing an independent income floor.

Marko Ahtisaari, the CEO and cofounder of The Sync Project, presents ideas and projects born out of the vision that in the near future people will use non-drug modalities to heal, enhance well-being, and assist in therapy. He guides us through the recent experiment Unwind.ai, which uses your heart rate to select the tracks that will bring you peace of mind.

Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs, one of the world’s foremost thinkers on economic development, talks about how technology has improved the lives of countless humans. He explores how automated systems will increasingly replace both routine and high-skill jobs.

Computer scientist Kate Devlin discusses robot intimacy and a new age of sex, relationships, and social life.

Hebrew University of Jerusalem professor Yuval Harari and Azeem Azhar cover the compelling insights in his new book, "Homo Deus."

Philosopher and investor Dr. Shamil Chandaria investigates how we might live much longer lives and asks how we can make those lives more meaningful.

A wide-ranging conversation on technology with Jason Pontin, editor-in-chief of MIT Technology Review. He touches on gene editing, Moore's Law, artificial intelligence, Facebook and fake news, and what ties all these disparate strands together.

Ryan Avent, economics columnist at The Economist, and Azeem Azhar explore issues around digital technologies and how they will continue to exponentially change the relationship between capital and labor.