FT Tech Tonic
Episodes
US-China Tech Race: Brave new world
25 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, how a mysterious death in Belgrade prompted Serbia to embrace Chinese surveillance technology, raising concerns among Serbian human r...
US-China Tech Race: Shock and Awe
18 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the latest episode of this Tech Tonic season about US-China tech rivalry, the FT’s US-China correspondent Demetri Sevastopulo tells the inside st...
US-China Tech Race: Chips with everything
11 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How China's growing appetite for computer chips has put Taiwan on the frontline of the US-China battle for global technological supremacy. In this lat...
US-China Tech Race: Spies & Lies (Part Two)
04 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the second episode of this season of Tech Tonic, James Kynge, the FT’s Global China Editor, asks how significant Chinese intellectual property th...
US-China Tech Race: Spies & Lies (Part One)
28 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the first episode of this season’s six-part series, the FT’s Global China Editor James Kynge tracks China’s dramatic transformation from the ...
Coming soon, season 3, The US/China Tech Race
25 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A new six-part series of Tech Tonic brings you stories from the frontlines of the battle between the US and China for global technological supremacy. ...
AI with military characteristics
16 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Last year, the Pentagon watched closely as a human fighter pilot lost to an AI-powered adversary in a simulated dogfight. The US military is working t...
Brainstorm
02 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Tech Tonic, we ask whether AI's potential in the fight against the climate crisis justifies the massive amounts of energy it takes ...
You Can’t Always Get What you Quant
19 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
From picking the best stocks to listening in on earnings calls, AI-powered systems are changing finance. But how big are the rewards, really? And what...
Trust me, I’m a robot
05 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean for AI to augment human perception? In this episode the FT’s Madhumita Murgia takes us to a small village in rural India where AI ...
Gamechanger
21 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this first episode of ourselves five-part series on AI, the FT’s innovation editor and host John Thornhill talks to some of the biggest names in ...
Season 2 coming soon
13 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
There is a huge amount of hype surrounding AI. It powers technology that can detect disease through scent, translate between languages in milliseconds...
Levelling the playing field
29 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The digital revolution will be shaped by whoever controls our data. What does this mean for consumers and businesses? Tim Bradshaw, the FT’s global ...
The digital graduate
22 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
About 1.4bn students in more than 130 countries have spent parts of the past year adapting to learning online. The crisis has put the education sector...
Chasing digital footprints
15 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Early in the pandemic, Taiwan legally gathered location data from more than 600,000 of its citizens to stem the spread of coronavirus. South Korea, an...
Disrupting the hospital
08 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Could a piece of high-tech cloth keep Covid-19 patients out of hospital and allow them to be monitored at home? The FT’s pharma and biotech correspo...
The future is here now
01 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Our lives are increasingly moving from the offline to the online world, leaving a long trail of data in our wake. These data can be used to wield econ...
A new season of Tech Tonic
26 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The show that investigates the promises and perils of our digital age is back with a new season. FT innovation editor John Thornhill will take us into...
AI research and big tech
16 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to David Barber, director of the UCL Centre for Artificial Intelligence in London, about how academic researchers can work with b...
Niklas Zennström and Tom Wehmeier on the state of European tech
09 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Niklas Zennström, founder of Skype and Atomico and Tom Wehmeier, Atomico partner and author of The State of European Tech report, talk to the FT's Jo...
Dave Ferrucci on teaching computers to think
02 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Dave Ferrucci, CEO, founder and chief scientist of Elemental Cognition, talks to Richard Waters, the FT's West Coast editor, about his efforts to trai...
Google's Kate Brandt on sustainable tech
25 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Kate Brandt talks to John Thornhill about Google’s drive to minimise and offset the energy used in its operations and supply chains, and about its e...
Digital technologies and the developing world
18 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Economist Stefan Dercon tells John Thornhill about the findings of a research project he led, showing how, used wisely, technology can enable developm...
ENCORE: Jeni Tennison on open data
11 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to Jeni Tennison, chief executive of the Open Data Institute, about her work in helping to develop best practice for the use and ...
Scott Kupor on VC funding
03 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to Scott Kupor, managing partner at Andreessen Horowitz, about his book Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get...
Rana Foroohar on taming big tech
28 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to FT colleague Rana Foroohar about her book Don’t Be Evil - How Big Tech Betrayed Its Founding Principles - And All Of Us Host...
Stuart Russell on losing control of AI
21 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill discusses how to make artificial intelligence safe for humans with Stuart Russell, professor of computer science and engineering at the...
Jaan Tallinn on AI safety
14 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to Jaan Tallinn, founding engineer at Skype and Kazaa, about his subsequent career as a tech investor and his concerns about...
Wanted: work for humans
07 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Madhumita Murgia discusses what happens when robots can do most of the work humans do with Calum Chace of the Economic Singularity Club, Mike Wooldrid...
What kind of art can AI produce?
30 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Mathematician Marcus du Sautoy puts his theories about creative AI to the test before a live audience at the recent FT Weekend Festival in London. Hos...
John Maeda on designing the future
23 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Design guru John Maeda tells Tim Bradshaw why he thinks a diversity of viewpoints and listening to what consumers want will be more valuable to the co...
Sarah Chan on neural interfaces
16 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Bioethicist Sarah Chan contributed to a report this month on neurotechnology by the UK’s senior scientific academy. She talks to John Thornhill abou...
Alice Bentinck on harnessing tech talent
09 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Alice Bentinck, co-founder of Entrepreneur First, tells John Thornhill about her mission to harness the entrepreneurial talents of a new generation of...
Improving decision making through AI
02 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Vishal Chatrath, chief executive and co-founder of Prowler, tells John Thornhill how his company is helping to improve decision making in the worlds o...
Priya Lakhani on AI's power to transform education
26 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Priya Lakhani, founder and chief executive AI company Century Tech, talks to John Thornhill about her mission to improve the life chances of students ...
Nicolas Berggruen on democracy in the digital age
19 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to the billionaire investor and philanthropist Nicolas Berggruen about his book: Renovating Democracy: Governing in the Age of Gl...
Ben Goertzel on benevolent robots
12 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Ben Goertzel talks to John Thornhill about his work for Hanson Robotics, the company that created the robot Sophia, about SingularityNET, the blockcha...
Frances Arnold on directed evolution of enzymes
05 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Nobel laureate Frances Arnold talks to Anjana Ahuja about her pioneering a work harnessing the power of nature to engineer enzymes, her long career an...
Digital printing for the fourth industrial revolution
29 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Joseph DeSimone, chief executive of Carbon, talks to Richard Waters about the manufacturing technique he invented that can craft objects in seconds us...
Directing innovation towards sustainable growth
22 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to economist Mariana Mazzucato about her work to promote collaboration between governments and companies to direct innovation tow...
Paul Clarke on robotics and digital twins
15 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Paul Clarke, chief technology officer at the online grocery Ocado, talks to John Thornhill about how the use of robotics, machine learning and digital...
Jennifer Doudna on gene editing
08 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Jennifer Doudna talks to Richard Waters, the FT's San Francisco bureau chief, about how she discovered the CRISPR Cas-9 system and how it is transform...
John Browne on engineering the future
01 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to Lord John Browne, former chief executive of BP, about his book: Make, Think, Imagine on engineering and the future of ci...
Nathan Jurgenson on social media and the selfie
24 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Nathan Jurgenson, sociologist at Snapchat’s parent company Snap, talks to Tim Bradshaw about his book The Social Photo and about how the smartp...
Eric Topol on making healthcare more human
17 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Hannah Kuchler talks to American cardiologist Eric Topol about his book Deep Medicine, which looks at the potential for artificial intelligence techno...
New season starts on Monday
12 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Tech Tonic, the podcast that looks at the way technology is changing our lives, is returning for a news season starting on Monday 17th June. We’ll b...
Andrew Ng on building an AI workforce
17 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Artificial intelligence expert Andrew Ng talks to John Thornhill about his concern that AI technology is concentrating wealth in the hands of a few an...
Rana Yared on investing in fintech
10 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
John Thonhill talks to Rana Yared, a partner and managing director at Goldman Sachs’ Principal Strategic Investments, about how technology is trans...
Marcus du Sautoy on creative AI
03 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to Oxford mathematician Marcus du Sautoy about his book: The Creativity Code: How AI is Learning to Write, Paint and Think Hosted...
