Dave Johnson is Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Officer at Moderna, where he is responsible for all enterprise data capabilities from data engineering, data integration, data science, and software engineering. Johnson holds a PhD in Information Physics and has over 15 years of experience in software engineering and data science. He has spent more than a decade working exclusively in enterprise pharma and biotech companies.

Building the digital biotech of the future with Dave Johnson, Chief Data and AI Officer at Moderna

Mikko Hyppönen is a renowned Finnish cybersecurity expert and the Chief Research Officer at WithSecure. In our discussion, we delved into the rapidly evolving landscape of cybersecurity threats, particularly focusing on the impact of artificial intelligence and large language models

Between Worlds

Mikko Hyppönen on the future of cybersecurity in an AI-driven world

What are the new challenges that generative AI is creating for copyright law? In this episode, I speak with Matt Hervey, the head of AI law at Gowling, to explore the legal intricacies surrounding the creation of content and ideas by large language models. In our discussion, Matt sheds light on the complex landscape of AI ownership, highlighting the differences in legal frameworks across various jurisdictions, such as the UK, EU, and US.

Matt Hervey on navigating the legal implications of generative AI

Byron Reese, an acclaimed author, futurist, and entrepreneur shares his insights on the concept of ‘Agora’, a superorganism formed by the collective interactions of human beings. Drawing parallels complex adaptive systems like beehives, Reese argues that just as individual bees come together to create an entirely new organism with emergent properties, humans too form a higher-order entity through their differentiated roles and interactions.

Byron Reese on emergence, super organisms and our co-evolution with AI

Byron Reese on emergence, superorganisms and our co-evolution with AI.

I sat down with Pierre-Yves Calloc'h, Chief Digital Officer at Pernod Ricard, to discuss the company's journey in embracing AI, algorithms and automation to drive marketing effectiveness, sales performance, and consumer engagement. Pernod Ricard, known for its extensive portfolio of brands such as Absolut Vodka, Jameson, and Ballantine's, has been at the forefront of leveraging AI to make data-driven decisions and personalize consumer experiences.

Pierre-Yves Calloc'h on AI-driven transformation and the future of consumer engagement

Ben Waber is one of the world’s leading experts on people analytics and organizational culture. He is the founder of Humanyze and a professor at MIT. We caught up in Tokyo to discuss the future of work and the impact of large language models (LLMs) on productivity.

Ben Waber on why LLMs are not a silver bullet for boosting organizational innovation

On a recent visit to Barcelona, I sat down with Marco Bertini, one of the world’s foremost experts on dynamic pricing. Bertini is a professor of marketing at Esade University and the author of the book, ‘The Ends Game: How Smart Companies Stop Selling Products and Start Delivering Value,’ which examines how technology and society stimulate accountability, prompting companies to profit from the outcomes they deliver rather than the offerings they bring to market.

Marco Bertini On AI and the future of dynamic pricing

We are familiar with the rise of AI generated art, but what impact will these emerging technologies having on more traditional forms of artistic expression? To explore that question, I spoke with Virginia Damtsa, a renowned curator of contemporary art, who has worked with everyone from Peter Gabriel to Ai Weiwei, Cornelia Parker, Olafur Eliasson, Annette Messager and others.

Virginia Damtsa on the influence of AI and technology on contemporary art

How will AI change jobs? There are a lot of theories, and as of yet, scant conclusive evidence. However, if you did have to pick a 'canary in a coal mine' to understand the impact of generative AI on the future of work, one place to start would be the global freelance workforce. To understand how  machine intelligence might be influencing how freelancers get things done, I spoke with Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer.com, one of the world's leading online job marketplaces.

Matt Barrie on the AI-powered future of global talent

Tim Fu, founder of Studio Tim Fu, is one of the world’s leading experts in leveraging AI in architecture and construction. Fu established his practice in 2023 after working at Zaha Hadid Architects, and now heads a diverse team of architects and technologists, creating innovative workflows and designs that embrace AI's transformative power in architectural practice. Most recently, he was chosen to be a collaborating artist with OpenAI's new Sora generative AI platform.

