London Futurists
Anticipating and managing exponential impact - hosts David Wood and Calum Chace
Calum Chace is a sought-after keynote speaker and best-selling writer on artificial intelligence. He focuses on the medium- and long-term impact of AI on all of us, our societies and our economies. He advises companies and governments on AI policy.
His non-fiction books on AI are Surviving AI, about superintelligence, and The Economic Singularity, about the future of jobs. Both are now in their third editions.
He also wrote Pandora's Brain and Pandora’s Oracle, a pair of techno-thrillers about the first superintelligence. He is a regular contributor to magazines, newspapers, and radio.
In the last decade, Calum has given over 150 talks in 20 countries on six continents. Videos of his talks, and lots of other materials are available at https://calumchace.com/.
He is co-founder of a think tank focused on the future of jobs, called the Economic Singularity Foundation. The Foundation has published Stories from 2045, a collection of short stories written by its members.
Before becoming a full-time writer and speaker, Calum had a 30-year career in journalism and in business, as a marketer, a strategy consultant and a CEO. He studied philosophy, politics, and economics at Oxford University, which confirmed his suspicion that science fiction is actually philosophy in fancy dress.
David Wood is Chair of London Futurists, and is the author or lead editor of twelve books about the future, including The Singularity Principles, Vital Foresight, The Abolition of Aging, Smartphones and Beyond, and Sustainable Superabundance.
He is also principal of the independent futurist consultancy and publisher Delta Wisdom, executive director of the Longevity Escape Velocity (LEV) Foundation, Foresight Advisor at SingularityNET, and a board director at the IEET (Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies). He regularly gives keynote talks around the world on how to prepare for radical disruption. See https://deltawisdom.com/.
As a pioneer of the mobile computing and smartphone industry, he co-founded Symbian in 1998. By 2012, software written by his teams had been included as the operating system on 500 million smartphones.
From 2010 to 2013, he was Technology Planning Lead (CTO) of Accenture Mobility, where he also co-led Accenture’s Mobility Health business initiative.
Has an MA in Mathematics from Cambridge, where he also undertook doctoral research in the Philosophy of Science, and a DSc from the University of Westminster.
London Futurists
Thinking more athletically about the future, with Brett King and Rob Tercek
In this episode, we have not one guest but two – Brett King and Robert Tercek, the hosts of the Futurists Podcast.
Brett King is originally from Australia, and is now based in Thailand. He is a renowned author, and the founder of a breakthrough digital bank. He consults extensively with clients in the financial services industry.
Robert Tercek, based in the United States, is an expert in digital media with a successful career in broadcasting and innovation which includes serving as a creative director at MTV and a senior vice president at Sony Pictures. He now consults to CEOs about digital transformation.
David and Calum had the pleasure of joining them on their podcast recently, where the conversation delved into the likely future impacts of artificial intelligence and other technologies, and also included politics.
This return conversation covers a wide range of themes, including the dangers of Q-day, the prospects for technological unemployment, the future of media, different approaches to industrial strategy, a plea to "bring on the machines", and the importance of "thinking more athletically about the future".
Selected follow-ups:
- The Futurists
- Brett King
- Robert Tercek
- Episode of The Futurists featuring David and Calum
- Neptune's Brood - Wikipedia article on the novel by Charles Stross
- Jobs lost, jobs gained: What the future of work will mean for jobs, skills, and wages - McKinsey Global Institute
- Wirecutter - New York Times product review site
- Could AI create a one-person unicorn? Sam Altman thinks so - Fortune
- The book The Rise of Technosocialism
- Professor Richard Petty
- Comparison of economic growth, Europe vs. USA - Centre for European Reform
- LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman wants Kamala Harris, if elected, to replace Lina Khan as head of the Federal Trade Commission - MSNBC
Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain Declaration