TechSequences

“Careless People,” the recent memoir by Meta's former Global Public Policy Director, Sarah Wynn-Williams, has caused a furor. Not only did it share revelations that Meta prioritized growth and engagement over safety and democracy, but it also provided confirmation of

AI is forcing a seismic shift in our energy landscape. News that China's DeepSeek AI operates with up to 40 times less power than American competitors has already rattled markets and put its American counterparts on the defensive.  Why? Currently,

Today's social media platforms have transformed human communication into algorithm-friendly “content” units that can be efficiently processed, ranked, and moderated. While this approach has powered extraordinary growth, it has also created an online environments that often bring out the worst

Ransomware has emerged as a critical global cybersecurity threat, with attacks costing organizations $2 million on average and causing $4.54 million in total damages per incident. From paralyzing critical infrastructure like the US Colonial Pipeline to disrupting healthcare systems, these

Today's journalists use sophisticated tools to scrape, analyze, and visualize complex datasets, transforming investigative reporting across fields like political corruption and climate change. Yet this technological evolution comes at a critical moment when major tech platforms are scaling back fact-checking,

Despite a $145.5 billion investment in pharmaceutical R&D in 2023, US Federal Drug Administration novel drug approvals remain stagnant at around 43 annually, according to recent findings from Deloitte's 14th Annual Pharmaceutical Innovation Report. The complexity of modern diseases, combined

In recent years, Internet-enabled wearable devices have emerged as powerful tools for monitoring and managing personal health, promising to revolutionize healthcare delivery. As these technologies have become more affordable and user-friendly, their adoption has skyrocketed – in 2022 alone, over

As Americans reflect on our own recent presidential election, the rest of the world faces a critical challenge: navigating elections in an era of increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence. From chatbots providing misleading voting information to deep fake videos of candidates,

While industrial and vertical farming have become commonplace in many parts of the world, these advanced techniques are not widely implemented in Africa, where the largest food deficit is expected. This even though Africa has the land and the climate

In the quest to revolutionize medicine, our bodies are becoming living laboratories. By 2030, it's estimated that bioprinting could address up to 20% of the organ transplant waiting list globally. These groundbreaking technologies are set to generate custom, patient-specific organs

In the race to the future, our cars are becoming supercomputers on wheels. By 2025, it's estimated that 70% of light-duty vehicles and trucks globally will be connected to the internet. These rolling data centers are set to generate a

With the dawn of AI, more and more applications that we rely on for work or play are being augmented by generative AI. According to Gartner, 55% of organizations have implemented or are piloting generative AI solutions. This rapid uptake

If you have ever come across a story that resonated with you because it sounded authentic, only to find out later that it was not true, you have experienced the paradox of “authenticity” versus “facticity”.  In fact, in the post

The introduction of the internet, a pivotal event in the Third Industrial Revolution, was shaped by crucial design and policy decisions made by early internet pioneers. Decisions such as adopting packet-switching for ARPANET, developing TCP/IP, and creating HTML and HTTP

Guest: Dave Hallett Cancer, called the “Emperor of All Maladies” has been a formidable adversary of mankind since time immemorial. With its multitude of forms and elusive nature, cancer presents a daunting challenge for drug discovery. However, AI offers a

Guest: Jen Sovada Quantum sensing is poised to revolutionize virtually every aspect of our world. Quantum sensing's distinctive ability to detect magnetic signatures is already aiding in navigation for countless fuel tankers worldwide, providing otherwise unachievable medical scans, and keeping

Guest: Alp Kucukelbir The manufacturing sector, notably cement and steel production, accounts for nearly 20% of global CO2 emissions. As artificial intelligence (AI) looms large in its potential to reshape all industries, there's mounting pressure to integrate AI into manufacturing

Guests: David Bellos and Alex Montagu Aside from IP lawyers, how many of us, particularly technologists, know about the origins of copyright laws and how they have evolved from the 18th century (yes pre-industrial revolution) to present? Our guess is

Guest: Magnus Revang Every year, Gartner unveils its Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies report, spotlighting 25 pivotal technologies to keep a keen eye on. It is hardly surprising then that this year generative AI took center stage in the report

Guest: Jenny Reardon Since the mid 2000's the field of genetics has seen rapid technological innovation, particularly in DNA sequencing and genotyping technologies that enable analysis of large portions of an individual's genome at a relatively affordable cost. These advancements

Guest: Sally Lehrman There is no question that an informed public and a free press are critical requirements for a functioning democracy.  But what if the public has little to no trust in the news media? How can we have

Guest: Zoë MacDonald The increased number of Internet enabled cars affords us luxuries deemed unattainable a few decades ago.  We can now navigate roads in a way to avoid traffic jams, diagnose problems and often fix glitches with a software

Guest: Nestor Maslej Artificial intelligence has made inroads in each of the seven categories of art: architecture, cinema, literature, painting, music sculpture, and theater.  And in doing so, has challenged what it means to create art, as well as stirred

Guest: Courtney C. Radsch A revolution is afoot in media and by extension, journalism.  Economic factors have caused the decline of local media to the point where in the US two newspapers are forced to shut down every week.  Another

Guest: Sheldon Himelfarb With the advances in AI and increasing sophistication in creating misleading content such as deepfakes, there is growing concern especially amongst academics and researchers about the threat mis- and dis-information pose not only for the 2024 election