James Vlahos on voice technology
27 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Elaine Moore talks to American journalist James Vlahos about the chatbot he created to keep the memory of this father alive and about the potential us...
Peter Schwartz on automating the brain
20 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Schwartz, senior vice-president of strategic planning at Salesforce, futurist and author, talks to John Thornhill about the impact on our societ...
Tim Berners-Lee on reshaping the web
12 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to Tim Berners-Lee about the achievements of the world wide web which he invented 30 years ago, what he thinks has gone wrong and...
Jack Conte on crowdfunding for creators
06 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to Jack Conte about Patreon, the platform he invented to help creative artists receive a steadier income from modern-day patrons....
Jeni Tennison on data ethics
27 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to Jeni Tennison, chief executive of the Open Data Institute, about her work in helping to develop best practice for the use and ...
James Williams on the attention economy
20 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Former Google employee James Williams talks to John Thornhill about his book: Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Resistance in the Attention Economy ...
Shoshana Zuboff on surveillance capitalism
13 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to the social scientist Shoshana Zuboff about her book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, and what we need to do to reclaim the...
Will Marshall on mapping the earth
06 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to Will Marshall, whose San-Francisco-based start-up is helping companies like Google and Monsanto, as well as governments and NG...
Taavet Hinrikus on disrupting the banks
30 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to Taavet Hinrikus, co-founder of Transferwise, about shaking up the lucrative money transfer business and how he helped build a ...
AI and software's 'singular moment'
23 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to Chris Bishop, director of Microsoft’s Cambridge research lab, about the potential for exponential growth in the development ...
The risks and rewards of gene-editing
16 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Robin Lovell-Badge, developmental biologist and geneticist, talks to FT science columnist Anjana Ahuja about the gene-edited babies controversy in Chi...
Vivienne Ming on solving human problems
09 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to Vivienne Ming, a theoretical neuroscientist, entrepreneur and artificial intelligence guru about her work in trying to ma...
Diego Piacentini on GovTech
02 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The former Amazon executive tells John Thornhill how he applied the lessons he’d learnt at the US technology company to help transform Italians’ e...
Trust in the digital age
26 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to the academic and author Rachel Botsman about the evolution of trust in the digital age and the way technology has undermined o...
Graphcore's next generation chip technology
19 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Nigel Toon, founder and chief executive of Graphcore, talks to John Thornhill about the chip technology his company is developing and its potential to...
What robots can teach humans
12 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to Maja Pantic, Professor of Affective and Behavioural Computing at Imperial College in London, about her work testing the b...
Making the most of work chat
05 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Stewart Butterfield, co-founder and chief executive of San Francisco-based Slack tells John Thornhill how his fascination for technology that facilita...
Artificial intelligence that learns on the fly
28 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Physicist Zdenka Kuncic tells FT science editor Clive Cookson about the difference between software-based and hardware-based approaches to artificial ...
The business of cybercrime
21 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sociologist Jonathan Lusthaus spent seven years talking to cyber criminals. He tells Hannah Kuchler what he discovered about the extent of their...
Technology and the human brain
14 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Murali Doraiswamy, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, Duke University Health System, tells Shannon Bond about his research into potenti...
Investing in deep tech
07 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Investor Alice Newcombe-Ellis tells John Thornhill about her strategy for discovering and investing in the next generation of disruptive technology co...
Puncturing the AI hype
31 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Zia Chishti's latest business venture Afiniti uses artificial intelligence to match customers and employees, but he tells John Thornhill he sees the t...
Who sets the internet standards?
24 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Hannah Kuchler talks to American social scientist and cyber security expert Andrea Little Limbago about the worrying lack of agreement among governmen...
David Sanger on cyber warfare
17 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to the New York Times journalist about his latest book: The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage and Fear in the Cyber Age. Hoste...
Adrian Lovett on fighting for a better web
10 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Web Foundation president and CEO Adrian Lovett talks to John Thornhill about open data, net neutrality and widening global internet access.Web Foundat...
Jocelyn Bell Burnell on new frontiers in astronomy
03 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Clive Cookson talks to astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell about her decision to give away her $3m Breakthrough Prize in physics and about what she se...
