Future Around & Find Out

Dan Blumberg

You know what would be awesome? If we could build the future we want — before we muck it up. Future Around & Find Out helps builders think clearly about AI and emerging technologies, grapple with the implications, and decide what to build next. Independent technologist and former NPR journalist Dan Blumberg speaks with founders, makers, and you to celebrate breakthroughs, call BS on the hype, explore how things might go sideways — and how we can steer the future in the right direction. The Webby Awards have honored the show (formerly known as CRAFTED.) as a top tech podcast three years in a row! On Tuesdays, we feature interviews with the builders changing how we work, live, and play. On FAFO Fridays, futurist Kwaku Aning joins Dan for a playful recap of the week in tech, including the amazing, the scary, and the strange. You’ll also hear about innovations that too often get overshadowed by AI, including in deep tech, biotech, fintech, quantum computing, robotics, blockchain, and more. Across it all, you’ll hear sharp takes on what comes next and what builders need to know now. So let’s Future Around & Find Out together! https://www.FutureAround.com

  1. "It Sounds Like Something From Marvel" — Building an Antivirus for AI... With AI | Daniel Hulme (Founder, Conscium)

    HACE 2 DÍAS

    "It Sounds Like Something From Marvel" — Building an Antivirus for AI... With AI | Daniel Hulme (Founder, Conscium)

    So why is one of the world’s leading AI researchers teaching AI to understand pain and suffering? Well, Daniel Hulme says that if we build an empathetic AI, perhaps even a conscious one, then we’ll be safer. His hypothesis is that a "zombie" AI will eat our brains, but an empathetic AI would stay aligned with us. So he's building this "antivirus" (with AI, of course) and he's very aware that this sounds crazy or like "something from Marvel." That's just some of what broke my brain in this conversation with one of the world's top AI researchers and founders. And Daniel has serious credibility, so I'm not dismissing the threat he sees — you know, the one where we all get turned into paperclips.  Daniel sold his company Satalia to WPP, where he now serves as Chief AI Officer. He’s just founded Conscium, which verifies that AI agents are safe and can do what they promise — and is also researching consciousness and pain. Some of the world’s leading AI thinkers are on the advisory board and Daniel has been in this space for decades: we’ll talk about why, for his PhD, he studied bumblebee brains (yes, really — and it's deeply relevant).  We get into:  His unified theory of consciousness — his "color wheel" model — and why he thinks consciousness only exists in motion Why he believes large language models are ultimately a dead end — and what neuromorphic computing could replace them with What bumblebee brains can teach us about building AI that's up to a thousand times more energy efficient Why he calls today's AI agents "intoxicated graduates" — and says companies should spend 80% of their time testing them The concept of "mind crime" — the idea that we could build conscious AI and accidentally put it through horrendous suffering without realizing it His vision of a "protopia" — where AI makes food, healthcare, education, and energy so abundant that people are freed from economic constraints to pursue what actually mattersWe future around and find out a lot in this one! ---Chapters (01:39) - "Would a conscious superintelligence be safer than a zombie one?" (03:37) - The paperclip problem is not hypothetical (05:06) - Conscium's mission — AI safety for humans and for AI themselves (08:50) - "I think I've got my head around consciousness" (11:57) - The color wheel model — why consciousness only exists in motion (13:58) - Teaching AI morals through evolution, not guardrails (17:23) - "Hey Claude, are you conscious?" — how do you test for that? (21:07) - What bumblebee brains can teach us about building better AI (24:14) - "I think we are completely scaling wrong" (29:43) - Why Daniel calls AI agents "intoxicated graduates" (32:48) - Companies should spend 80% of their time testing agents (38:19) - "What would you do if you were economically free?" ---LinksConsciumDaniel Hulme on Wikipedia Daniel on LinkedIn---