Guest: Nathaniel Lubin In the fall of 2021, Whistleblower Frances Haugen—a former member of the Civic Integrity team at Meta—shared a cache of more than 1,300 documents that would come to be known collectively as the Facebook Papers.  A key

Guest: Jef Caers The EU is requiring all cars sold in the European Union by 2035 to be zero-emission vehicles, and the US has set a target of 67% by 2032.  But there is a catch. Transition to Electric vehicles

Guest: Jane Pinelis A new movie called “The Creator” paints a vivid picture of humanity at war with AI in a dystopian future. Although the movie is science fiction, it highlights a major issue: How can we reliably assess and

Guest: Alex Engler ChatGPT has highlighted the excitement and fear about the potential consequences of AI for humanity, and in doing so has pushed forth the need to examine if and how to regulate AI. However, we currently lack a

Guest: Susie Alegre Freedom of thought — the right to form your own thoughts, keep them private and to not be persecuted for your thoughts alone — is one of the most fundamental human rights. This right, recognized in the

Guest: Dan York Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites such as Starlink have been credited with helping Ukraine in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. Their promise extends beyond military reconnaissance to everything from in-flight Internet access to disaster recovery, but challenges remain. Even

Guest: Enza Iannopollo The metaverse is already here.  Companies like Meta, Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, Nike, Nvidia, Epic Games and even SK Telecom have invested heavily. Thus far, even with 400 million users, the metaverse is still in its infancy.  The

For centuries, humans sought to control their future, by anticipating the possibilities and planning accordingly. This model, conditioned on observations and experience – does not work as well in a chaotic and unpredictable world dotted with Black Swan events. How

User Generated Content, known as UGC, has changed the media landscape and business models. UGC includes anything from video, images, text, blogs, and even audio. It has launched protest campaigns, provided eyewitness accounts of major events, been monetized by influencers

Cybercriminal gangs have evolved into fully-fledged for-profit enterprises that bank on our increasing dependence on digital access to profit handsomely with little to no repercussions.  Cybercrime costs $600 billion – or close to 1.0% of global GDP-  and that number

Globally there are 4 billion people who use social media an average of two hours and 30 minutes a day.  At the same time, social media has been simultaneously praised and denounced in equal measure for its influence on society.

The US national security and military complex has fostered scientific and technological innovations to gain and maintain the United States' security and strategic advantage over its adversaries. Yet as technology and models for innovation have evolved, the means by which

Guest: Chuck Brooks Ukraine has become ground zero for a new kind of war: a hybrid war that blends conventional warfare and cyberwarfare with tactics such propaganda, fake news, and even foreign electoral intervention. In doing so, both sides of the

Guest: Rafal Rohozinski The Ukrainian conflict is the world's first hybrid war. In other words, it is the first international conflict playing out on both the battlefield as well as cyberspace.  Despite fears about Russia's prowess in cyber offense capabilities,

Guest: Jeffrey Carr The conflict in Ukraine is redefining what a world war would look like, and it is decidedly different than what we had imagined. This may well be the world's first “hybrid” war as the battlefield extends beyond the traditional

Guest: Vint Cerf We have reached a small milestone: Our 50th published episode! To mark the occasion, we take a look back at the technologies that shaped the 20th century, especially the Internet, and we look forward towards those that

Guest: Robert Tercek The race is on. The competition to make, define, own and monetize the metaverse has just begun. Although “metaverse” became a buzzword after Facebook changed its company name to “Meta” in 2021, many people are still trying to understand what exactly the metaverse is and whose

Ukraine, a fledging democracy is under attack on two fronts, with tanks and artillery as well as with disinformation and propaganda campaigns. It is not the only democracy under siege from disinformation campaigns.  Many democracies face targeted campaigns to manipulate

Everything we have learned, lived and now remember is grounded in one unassuming fact: It took place in the physical world. And we may very well be the last generation for whom this distinction applies. Future generations will live, learn

Disinformation is fast becoming normalized as part of political campaigns everywhere.  Information technologies are being harvested for their utility in targeting and manipulating opinions often with substantial consequences for civic discourse and the nature of truth. Join us for a

“Who are you?”. Answering that may seem at once easy and yet incredibly complex.  In the real world, we are born with, gain or develop aspects of our identity.  But distinguishing who is who is a lot more complex online. 

If you did not know by now, rest assured there is a thriving disinformation industry.  But have you ever wondered how it actually works? Who are companies who provide it? Who are the workers who act as Trolls, and why

The next iteration of the Internet, is called the “metaverse”. It is where we anticipate our physical and virtual worlds will converge. But options differ on what it will look like or if and how it will be controlled.  Will the Metaverse

We are in a technical revolution where cutting edge innovations in areas such as AI, 5G, robotics, and even gene editing, offer enormous promises for our lives, ranging from the mundane to the spectacular. Our persistent optimism overestimates the positive

Vaccination status – namely, who IS and who IS NOT vaccinated is hotly debated on every front. The Covid-19/vaccine passport purports to help.  These passports are digital or paper documents that show you were vaccinated against COVID-19, and/or have recently tested negative for

The pandemic and its massive impact on every aspect of our lives for the past 18 months has been a wakeup call on change, especially that which we cannot control.   For centuries, our human ingenuity has sought to control