From faucets you can speak with, to lawnmowers that drive themselves – artificial intelligence was everywhere at CES 2019.




Mark Pesce talks the Future with its Creators
From faucets you can speak with, to lawnmowers that drive themselves – artificial intelligence was everywhere at CES 2019.
Mark Pesce & Dr. Genevieve Bell have co-written a four episode podcast series – “1968: When the World Began” – exploring transformations that completely rewrote the relationship between ourselves and our machines.
On the 9th of December in 1968, Douglas Engelbart gave the ‘Mother of All Demos‘ – the most important hour in the history of computing, one that drew back the curtain on the world we all live in today.
Engelbart’s demo was the culmination of a wave of change that crested in 1968.
“1968: When the World Began” looks at the confluence of art, interactivity and intelligence augmentation that played out against the most chaotic year of the 20th century.
Episode One: THE PIVOT drops on Friday!
We invite three series 1 guests to join Mark in studio for a final featuring a freewheeling conversation about myths, artificial intelligence, slaughterbots (!), and what happens when four billion people suddenly show up online.
Here’s a taste:
When you give cows a voice, who listens? Connected lights and thermostats are great, but what happens when cows get connected and start milking themselves? What do we learn when we track our house cats when they’re not at home? How does the connected world reveal itself to us – and what are we learning from it? These questions – about autonomy, agency and authority – form the focus of anthropologist Genevieve Bell’s work, less for what they reveal about these animals than what they illuminate about ourselves. Are we listening to the connected world?
Here’s a taste: