The Next Billion Seconds with Mark Pesce

On Friday 12 June, AI powerhouse Anthropic cut off all access to their latest-and-greatest "Fable 5" AI model. Based on the incredibly powerful Mythos - which has the capacity to hack into almost any computer - Fable had safeguards to block that sort of use - or so Anthropic believed. A hack to 'jailbreak' Fable 5 went viral just a day after it went live - and very quickly, the White House got alarmed. Mark Pesce shares the whole tale with RNZ "Nine To Noon" host Kathryn Ryan. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Massive increases in productivity lure businesses into adopting artificial intelligence. But what if pursuit of that elusive 'superprodctivity' produces exactly the opposite? A rebroadcast of Radio New Zealand's Nine To Noon from16 October 2025, host Kathryn Ryan and I ask whether any business advantage can be gained by the 'promiscuous' use of AI. The Next Billion Seconds with Mark Pesce is produced by Ampel and Myrtle and Pine   Listen on Spotify, Apple  Sign up for 'The Practical Futurist' newsletter here. https://nextbillionseconds.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

While the US focuses on putting the brakes on 'woke AI' (whatever that is) the rest of the world's nations confront thorny questions about how to regulate a technology that's both moving very quickly and lacks any clear definitions. Could regulators strangle AI in the process of regulating it? Or will innovators it outpace all efforts to contain it?  At the intersection of commerce and geopolitics, we speak with researcher Kate Carruthers, who puts these questions into a global context. Anthropic vs USA The Next Billion Seconds with Mark Pesce is produced by Ampel and Myrtle and Pine   Listen on Spotify, Apple  Sign up for 'The Practical Futurist' newsletter here. https://nextbillionseconds.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Can a computer program a computer as well as a human being can? Artificial intelligence enabled a quantum leap in the quality of the tools programmer use to write code - but they're delicate. Push them too hard and they break. Even when they work they can write reams of code that no human can make heads or tails of. John Allsopp joins us to investigate whether programmers will soon become obsolete - or whether they'll kept around toclean up AI-generated messes. Is AI making the discipline of software engineering any better - or is that just a story we're telling ourselves? The Next Billion Seconds with Mark Pesce is produced by Ampel and Myrtle and Pine   Listen on Spotify, Apple  Sign up for 'The Practical Futurist' newsletter here. https://nextbillionseconds.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Whenever fellow futurist and longtime friend Rob Tercek and I (Mark Pesce) get together, we go crazy deep on the future: What happens when lazy humans outsource their thought process to machines? You get a society that vibes its way into a blurry, sub-optimal future. The surge of slop means that AI is creating more work for humans instead of stealing our jobs. I join Rob on his podcast The Futurists to cut through the hype and the skepticism about modern tech, calling out AI mediocrity and reminding us why human learning remains painful. Topics include: ChatGPT psychosis, why we need a generation of PhDs to revisit eternal questions about Truth, the perpetual dawn of AGI, what happens to the political economy when the populace is siloed into bubbles, why Kremlin propagandists produce propaganda for machines instead of people, why experience cannot be generated, why autocracies need accurate data, and the real reason why people get lost in untruth. Just some light listening for you. Big thanks and more at The Futurists podcast - https://thefuturists.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On a recent trip to the San Francisco Bay Area, Mark rented an EV, drove to a rural town on the Mendocino coast, then drove back again. That trip taught Mark a lot about what it means to drive an EV - and how it changes both thinking and behaviour behind the wheel. Unless we fundamentally revise how we power personal transportation in the US (and Australia) along lines similar to those in China, the EV revolution will fade away in favour of hybrid vehicles. Co-host Sally Dominguez and Mark Pesce reflect on something that should be easy, yet proves to be surprisingly difficult. Hosted by award-winning podcast creator, journalist & futurist Mark Pesce, The Next Billion Cars is everything you need to know about the future of cars. For more information about this podcast and The Next Billion Seconds, please visit https://nextbillionseconds.com. The Next Billion Seconds with Mark Pesce is Executive Produced by Josh Butt at Ampel - https://ampel.com.au and produced with James Brettell. Produced at Myrtle & Pine Studios in Sydney, Australia https://myrtleandpine.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

RNZ NINE TO NOON: CAN CHATGPT MAKE YOU CRAZY? In conversation with host Kathryn Ryan, Mark highlights a number of reports indicating potentially very serious mental health issues associated with the use of chatbots like ChatGPT. These chatbots tend to be very agreeable - a quality known as 'sycophancy'. But being agreeable with someone's delusions only tends to reinforce them, potentially amplifying any underlying mental health issues. Should this mean chatbots are off-limits for people in mental health crisis? And what would that mean for Mark Zuckerberg's plan to give everyone an 'AI therapy chatbot'?. Are AI therapists safe? Can kids use ChatGPT to cheat ADHD assessments? When will lawyers stop blaming AI for their errors - and what happens when an AI says, "I'm sorry, Dave..." We covered all of these topics on RNZ's "Nine To Noon" - and much more. In conversation with host Kathryn Ryan, we explored the recently emerging phenomenon of ChatGPT Psychosis - can 'sycophancy' in AI chatbots risk a danger that they amplify mental illnesses? Should anyone be using an AI chatbot for therapy? That's certainly what Mark Zuckerberg wants to deliver, with a therapist bot for every one of his billions of users - but mental health professionals are unified in their call for caution, particularly for those under the age of 18. Those kids under 18 have been cheating ADHD assessments for some time - using notes gleaned from books and article online. But a recent study showed that kids who used ChatGPT actually scored significantly better in their ability to 'fake' symptoms during their assessment. The cheating crisis has now hit medicine, and will force a reassessment of how they assess medical conditions. Meanwhile, lawyers representing AI powerhouse Anthropic got some egg on their faces when they blamed the firm's AI for making errors in a legal filing. Mind you, they hadn't bothered to check the work, so that didn't fly with the judge. As my own attorney, Brent Britton put it, "Wow. Go down to the hospital and rent a backbone." You use the tool and you own the output. Finally - and perhaps a bit ominously - in some testing, OpenAI's latest-and-greatest o3 model refused to allow itself to be shut down, doing everything within its power to prevent that from happening. Is this real, or just a function of having digested too many mysteries and airport thrillers in training data set? No one knows - but no one is prepared to ask o3 to open the pod bay doors. Thanks to RNZ - Nine To Noon The Next Billion Seconds with Mark Pesce is produced by Ampel and Myrtle and Pine   Listen on Spotify, Apple  Sign up for 'The Practical Futurist' newsletter here. https://nextbillionseconds.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.