Tom Slater

speaker

197 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 11 May

Tom Slater’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.

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Thank you very much for having me.

It's great to be here.

I guess it's a topic that is at the top of people's minds at the moment.

In one way or another, we're all being affected by this technology, thinking about what it's doing to society.

And I guess from books that I'd read, I just started wondering about whether we were focusing on the wrong question.

Because this is very obvious, you know, are our jobs all going to be automated away by this technology?

And we can get into that.

But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me, actually, that wasn't the issue.

Because it assumes sort of stasis.

It assumed that humans would stay the same and this technology would get better and we would be displaced.

But actually, all the evidence suggests that it changes the way we think.

So if there isn't some sort of stable balance between us and the machines, we adapt.

So a simple example for me, you know, I lived in Edinburgh for 30 years.

And it used to be the case that I could think I want to go to this place and visualize where I was going in my head and I would set off.

But just because I turn the sat-nav on every time I go somewhere in the car now, it's got to the point where I actually can't do that anymore.

And I haven't suddenly lost that skill, but it's neglect.

And each time I've not made that effort, that piece of my brain has become less utilized, has shrunk, and now I can't do it.

And I think mindless use of AI does the same thing.

Yeah, that's right.

And I find this fascinating because I think certainly I had thought about changing physiology as being a function of evolution.

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