Tim Fu on how AI is reshaping architecture

Ahead of the London Frieze Art Fair, I spoke with one of the world’s most fascinating artists, Von Wolfe, who for a number of years now has explored the intersection of art, technology, and artificial intelligence. As we sat in his studio in front of an oversized oil canvas and a sophisticated technology stack, Von Wolfe shared with me his unique approach to using machine learning and generative AI to create art. Our conversation delved into the history of art, from Renaissance masters to contemporary AI-powered creations, drawing parallels between traditional artistic methods and modern technological approaches.

Von Wolfe On Redefining Art in the Age of Machine Intelligence

On a recent trip to Toronto, I caught up with Yao Morin, the global CTO of JLL, a commercial real estate company. We discussed JLL's early adoption of generative AI technology, despite the real estate industry's traditionally conservative approach to new technologies. Yao explained how JLL has implemented AI tools like JLLGPT to process vast amounts of unstructured data in multiple languages, making it easier for employees to access and utilize information from contracts, research reports, and other documents.

Yao Morin on trust, AI world models and the future of commercial property

For Tom Chatfield, a British technology philosopher and author, there is nothing inevitable about technological progress. In his latest book, ‘Wise Animals: How Technology Has Made Us What We Are’ he explores how humans have co-evolved with technology throughout history. In our discussion, Tom deconstructed the common narrative of technological inevitability, using examples like the Incas' use of wheels only as toys and the complex history of Gutenberg's printing press to illustrate how technological adoption is deeply intertwined with cultural values and societal choices rather than following a predetermined path.

Tom Chatfield on philosophy, analytical thinking and how humans have co-evolved with technology

I recently caught up for a morning coffee with Charles Sansbury, CEO of Cloudera. We spoke about how AI is changing how leaders view data infrastructure and the significance of organizations capable of operating at exascale. Charles shared how his conversations with Fortune 50 companies have shifted from theoretical AI applications to practical concerns about return on investment, data quality, and infrastructure. A key part of this transition is the emerging trend of ‘private AI’ -  targeted models trained on proprietary company data.

Charles Sansbury on data, AI, and the rise of the Exascale Organziation

An Australian Entrepreneur of the Year and magician, Vinh Giang is a renown stage performer and also the brains behind the online learning platform, Encyclopedia of Magic. Coming from the humble beginnings of a Vietnamese refugee family saved by a boat captain off the coast of Australia, Vinh has since re-invented himself as a master magician and global business coach. We caught up in Cancun, Mexico where I asked him all my burning questions about the history of magic, and what business leaders might learn from the secret arts of stage illusion.

Vinh Giang on sleight of hand, showmanship and the secret books of magic

Ted C. Fishman is a global expert on populations, demographics and emerging markets. When we met up in Chicago, he slipped through the crowded hotel lobby to greet me, in a wonderful Indonesian batik shirt - like a covert character from a Graham Greene spy novel. Ted is a veteran journalist, essayist and former member and trader of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. His most recent book, Shock of Gray, The Aging of the World’s Population and How it Pits Young Against Old, Child Against Parent, Worker Against Boss, Company Against Rival, and Nation Against Nation looks at how the aging of the world is propelling globalization, redefining nearly every important relationship we have and changing life for everyone young and old. He also wrote the international bestseller, China, Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World, which describes the effects of China's emergence as a world power on the lives and businesses of people across the globe. In this podcast, we had a wide-ranging chat about the future impact of shifting population demographics on global growth, the rapid urbanization of China and how technology has impacted daily life there, as well as Ted’s latest journeys and insights about the Indonesian market. 

Ted C. Fishman on aging populations, Chinese urbanization and the dynamic potential of Indonesia

I caught up with Ross Dawson, a fellow futurist and an Australian native, on a recent trip back home to Bondi Beach. Ross is a futurist, and the author of four books including the Amazon.com bestseller ‘Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships’, and the acclaimed book Living Networks, which foresaw the social networking revolution. Over coffee we riffed over some areas of common interest, in particular the impact of AI on the future of decision-making and work.