    42 min

  2. HACE 6 DÍAS

    Choose Your Own Adventure | It's FAFO Friday

    So how do Kwaku's kids know that it's FAFO Friday? "They're like, 'oh, we know you're doing the podcast 'cause we just hear you cackling through the walls.'" So laugh along with Kwaku and me today as we work our way through a quick victory lap (stuff we said would happen last week happened!), why Sam is like that desperate guy at the bar who refuses to go home alone, quantum computing explained via children's literature, why the Jetsons are not reason enough for us to build humanoid robots, robot choreography (are we human or are we dancers?), wen self-driving cars in NY?, riding a wave of green lights up Manhattan's third avenue at 2 AM, artificial wombs and other moonshot off-shoots, and the real origin of Velcro (AI lied to me about it). Plus... goat ranches, breakfast tacos, and what we're most excited about heading into SXSW. It's a choose your own adventure kind of day. Chapters (01:24) - Victory Lap — We Called It (03:35) - OpenAI's Bar Guy Energy (06:38) - Waymo, Robot Choreography, and Green Light Waves (10:16) - Self-Driving Cars vs. New York Politicians (13:13) - What We're Most Excited About at SXSW (15:41) - Quantum Computing: Choose Your Own Adventure Edition (18:01) - Dire Wolves, Moonshots, and Tech Nobody Sees Coming (24:07) - Why Do Robots Need to Look Like Us? (29:22) - The SXSW Way-Back Machine (36:08) - Increased Regulation: Past, Present, or Future? Support Future Around & Find OutFollow Dan on LinkedInGet the free Future Around & Find Out newsletterBecome a paid subscriber and help future proof the podcast!Sponsor the show?  Are you looking to reach an audience of senior technologists and decision-makers? Email me: dan@modernproductminds.com---Music by Jonathan Zalben

    42 min
  3. Dead as a Dodo? Maybe Not! Colossal's Beth Shapiro on the Science of De-Extinction — and Moonshots

    3 MAR

    Dead as a Dodo? Maybe Not! Colossal's Beth Shapiro on the Science of De-Extinction — and Moonshots

    So, there are dire wolves living on Earth again. They were “de-extincted” by Colossal Biosciences. And today on the show their Chief Science Officer joins me to share her view on why the de-extinction matters — not as a science project, but because it will help solve problems that threaten every species on earth, including us.  Beth Shapiro is the Chief Science Officer at Colossal Biosciences, and she helped to bring back the dire wolf or, as others call it, a gray wolf with 20 genetic edits. There is a fierce debate about what de-extinction even means, and we discuss that, but whatever you call them, there are now three big wolves living in an undisclosed location and they wouldn't be there if not for the DNA that Beth and her team edited. Colossal is also working to bring back the wooly mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger, the dodo and other animals that have long been extinct. Why?  Listen to find out…  Chapters: (01:19) - The Most Oprah Question Beth's Ever Been Asked (03:04) - Moonshots Require You to Create a Giant List of Problems (04:19) - The Things We’ll Solve Along the Way, a la the Original Moonshot… to the Moon (05:57) - Beth’s Journey: From Broadcast Journalism to Ancient DNA (09:13) - How a Sediment Core Solved a Mammoth Mystery (11:36) - Why Charismatic Animals Matter (a.k.a. Why Riz Is Everything) (12:38) - What’s Up With Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi? (14:19) - But Are They Really “Dire Wolves”? The Controversy Over 20 Genetic Edits (21:45) - Should We Do This? Beth's Ethics Framework for Builders (23:51) - Advice for Moonshot Builders (25:10) - Why We Want Dodos, Mammoths, and Thylacines Back Links & Resources:Colossal BiosciencesBeth ShapiroPopTech -- a conference I love!  Support Future Around & Find Out Follow Dan on LinkedInGet the free Future Around & Find Out newsletterBecome a paid subscriber and help future proof the podcast!Sponsor the show?  Are you looking to reach an audience of senior technologists and decision-makers? Email me: dan@modernproductminds.com---Music by Jonathan Zalben

    33 min

  4. 27 FEB

    To Accede or Not To Accede? That Is The Question | It's FAFO Friday!

