The choices we make today shape our world tomorrow.
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.