Tristan Harris on digital Frankensteins
26 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The former Google employee turned campaigner has made it his mission to alert society about the dangers of using computer algorithms to capture our at...
Liberty and morality in the AI era
19 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Jamie Susskind, author of Future Politics, Verity Harding of Google DeepMind, and Tabitha Goldstaub, co-founder of CognitionX, discuss liberty and mor...
Irene Ng on redistributing the economic power of data
12 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Entrepreneur and academic Irene Ng talks to John Thornhill about the Hub of all Things - a microserver that allows people to own and control their own...
What's next for Dropbox?
05 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Drew Houston, co-founder of the business software company, tells John Thornhill how he caught the entrepreneurial bug and what's next for Dropbox. Hos...
Tech Tonic returns
29 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
John Thorhill and guests return for a news series of Tech Tonic, the show that looks at the way technology is changing our lives. Hosted on Acast. See...
How can we make governments smarter?
09 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Robyn Scott talks to John Thornhill about her company Apolitical, a global news and networking site that seeks to share knowledge and spread best prac...
The new AI battleground
02 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Nicole Eagan, chief executive of Darktrace, tells John Thornhill corporate networks have become the new battleground in a cyberwar waged by criminals ...
Terah Lyons on fashioning the AI future
25 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to Terah Lyons, founding executive director of the Partnership on AI, a US initiative that brings civil society groups into a deb...
What we can learn from ancient DNA
18 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
David Reich, professor of genetics at Harvard, talks to Clive Cookson, the FT's science editor, about how the genomic revolution is affecting paleonto...
Julia Shaw on a bot you can trust
11 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Psychologist Julia Shaw talks to John Thornhill about her research into the fragility of human memory and how this helped her design a software tool t...
The consumer awakening
04 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
How can we fix the digital future? Writer and Silicon Valley critic Andrew Keen tells John Thornhill our best resource is human agency and the power o...
Facebook and Google: platforms or publishers?
28 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The big tech platforms where many people get their news wield significant power. How do they work with publishers, and are they doing enough to combat...
Removing bias from AI
21 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Kriti Sharma talks to John Thornhill about her work for the UK software company Sage and about her mission to bring greater diversity and accountabili...
Rethinking the way we earn money
14 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes joins the FT's Hannah Kuchler to talk about economic inequality in the age of "big tech", and his proposal to shrink ...
Erel Margalit on investing in peace
07 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to Erel Margalit, founder and chairman of Jerusalem Venture Partners, about his plan to help create a regional hub for tech start...
Is there anyone out there?
28 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Clive Cookson, FT science editor, discusses the possibility of alien life and whether we would recognise it if we encountered it with British astrophy...
ENCORE: When data rules the world
21 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In this encore episode, John Thornhill talks to author and historian Yuval Noah Harari about his vision of a future when humans are no longer the smar...
Road testing self-drive cars
14 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to nuTonomy's Gretchen Effgen about why the company chose Singapore as well as Boston to test its self-drive cars and why it uses...
Jacqueline Poh on digital government
07 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to the head of Singapore's GovTech about her work in advancing the country's Smart Nation ambitions Hosted on Acast. See acast.co...
Martin Rees on saving the planet
31 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
John Thornhill talks to leading astrophysicist Martin Rees about why he thinks we need to pay greater attention to the risks posed by environmental da...
Silicon Valley's coming of age
24 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Historian Leslie Berlin talks to the FT's Hannah Kuchler about the generation of entrepreneurs and investors, from Mike Markkula to Sandra Kurtzi...
Calum Chace on a world without work
27 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Business and science fiction writer Calum Chace talks to John Thornhill about the exponential growth of AI and why we need to start planning now for a...
Social media in the classroom
20 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
How is the use of mobile technology and social media affecting the lives of children and adolescents? Sonia Livingstone, professor of psychology at th...
Garry Kasparov on the risks and rewards of AI
13 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Artificial intelligence is an important tool, but human beings have to be creative to understand how best to make use of it, former world chess champi...
Guarding against the next cyber attack
06 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Army veteran and cyber security expert Rick Howard talks to the FT's Hannah Kuchler about the current state of cyber security, what we have learn...