    Murderbots, mass layoffs, and media takeovers — all in one news cycle. Anthropic told the Pentagon "we will not accede." Block cut half its workforce overnight. And the Paramount-Warner Brothers deal raises real questions about who's running the media now. Also, thanks to Nicolás Maduro's fashion sense, Dan's 13-year-old is being called Lil Tator at school and honestly? The kids are all right.  Happy FAFO Friday! Here's some of what Kwaku Aning and I get into: (00:00) - Three Stories Broke Last Night (03:16) - Anthropic Tells the Pentagon No (06:24) - Murder Bots, But Human in the Loop (07:00) - The Pentagon's Friday Deadline (09:28) - Why This Is a Huge Win for Anthropic (10:50) - The War for AI Talent (12:57) - Is the Administration Losing Steam? (15:05) - The Paramount-Warner Brothers Deal (17:36) - Who Controls the Media Now? (21:13) - CNN, Independent Media, and the Employee Perspective (23:55) - Block Lays Off 4,000 People (24:14) - The Citrini Research Fiction That Tanked Stocks (27:49) - AI Washing and the Real Reason for Layoffs (30:11) - Will Vibe Coding Replace Real Companies? (33:27) - Mid-Roll Break (34:41) - Past, Present, Future: State-Controlled AI (35:18) - Past, Present, Future: Independent Media (38:03) - — SLAPP Lawsuits and Creator Protections (40:23) - — Past, Present, Future: Knicks Championship (41:44) - — Come See Us at South by Southwest!

    43 min
  5. "I just want AI to replace me as a scientist" | The co-founder of Diagnostic Robotics predicts the future

    24 FEB

    "I just want AI to replace me as a scientist" | The co-founder of Diagnostic Robotics predicts the future

    Of all the industries AI will transform, Kira Radinsky believes chemistry and biology will change the most.  Kira is the co-founder and CTO of Diagnostic Robotics, which uses AI to automate the administrative work that's crushing healthcare teams — so clinicians can actually focus on patients. She's also the co-founder of Mana.bio, where they're accelerating drug discovery by orders of magnitude. She'll tell you she's terrible in the lab. Not because she isn't brilliant, but because she can't pipette without killing the cells. So she’s thrilled that thanks to her skills in data and AI she was able to realize her childhood dream of being a scientist:  “I'm not trying to automate everything… Like when, when you say automate drug discovery, I'm not gonna discover everything. I just want to accelerate it, which comes back to my childhood dream: I just didn't want to do it myself. I just want AI to replace me as a scientist. That's it.”But this episode is about more than healthcare. It's about how to build systems that get smarter over time — feedback loops, causal inference, incentivizing algorithms to take risks, and knowing when to optimize for ROI instead of accuracy. Lessons that apply whether you're building in biotech or not. We cover: How growing up Jewish in Soviet Ukraine — and fleeing to Israel just before the Gulf War — shaped Kira's obsession with predicting the futureHow she built a system that successfully predicted real-world events, including Cuba's first cholera outbreak in Cuba in 130 yearsHow Mana.bio is using AI to build "rocketships" that deliver drugs to the right cells — and how they've done in three months what used to take 20 yearsWhy predictions are only valuable if there's something you can do about them — and why that makes healthcare an ideal field for AI How to incentivize algorithms to make bolder predictions (it's easy to predict there won't be an earthquake today; it's much harder to say there will be)Why causal inference is the most underrated tool in machine learning right nowHow healthcare AI can perpetuate racial bias — and what builders need to do differentlyNote: this interview originally aired in October 2024. Chapters: (01:44) - Why predictions are so important to Kira: lessons from fleeing Soviet-era Kyiv (05:10) - Building a prediction engine from 150 years of news (08:35) - How Kira predicted the Cuba cholera outbreak (09:50) - Returning to biology by way of data (12:50) - Predicting healthcare outcomes by finding your patient's twin (17:53) - The racial bias hiding in healthcare AI (19:15) - Building Mana.bio and accelerating drug discovery (24:33) - "In three months, what did what used to take 20 years" (31:44) - Builder tips: ROI, causal inference, and teaching algorithms to explore (35:07) - Planning: Where generative AI needs improve Links & Resources:Kira Radinsky on LinkedInDiagnostic RoboticsMana.bioSupport Future Around & Find Out Get the free newsletterAnd consider becoming a paid subscriber and help future proof this thing!Sponsor the show?  Are you looking to reach an audience of senior technologists and decision-makers? Email me: dan@modernproductminds.com---Music by Jonathan Zalben

    39 min
  6. AI Delivers Mediocre Results—By Design. So How Do You Stand Out? | MetaLab CEO Luke Des Cotes

    20 FEB

    AI Delivers Mediocre Results—By Design. So How Do You Stand Out? | MetaLab CEO Luke Des Cotes

