Our species has a unique genius for self-imperilment. The ancient dangers – asteroids, super-volcanoes and worse – still stalk us, but the most pressing time-bombs are of our own-making. However, our knack for self-imposed harm is just one side of a coin, for we are also developing a knack for ambitious solutions. On the way we meet AI mind readers, a physicist trying to evade death, a physicist who, having lost his best friend to a hospital superbug, invented a lightbulb that kills germs in mid-air, and the man tasked with tracking down and rounding up all of the USSR’s biological and nuclear weapons – amongst many, many others.
Tom Ough has worked at The Telegraph and The Times and was one of the first British journalists to write about the threat of AI in 2016. Since the pandemic he has focused on the greatest threats facing humanity and is embedded in this field of existential risk. In 2022 he left The Telegraph and has worked for a philanthropic advice organisation whose goal is to find and fund the best solutions to the most severe problem.
Shakeel Hashim is the editor of Transformer, an AI policy publication popular among government officials in the US and UK. He also works at the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism, which supports journalism that helps society navigate the emergence of increasingly advanced AI. He previously worked as a news editor at The Economist, and as head of communications at the Centre for Effective Altruism.Tickets include a complimentary glass of wine or soft drink.
