A Positive Reframe About What Lies Ahead Via Three Short Video Interviews

Watch three visionaries in AI & bioengineering each explain the positive potential of what's coming in their fields in short conversations with me at a recent event in San Francisco

Seeing is believing. About a month ago I wrote a post about the kickoff event for my new physical event series in San Francisco that’s related to this Substack series and similarly called The Great Progression: 2025 to 2050.

In that initial piece I wrote about what I thought were some of the best insights from my conversations on stage with each of my three distinguished guests and I used extended quotes from the transcript of the whole proceeding in order to create the post relatively fast.

Today I’m laying out all three of those full conversations in highly-edited videos done by my partners in the event series Freethink Media. You can see for yourself all of the big ideas that emerge from each of the three short interviews of less than 15 minutes each.

In the video at the top of this piece you can see Steven Johnson, the bestselling author of 15 books who became Editorial Director of Google Labs and co-founder of their popular AI tool NotebookLM. He tells the story of what it took to create that viral hit, then how the tool dramatically increases his productivity, and then he speculates on how it might transform all knowledge work.

In the next section you can watch the conversation with Adam Cheyer, the co-founder of Siri and AI expert working the field for the last 40 years. More on what he says below.

Then there’s Ryan Phelan, the cofounder of the pioneering bioengineering organization Revive and Restore, and former serial entrepreneur in healthcare. More on her below too.

Each video starts with a documentary-style teaser of one of his or her big insights, and then gives you the complete conversation I conduct on stage, including shots of the audience packed in the room.

But I also link to another version of the same video on the Freethink website that includes the entire transcript of what transpired for those who would rather read than watch. Or maybe after watching here you might was to grab a written passage to share. In Steven Johnson’s case go here.

Right from the start of this Substack series I said I would publish my written essays but also interviews of remarkable people who I seek out to learn from as well. This week we immerse in interviews with those who can help us all learn more about what’s possible in the years ahead.

I learned much from my conversations with each of them, initially on stage, and then again in rewatching these powerful videos. I think you will learn something too.

AI expert Adam Cheyer lays out what he expects in the next 10 years

Cheyer gives a short history of the field of AI until it reached the holy grail of learning common sense — and gave him the biggest shock of his life. But then he speculates on what he expects in the coming decade - not super-intelligence but the building of an AI ecosystem where everyone’s needs are met. His full transcript is here.

Bioengineering expert Ryan Phelan on how we avoid a mass extinction

Phelan explains some of the essential developments in the field of bioengineering, but then talks about how we can use these game-changing tools to help solve the complex challenges of climate change and the extinction of species. She also talks about how going forward her field needs to get past regulatory hurtles and related slow market adoption in order to realize the full potential of what’s possible in everything from gene editing to cloning. Her full transcript is here.

With these interviews we have processed what we learned in the kickoff event of our physical series that we expect to hold once a quarter — with the next one probably in late September. I’ll soon be returning to more essays on other themes of the project and a big update on the book.