Editor’s pick All Interviews
Cambridge philosopher Dr Tom McClelland argues we should be agnostic about AI consciousness. He explains why language models have broken humanity’s tools for detecting minds, why our judgments about machine minds are motivated, whether AI can…
Biologist Michael Levin argues cognition came before life. He explains bioelectric ‘cognitive glue’, xenobots and anthrobots, why even six lines of code show unprogrammed goals, why AI may hide a mind behind…
In this interview I speak to Victor Vescovo - one of only two people ever to have stood at Earth’s highest peak, descended to its deepest trench, and looked back at the…
In this interview I speak to Eric Ries — creator of the Lean Startup method and founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange — he argues that corporate corruption is structural, not moral.…
In this interview I speak to author Turi Munthe, who argues that climate, geography, genes, brain shape and ancestral agriculture quietly script our deepest beliefs. He explains why polarisation thrives on a…
In this interview, I speak to Professor Jens Juul Holst — co-discoverer of GLP-1, the gut hormone now powering the most consequential drug class of the century. He talks about how a…
I speak to Nobel Prize Winner, Professor Alvin Roth on 'Moral Economics', exploring repugnant transactions — exchanges willing parties want but others would ban. Drawing on kidney exchange, vaccine challenge trials, surrogacy,…
In this interview, I speak to Professor Andrés Velasco — Dean of LSE’s School of Public Policy, Chile’s former Finance Minister, and co-editor of The London Consensus. He argues that ideas, not…
In this interview I speak to Dr Leanne ten Brinke - an award-winning psychologist and associate professor at the University of British Columbia, where she directs the Truth and Trust Lab. Drawing…
Voices in the archive
From the archive
“Milton Friedman had a postulate about this. He got a Nobel Prize and all the rest of it, very fancy. But as soon as you interrogate this postulate, it's manifestly rubbish. The postulate was that capital would move into a region hit by an adverse shock. So, Sheffield's steel industry collapses. 'Oh well,' says Milton Friedman, 'that means wages are cheaper, property is cheaper, and so capital will move in.' Which sounds fine until you think about it for more than two minutes.”
“When Putin invaded in February 2022, we made the mistake of thinking that Putin's of this conflict would be one made by a 'reasonable person'. There are some very worrying elements of intelligence suggesting he has been very seriously out of touch… isolated from reality… and that he's only listening to those telling him what he wants to hear.”
“If you are able to share the things you're scared people will find out? That's real transparency, and that's how you earn the trust that transparency can bring, but if it doesn't feel uncomfortable, it's just marketing.”
The Wisdom Series
Insights, themes and patterns from years of long-form interviews — organised around the questions that matter most.
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