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Uncomfortable Conversations

Uncomfortable Conversations

The world has never been more connected. Yet never more divided. We yell at each other from inside our echo chambers. But change doesn’t happen inside an echo chamber. It’s time to get out, to stretch our legs, to step on some land mines. It's time to have an uncomfortable conversation with Josh Szeps.

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50 min
Thursday

"Artificial Intelligence in a Human World" with Prof. Toby Walsh

Is it legit for tech companies to vacuum up everything humans create, to spin off A.I. content, and not to compensate humans? Will this world of creative artificial creatures promote or corrode human creativity? In America, two tech giants just won landmark court cases over their use of copyrighted works to train A.I. models. The court found that Meta and Anthropic didn't violate copyright when they trained their large language models on books without the authors' permission. This raises big questions. Who gets to create? What is A.I. actually doing, under the hood? How is it impacting human work? Is the famous "Turing Test" even relevant any more? And by what measure would we even know if machines are "intelligent"? Might we already have achieved Artificial General Intelligence and will only know it with hindsight? Professor Toby Walsh is one of the most respected - and most measured - A.I. academics in the world. He studied theoretical physics and mathematics at Cambridge, and got his PhD in artificial intelligence at the University of Edinburgh. He's currently a professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales, where he runs the A.I. Institute, and the former editor-in-chief of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence. At this tipping point in the evolution of A.I., Toby and Josh wrestle with the development of artificial intelligence, its future... and where that leaves the rest of us. Toby's new book is "The Shortest History of A.I." Watch this conversation on YouTube. And you’re missing out on our best ad-free content if you haven’t popped over to the Uncomfy Convos Substack page. http://twitter.com/joshzepps http://instagram.com/joshszeps/ http://tiktok.com/@uncomfyconversations

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1 hr, 15 min
19 Jun

"Being Courageous in a Conformist World" with Sarah Wilson

Are we too spoilt to be creative? Are we succumbing to decadent decline? How do you dissent when the incentives are to conform? How do the French retain the art of disagreement while the Anglosphere gets stuck in predictable squabbles? How can we grow a pair of collective cojones and defiantly create a better future? Today's episode would normally be paywalled. We're offering it as a free example of the kind of unstructured, unpredictable, unedited, freewheeling, thought-provoking clashes Josh does live on Substack, versus the more buttoned-up, pre-recorded tone of the podcast.  Sarah Wilson is a former media high-flyer - the editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, host of MasterChef Australia, big-time wellness columnist - who turned her back on her fabulously materialistic life, sold all her possessions, and became a nomadic creator. She doesn't have a home but spends most of her time now in Paris, where she preaches her secular wisdom of sanity to fans around the world.  Josh and Sarah have a relationship of respectful disagreement and curious admiration. They streamed live this week with no particular agenda (except to save the world). Treat yourself to more conversations like this by registering here and downloading the Substack app. Watch this conversation on YouTube. And you’re missing out on our best ad-free content if you haven’t popped over to the Uncomfy Convos Substack page. 𝕁𝕠𝕤𝕙 𝕊𝕫𝕖𝕡𝕤 (@joshzepps) on X Instagram (@joshszeps) Josh Szeps on TikTok

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