The choices we make today shape our world tomorrow.
Author mpescePosted on We’re starting a newsletter to keep listeners abreast of all of the most important bits of the future – the facts you need today to make decisions for a better tomorrow. The Practical Futurist offers clear, practical advice on how to navigate the possibilities, opportunities – and pitfalls – of a future that’s heading for us so rapidly it’s merging with the present.
Author mpescePosted on Author mpescePosted on Can a big business transform its processes and workflows using AI? With very few successful examples to follow, how does the Big End of Town even get started? L’Oreal Groupe – the biggest beauty products firm on Earth – got started three years ago. We sit down with L’Oreal Groupe ANZ CEO Alex Davison to explore how they did it, why they did it – and how it’s changed their business. L’Oreal is rated by FORTUNE Magazine to be the #1 most innovative firm in the world – so maybe we can all learn something from them.
Recorded at SxSW Sydney 2025 in front of a live audience.
Author mpescePosted on There’s an elephant in the room along with artificial intelligence – its impact on the climate. Demand for electricity has skyrocketed as Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Google and Microsoft build vast new data centres to handle the anticipated global demand for AI products and services. Is that wise? In conversation with legendary entrepreneur and Climate Salad CEO Mick Liubinskas, we explore whether we’re approaching the age of AI with enough prudence.
Produced with AMPEL.
Author mpescePosted on 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.
Read about the South Korean datacentre fire here.
And all about ‘workslop’ here.
Author mpescePosted on What would you do if you lost your job to an AI? Would you even know? It happened to me – and I didn’t learn the truth for six months. In the aftermath I recognised how my work needed to change. That became the core of ‘Building Resistance’, a set of practices that help us focus on the most human elements of our work. Leaning into those – in this episode, you’ll learn how – makes it harder to get automated into oblivion.
Author mpescePosted on 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.
Meanwhile, Anthropic vs USA is also happening – can AI firms ever self-regulate?
Author mpescePosted on Used well, artificial intelligence can automate labor-intensive and rote processes, freeing people for the work they want to do. That’s the theory, anyway – but what about the practice? SUPAHUMAN founder and CEO Dave Howden shares his experiences helping businesses adopt AI within their workflows – and admits, in order for that to work, he needs to be the ‘dumbest person in the room’. Humility and artificial intelligence – is that the foundation of ‘a better way’?
Full disclosure: my consultancy, Wisely AI, has a partnership with SUPAHUMAN.
Author mpescePosted on 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 to clean up AI-generated messes. Is AI making the discipline of software engineering any better – or is that just a story we’re telling ourselves?
An attorney in California just got whacked with a USD $10,000 fine for submitting a briefing with hallucinations to a court.
Simon Willison’s most excellent blog is here.
Author mpescePosted on Artificial intelligence may be amazing but it’s always imperfect. Anyone trying to use AI professionally lands on the horns of a dilemma: will a productivity increase gained through automation represent any savings, after factoring in the extra supervision needed to use these amazing (but unreliable) new tools? In our first episode we chat with Drew Smith, co-founder of Wisely AI, a firm dedicated to helping businesses use AI safely and wisely. (I was the other co-founder!) What did we learn from clients trying to put AI to work – but only rarely finding the tools on offer fit for purpose?
Read the MIT report mentioned by Mark here.
Read The Register article mentioned by Drew here.
Author mpescePosted on Whenever fellow futurist and longtime friend Rob Tercek and I 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
Author mpescePosted on Mark joins RNZ Nine to Noon host Kathryn Ryan to delve into the sudden phenomenon of ‘viral’ AI videos – getting better at capturing your eyeballs. Did you see those cute bunnies bouncing on a trampoline? Never happened – but made you look. The fusion of TikTok and AI video looks to be potent – and addictive. Next up, shocking and sad story of Adam Raine, a 16 year old who confided his suicidal thoughts to ChatGPT. ChatGPT aided him in his eventual suicide – so Raine’s parents are suing OpenAI, and just after that lawsuit made news, OpenAI announced long-overdue parental controls on ChatGPT. Finally, we delve into… wait, why am I writing ‘delve’ so much? It’s because ChatGPT’s peculiar word choices – “delve”, “intricate” and so on – have invaded our speech!
Author mpescePosted on On a recent trip to the Bay Area, I rented an EV, drove to a rural town on the Mendocino coast, then drove back again. That trip taught me a lot about what it means to drive an EV – and how it changes both thinking and behaviour behind the wheel. It taught me that unless we fundamentally revision how we power personal transportation in the US and Australia, the EV revolution will fade away in favour of hybrid/PHEV vehicles. Co-host Sally Dominguez and I reflect on something that should be easy, yet proves to be surprisingly difficult – as you can see in the video below.
Produced by Ampel.
Author mpescePosted on A recent study from MIT shows students tasked with writing essays showed significantly lower levels of brain activity when allowed to use ChatGPT. Mark reviews the implications of this finding with RNZ NineToNoon host Kathryn Ryan, going on to reveal how an internet filled with AI-generated content becomes increasingly ‘toxic’ for those same AIs. Plus, would you agree to be ‘re-animated’ as an ‘AI ghost’? Big thanks to the team at RNZ NineToNoon!