    You probably know by now that AI is the definition of mediocre. As in: it’s the average of everything it’s been trained on. So how do you get beyond average? How do you build a moat?  It certainly doesn’t seem to be via the models. While there are models of the month (hey, Opus 4.6, my new friend!), they seem to be pretty swappable.  So, the model ain’t it. But proprietary data (e.g. an AI that knows you really well), yes! Or doing something really hard in the real world (think: Waymo self-driving cars). Maybe via trust and safety (Anthropic is certainly making a play here). Or... how about via amazing design and good taste.  Remember when ChatGPT first came out and everyone derided “AI wrappers”… well, maybe a wrapper isn’t so bad, assuming you can differentiate on one or more of the above.  Luke Des Cotes is the CEO of MetaLab, the agency famous for designing interfaces, including early versions of Slack and Coinbase, so don’t be shocked when you hear him say that great design can be your moat.  MetaLab is working with a host of AI companies (another shocker), including Windsurf (AI + code), Suno (AI + music), Pika (AI + video), and more…, which is why Luke's take on AI surprised me. He's not rah rah. He's pretty judicious actually. Luke has questions about AI's costs and appropriateness for lots of use cases like those involving kids, but mostly he objects to its mediocrity. On this episode we discuss what it takes to go beyond. We also get into: Why vibe-coded software isn't changing the world anytime soonWhy Shopify acquired a design agency right after telling employees to justify their existence against AIHow MetaLab designers are using AI to prototype in hours instead of weeksThe talent market for zero-to-one designers — and why they're harder to find than everLandlines, brick phones, and how parents are fighting back against always-on kidsChapters (01:10) - "It's a race to the mean" (03:10) - "How do you create emotional resonance?" (05:33) - AI companies are burning money (08:44) - Speed to good enough (13:51) - Is the chat here to stay or a temporary fad? (17:43) - It’s hard to find great 0 to 1 design talent (22:28) - Seemingly conscious AI (25:05) - Kids, landlines, and fighting always-on culture (27:21) - Sounds like science fiction, but is here now… Links & Resources Luke Des Cotes on LinkedInMetaLabSupport Future Around & Find Out Get the free newsletterAnd consider becoming a paid subscriber and help future proof this thing!Sponsor the show?  Are you looking to reach an audience of senior technologists and decision-makers? Email me: dan@modernproductminds.com

    32 min
  7. Could AI Make Capitalism Better? Henrik Werdelin Is Optimistic

    17 FEB

    Could AI Make Capitalism Better? Henrik Werdelin Is Optimistic

    Henrik Werdelin is one of my favorite entrepreneurs. He’s founded and incubated several unicorns, most notably BARK, the dog happiness company. Henrik himself is a pretty happy guy — an optimistic guy who likes to ask what could go right? — and on the day we recorded (a few months ago as I was squirreling away interviews for the podcast relaunch), he helped me see through some future of tech gloom I was feeling. I honestly can’t even remember what Trump+tech hellscape we were living through that week, but I do remember that Henrik put me in a better mood. I think he’ll do the same for you, no matter how you’re feeling. 🤗 Henrik believes AI could be a massive force for good. That it could bring forth a whole new — a better! — form of capitalism. He writes about this is in his latest book, Me, My Customer, and AI. He points to those (like Henry Ford) who took advantage of electricity by making drastic, not incremental, changes to how the build things. Our conversation pairs nicely with my recent episode with Azeem Azhar, who said the AI winners will “come from odd places”, as they have in previous tech transformations.  Here’s more of what Henrik and I cover: His concept of "relationship capital"—the moat AI can't clone—and why the companies that win next will be defined by who they serve, not what they makeThe three components of relationship capital: intensity, community, and durabilityThe "it sucks that" method for finding problems worth solving (he took it to a fifth grade class; the teacher was not thrilled)His vision for the "headless", agentic web, where your startup's MVP is a group of agents, not an appThe wildly practical AI tools he's built just for himself: a custom CRM that searches by vibes not names, a newsletter bot tuned to his quarterly goals, and an agent that handled his visa paperwork while he was in a meetingWhy entrepreneurial skills—agency, narrative, resourcefulness—are the ultimate career insurance, whether you start a company or notThe absolutely ridiculous story of how a prank on a cruise ship led to him meeting his BARK co-founder in a heart-shaped bedChapters (01:43) - Two Futures: AI Bad vs. AI Really, Really Good (05:44) - Why Positivity Is Actually the Riskier Bet (09:05) - Electricity, AI, and the Rise of Relationship Capital (11:12) - The Three Components of Relationship Capital (14:20) - "It Sucks That" — The Best Way to Find a Real Problem (19:22) - The Headless Future and Minimum Viable Agents (22:40) - N-of-One Software: Building Tools Just for Yourself (26:48) - Henrik's Custom Newsletter Bot and AI-Powered CRM (30:59) - Warp, Obsidian, and Letting Agents Loose on Your Computer (34:45) - Entrepreneurial Skills as Career Insurance (36:53) - The Heart-Shaped Bed: How Henrik Met His BARK Co-Founder Links & Resources Henrik Werdelin on LinkedInAudos, Henrik’s latest venture where he hopes AI agents trained in his methods can help thousands of entrepreneurs (donkeycorns!) a yearBeyond the Prompt podcast, from co-hosts Henrik Werdelin and Jeremy UtleySupport Future Around & Find Out Get the free newsletterAnd consider becoming a paid subscriber and help future proof this thing!Sponsor the show?  Are you looking to reach an audience of senior technologists and decision-makers? Email me: dan@modernproductminds.com---Music by Jonathan Zalben