Ross Dawson on algorithms, human-centered design and the future of work

If you were to start a law firm today, leveraging all available technology and new ways of thinking - how would you do it? That, among other questions, is what I asked Piotr Spaczyński, managing partner of SSW, the only independent law firm from Poland, and one just shortlisted in the prestigious Innovative Lawyers ranking organised by the Financial Times. The legal industry - conservative, slow-moving and based on precedent - is a fascinating case study for the disruptive impact of AI and automation. Piotr and I discussed what the legal AI stack of the future might look like, from the use of algorithms to analyze contracts to predicting the outcome of litigation under particular judges. So when the legal system becomes increasingly standardized, contracts more automated and legislation akin to computer code - will the best lawyers of the future be less like Harvey Specter and more like Bill Gates?

Piotr Spaczyński on building the algorithmic law firm of tomorrow

Now that the pandemic has plunged us into the world's largest remote work experiment, what are we learning about the kind of culture that supports distributed organizations? And how do leaders build a cultural operating system for a time of crisis and change? To answer this question, and to also understand how data is changing our understanding of performance and transformation - I spoke with Didier Elzinga, the CEO and co-founder of Culture Amp – one of the world’s fastest growing technology startups and has helped companies around the world harness the power of employee feedback to drive positive change. If you enjoyed this episode and Didier's perspectives, please take a moment to read my article on this topic in the Harvard Business Review.

Didier Elzinga on how to build a culture of distributed work

Our experience of reality is about to change. XR, which incorporates augmented and virtual reality, has shifted from a niche technology to consumer prime time. Now the question is how do we start to design compelling experiences, commercial partnerships and digital ecosystems to unlock the potential of this new medium. XR will change everything from the way we build digital retail stores to how a meeting planner might envision the space for a live event. My guest, Raffaella Camera, is working closely with a number of global brands and organizations to bring some of these ideas to life. A trained concert pianist and award-winning content creator, Raffaella Camera is the Global Head of Innovation & Strategy at the Accenture Extended Reality (XR) practice.

Raffaella Camera on the coming XR revolution

While for many of us ‘working from home’ has been a new and unexpected challenge, for some companies, remote is how they were designed from the beginning. Zapier, a leading software automation platform, is one such of these. However, what makes Zapier a fascinating case study is not just their lack of physical offices, but the systems, workflows and practices that they have evolved to make their distributed organization function effectively. In this interview, I chat with Zapier’s CEO and co-founder, Wade Foster. Prior to Zapier, Wade worked as a customer development lead for The Idea Works, Inc. in Missouri. He is an alumni of Y Combinator and has degrees in industrial engineering and business administration from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Wade Foster on how to run a remote company

Nick Walton is CTO and Co-Founder at Latitude, and creator of AI Dungeon. He has been working on deep learning technology for the last several years, working at autonomous vehicle companies and in a deep learning research lab at Brigham Young University.  What makes AI Dungeon so interesting and relevant to the near future, is that it demonstrates the radical creativity that is possible when you combine a good idea with the heavy lifting of a Cloud AI system that can be generally applied to multiple use cases.

Nick Walton on AI and the future of gaming

Rodrigo Mendoza is co-founder and CEO of Quine, a company building hyper-fluid interfaces between software developers and the labour markets. Previous to Quine, Rodrigo was an academic, a venture capital professional, and a freelance data-scientist. Rodrigo holds a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Oxford, where he was also a postdoctoral researcher in Machine Learning.

Rodrigo Mendoza on the future of open source in an AI-powered world

We talk about disruption all the time, but are we really ready to make the profound changes that come with true transformation? Many companies set disruption as their goal, and even believe that by shaking up their market, they will achieve high levels of growth. For Charlene Li, leaders have all it all backwards. Disruption doesn't create growth; instead, growth creates disruption.

What leaders get most wrong about disruption with Charlene Li

Professor Tim Tangherlini calls himself a computational folklorist. Like many fields of research lately, folklore is a field where both the tools and objects of study are being profoundly reimagined by AI. I came across Professor Tangherlini's work after reading a research paper that he and his team published on using AI to study the structure and dissemination of conspiracy theories. Their research points the way to strategies that might defeat fake news by explaining how the elements of a conspiracy narrative come together and how they can also quickly fragment if some key parts are removed or challenged.

Using AI in the war against fake news with Tim Tangherlini

This new age of smart machines will still need humans - but arguably, they will need to be ones who can think, create and make decisions in very different ways than the workforce of today. As with the first Industrial Revolution, reinventing education will be a priority going forward, especially if we are to survive the automation-led shakeup to jobs. To find out what it might take to transform schools and learning, I spoke with Dr. Shawn K. Smith , an education futurist and chief executive officer of Modern Teacher. Shawn also sits on the board of The Futures Institute, an organization dedicated to providing global insights on complex local problems.

The future of education with Dr Shawn Smith

Despite all the talk about fintech disruption - banking, finance, and payments remain highly regulated industries with well-established competitors who are not standing still - even in this moment of rapid change and digital reinvention. Mastercard is one such company. They created Mastercard Labs as a way of co-creating and innovating with their customers. The idea was to turn external signals into opportunities, and in' doing so, de-risk' them for their clients and for the rest of the organization. So, for example, they are working on quantum computing with IBM. They have established their own proprietary blockchain and several AI projects and were behind the Apple Card's tokenization, which allowed it to work without the standard 16 digits. 

To learn more about how Mastercard manages their innovation portfolio, I spoke with Ken Moore, who is the Chief Innovation Officer at Mastercard and also Head of Mastercard Labs. Ken is responsible for the company's R&D initiatives globally. Prior to joining Mastercard, he was a Director at Citibank, where he established Citi's first Innovation Lab and subsequently expanded it globally to create a network of collaborative innovation centers across the company.

How Mastercard uses their innovation lab to co-create with their customers with Ken Moore

A US election is far more than just a struggle for the most powerful job in the world, they also provide a glimpse into consumer attitudes and emerging technologies designed to influence opinion. It was during the 2012 US election, for instance, that social media, online data and e-commerce profiling was leveraged for the first time to create a hyper-targeted, digital political campaign, that ultimately swept the Democrats into power. My guest this week, Harper Reed, was intimately involved in that strategy, having served as CTO of the Obama 2012 campaign, where he was the first to bring the mentality and connective capabilities of the tech industry to the political stage.

Disinformation wars, robot uprisings and differential privacy with Harper Reed

Brian Christian is one of my favorite writers on AI, with a unique perspective that is very much at the intersection of computer science and philosophy. He is the author of the acclaimed bestsellers ‘The Most Human Human’ and ‘Algorithms To Live By’, which have been translated into nineteen languages. A visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, he lives in San Francisco. His latest book, and the subject of this interview, is ‘The Alignment Problem’.

Algorithms, AI and the alignment problem with Brian Christian

- What if within the span of the next decade, we could live for an additional ten years or more? A hundred years ago, advances in infection control and public health led to a near doubling of the human life span. For us to achieve a similar feat today, we will need more than just scientific breakthroughs. Despite the rise of AI, powerful computation platforms and new discoveries in genomics, there is still a gap between everyday medical practice and technological innovation.

AI Genomics. Is this the future of health? Jo Bhakdi

Between Worlds is a technology podcast that takes you over the horizon and beyond borders, to bring you the global thinkers, innovators and troublemakers whose ideas challenge the world as we know it. From a courtyard cafe in Paris, to a busy sidewalk in Tokyo - each week futurist and global nomad, Mike Walsh, will share his personal conversations with some of the most fascinating people on the planet, recorded live in the field.

Between Worlds

Pinned to spotlight

Popular tracks