A Beginner's Guide to AI
The Scariest AI Scenario Isn't Terminator, Dr. Mark Khater Says
22 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What sparked Dr. Mark Khater's interest in AI?
The thing I'm worried about is what I said, those catastrophic decisions that will be made until we realize that we are all aligning on the wrong page is what's happening now is something that I like to call silent coordination failure. We're all actually over-coordinated and over-correlated before we get into the meeting. But if we're all highly aligned on the wrong page, it's catastrophic.
A big part of what large language models are leading today is singularity, right? We are actually all somehow... kind of going to one way of doing things. There's only one truth. Do you trust AI? And I say, look, trust is between humans. It's agency between humans.
Chapter 2: Why are universities crucial in the AI era?
I don't trust an aircraft, but I trust the pilot. Machines think fast, but humans think deep.
Chapter 3: What is the significance of AI regulation in Europe?
Yeah, we have Dr. Mark Carter today on the podcast and he's A, an entrepreneur with an investment firm and B, a scientist out of Cambridge. So we have two perspectives today. I would say three or four, but I don't want to go too far and take away some of the surprises of this interview because it was great. And yeah, you learn how to use AI the right way and how to not.
That would be like the essence of the interview. Welcome to another episode of the Beginner's Guide to AI. It's Dietmar from Argo Berlin at the microphone.
Chapter 4: How does AI influence investment management?
And don't forget to go to beginnersguide.nl to get the newsletter. Subscribe to it or hit subscribe on your podcasting app. But the newsletter is really the most important thing because you get all the episodes there and never miss one. I also have some tips and tricks and ideas I can send you there. So beginnersguide.nl. And yeah, the other thing is AI for the 99%. You...
can google it or type it in your podcasting app and then you find my other podcast for small medium enterprises and i have some tips and tricks there as well once a month or so something comes out so not too much now before i talk too much let's just head over to the episode with mark Yeah, I can talk a lot about Mark, but the best thing is he tells you something about himself.
Chapter 5: What is Silent Coordination Failure and its impact on diversity?
But first of all, Mark, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. So the thing is, AI and you, you started really early doing stuff with AI. What did you do? Why AI in the first place? I was studying biomedical engineering in the 1990s, sort of around 94. And I came across this really interesting book that was talking about something called artificial neural networks.
And it was trying to build small little computer brains that would simulate human thinking. And I was just blown away by the concept that you could actually get a computer to start mimicking human thinking. And so I started looking at it in 94. It was very lucid writing at the time.
Chapter 6: Why is human intelligence still vital in decision-making?
Computer languages aren't as developed as today. Computers are a lot weaker than today. And you would have to start writing this line by line of code to develop your artificial neural network. So 94 was my first attempt to build an artificial neural network.
And because I was in the field of medical engineering, I thought, right, wouldn't it be amazing if I could build a little computer that can help diagnose cancer? So, you know, young engineer, big hopes, terrible failure.
Chapter 7: How can we ensure diverse thinking in AI-driven environments?
But I did try. You learn with projects, yeah. So much, so much. So much feedback, yes, absolutely. And you stuck with AI then from then on.
Chapter 8: What are the potential consequences of over-reliance on AI?
So it was not a failure. It was like an initial failure, but then you did a lot with AI. Let's... I don't... You are at Cambridge University responsible for AI or strategy or something. You have an investment fund. You're teaching and everything connects to AI. But I think in 1994, you went into the investment area. Or how did you go on with AI? Actually, I...
I built my first company back in 99 and it was an AI company. And what I was doing at the time is I learned that it was very complicated for computers back then to actually analyze images of cancers. So I focused on bio signals and I was looking at things, very simple things like your heart rate or the contraction of your muscles and so on.
And I then built a system at the time that was actually doing a lot of brain signal analysis. And it was part of my master's degree at the time. And I didn't actually think anybody would be interested in looking at how the system analyzes brainwaves. And then suddenly we sort of put that out into as an application.
And before I knew it, people were saying, hey, would you like us to buy your company? And I thought, what company? I have a software. I mean, and what do you mean buy your company? I never heard of that. You go and buy milk or eggs or, you know, or the software. But can you actually buy a company? Wow. OK, let's see how this works. So that was in 99.
And that's when I thought, hey, this whole building of computers that think like or mimic human thinking is seems to be very interesting to the world. Nobody's doing it and not many people are doing it. I'll start focusing on that. And that's how my career in AI started. And every time I got interested in something, so that company in 99 was diagnosing sleep disease.
So many of the sort of problems that people have when they sleep. like apnea, you know, which is quite a serious disease. But then every time I got interested in something, whether it was business or finance or strategy, I thought, hey, let's bring in AI. Let's write a piece of software like I did since 1994. You know, I'm a one trick pony. And let's try and solve that problem using AI.
And then suddenly the whole world decided to join in my little AI space in 2020. I thought, oh, well, that's not fun anymore. Everyone's coming into this. Well, this is really interesting because you started AI when everybody started internet firms. So you were not moving with the flow, but doing your own interesting stuff.
And later then in 2020, I mean, yes, that was when everybody, actually 22 probably, the people who knew was... And you did a lot of things there. Let's start because I also have a project at university. You're at Cambridge, one of the universities of the world probably. And you are focusing on AI, but you also see the dangers of AI or the problem or the wave is coming to university.
What stands out there? What is the most important thing you would say universities have to see, have to prepare? Or what are you doing to help that? So in 2019, we were beginning to enter into COVID and I was sat, obviously like most other people, bored at home. But I was sort of in the AI space looking at how it was starting to gain momentum publicly.
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