    39 min

  8. 13 FEB

    "Shut Up, C-3PO!" or Do We Have a Duty To Treat Machines Well? | FAFO Friday

    Is AI conscious? Will it be someday? And should we be nice to it now... just in case? This FAFO Friday, Kwaku and I dive into the mind-bending world of machine consciousness. We cover a lot of ground, weaving from the different ways that Luke (co-dependent with R2) and Han (barking commands at C-3PO) treat their droids to whether Pascal’s Wager informs whether we should believe in AI consciousness just in case they do come alive and have been keeping score. (Pascal figured it was the safe bet to believe in God, just in case; maybe we should do likewise?) That’s from us knuckleheads, but we’ve also got a true expert on consciousness. This week I interviewed Daniel Hulme, one of the world’s leading AI researchers. He’s the Chief AI Officer at WPP, the CEO of Satalia (which WPP bought) and just founded and is CEO of Conscium, which is researching AI consciousness, efficiency (he thinks we’re scaling wrong and LLM’s are not the way), and building a platform to verify AI agents are safe. You’ll hear the first five minutes of my interview with Daniel. Daniel was not surprised by Moltbook (the Reddit-style site that AI agents built for themselves). That’s because he’s been putting agents together (in a “primordial soup” as he put it) for decades to observe the wild and wonderful ways they behave and to see if they’d create intelligence. Daniel does not think today’s agents are conscious, but can see a path to it. And he believes that a conscious superintellignece would be safer than a “zombie” one. But mostly he doesn’t want machines to feel pain and suffer. Huh??? My brain is still kind of broken from our hourlong chat, which I’m producing now and will be released in a few weeks. For now, enjoy this preview and more from Kwaku and me as we talk about what we expect from machines, whether we want to be one with them, and more… ---Music by Jonathan Zalben

    19 min
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You know what would be awesome? If we could build the future we want — before we muck it up. Future Around & Find Out helps builders think clearly about AI and emerging technologies, grapple with the implications, and decide what to build next. Independent technologist and former NPR journalist Dan Blumberg speaks with founders, makers, and you to celebrate breakthroughs, call BS on the hype, explore how things might go sideways — and how we can steer the future in the right direction. The Webby Awards have honored the show (formerly known as CRAFTED.) as a top tech podcast three years in a row! On Tuesdays, we feature interviews with the builders changing how we work, live, and play. On FAFO Fridays, futurist Kwaku Aning joins Dan for a playful recap of the week in tech, including the amazing, the scary, and the strange. You’ll also hear about innovations that too often get overshadowed by AI, including in deep tech, biotech, fintech, quantum computing, robotics, blockchain, and more. Across it all, you’ll hear sharp takes on what comes next and what builders need to know now. So let’s Future Around & Find Out together! https://www.FutureAround.com

Información

  • Creador
    Dan Blumberg
  • Años de actividad
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodios
    106
  • Clasificación
    Apto
  • Copyright
    © 2026
  • Mostrar sitio web
    Future Around & Find Out

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