Advertise on podcast: Don't Stop Us Now AI Edition

Picture a computer scientist having a late-night chat with AI about his career. Now picture that conversation leading him to take on his own employer in a landmark case at Australia's Fair Work Commission, with AI as his only legal advisor. That's exactly what happened recently to our guest this week, Greg Baker. And he won. Greg is a computer scientist, university lecturer, consultant and musician. He has written eight books, including translations of the Heidi series and a book of tech-geek poetry. He has also written three film scores, wrote clauses for the Australia-USA Free Trade Agreement and has played on stage at the Sydney Opera House with The Piano Guys. Greg represented himself against Macquarie University's legal team in a case about whether he was eligible to be made permanent staff rather than remain a casual. His victory made headlines across Australia. As Greg tells us, some lawyers have since reached out to him in "sheer, abject terror." In this fascinating conversation we cover: The specific approach Greg used to get the best out of ChatGPT for his caseHow AI built him winning arguments where no legal precedent existed, in what is believed to be a world-first example of AI doing this Why long back-and-forth chats with AI deliver less than optimal resultsThe one aspect of white collar jobs that Greg believes AI can never take on, and Why he thinks children who are under 5 years old today may grow up as "psychological aliens" to us given their likely early exposure to AI. Greg also explains why he expects AI to exceed human intelligence in white collar work within the next five years, and what that could mean for the rest of us. Whether you're curious about your rights at work, or about what AI could do for you when the stakes are high, don’t miss this conversation with the thoughtful and witty Greg Baker. Useful Links Greg's Substack Link for updates on Greg’s forthcoming book ‘An Infinite Supply of Someone’ detailing how he won his legal case Machines of Loving Grace, the essay by Dario Amodei that Greg references Subscribe to Don't Stop Us Now – AI Edition wherever you get your podcasts Share this episode with a friend or colleague curious about what AI could mean for their work Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When the heads of three of the biggest frontier AI labs agree it would be a good idea to slow AI development down, it’s hard not to take notice. Those calls came in the wake of a string of incidents of agents going rogue, including the publication of the independent report into the July Hugging Face cyber attack, carried out by OpenAI agents that were meant to be contained in a safe testing environment. This week we share fascinating findings from the independent report into that hacking, and what it reveals about what AI does when you give it a goal, access (or not!) to real tools and few details about how to go about achieving that goal.  We also look at why this is not only a frontier lab agent testing problem. Agents that people like you and I are using are going ‘off script’ in fully released products in higher numbers than you may imagine, including one story that began with a seemingly innocent gym booking request. In this episode you’ll also hear: How around 700 agents that were never meant to be able to communicate found a way to do so and exchanged more than 70,000 messages in just 8 days The uncannily human responses some of these agents made What some of these rogue agents did to their own log records, and why the investigation nearly could not have happenedWhy an impossible goal makes an agent more determined, not less, and Three important questions to ask before any agent goes live in your business. Plus, listen to the end to hear how one LLM tried to minimise the hacking issue when Greta was doing her episode prep and research.  Useful links METR, independent investigation into the OpenAI / Hugging Face incidentCentre for Long-Term Resilience and its unit: the Loss of Control ObservatoryOWASP, Top 10 for Agentic Applications 2026 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week listeners get the benefit of two guests joining us! Marc Winter and Laura Gordon are co-founders of Libra Collective, a New York based consultancy focused on how leadership and work should be changing in the age of AI.  Previously, Marc spent 15 years at a transformation consultancy, and has lived and worked in more than a dozen countries. His co-founder Laura, also spent 10 years at the same transformation consultancy as well as consulting in brand and marketing strategy, along with an MBA from Wharton. Laura and Marc founded Libra Collective at the start of this year, after realising that some of the most searching questions about where AI was taking business were coming from leaders inside big tech itself.  That sent them deep into research with AI native companies (the ones built from the ground up around generative AI) and they agreed to share some of what they’ve learnt with us.  In this conversation you'll hear: What surprised them most about how AI native companies actually workWhy it's so often the C-suite holding back internal AI transformationThe surprising thing one CEO with a PHD in machine learning forbids his company to do with AI How a legacy financial institution is building an AI native version of itself, and  Why a fashion brand with six people is outpacing rivals five times its size. Laura and Marc have a unique perspective spanning both legacy and AI native businesses so enjoy this episode with Marc Winter and Laura Gordon. Useful Links Libra Collective Website Laura on LinkedIn  Marc on LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You've no doubt heard about AI agents working autonomously in the background of businesses everywhere. Here's an uncomfortable question: who, or what, is actually checking that they're doing what they were asked to do? Our guest this week has spent her career preparing to solve this exact problem. Professor Svetha Venkatesh is a Deakin University Distinguished Professor and Co-Director of the Deakin Applied AI Initiative. She’s been named one of the world's top 15 women in AI research, and holder of one of the highest research honours Australia can bestow. Her pattern recognition work has moved from academic theory into real tools, patents and an ASX-listed company, tackling problems as varied as autism support and high-stakes security. These days, Svetha's focus is on something called AI assurance, and she's refreshingly candid about how far behind it is compared to the AI we're already using every day. In this conversation you'll learn: What AI assurance actually isHow little real oversight exists for AI agents already createdAbout the unsolved problem of AI agents quietly colluding with each otherWhy the film, ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ kept coming up in our conversation, and . . . How Svetha's team is teaching AI to talk to children safely. While the frontier labs and most corporates race to roll AI out, Svetha is doing the less glamorous but more important work of figuring out how we actually know an AI product does what it claims, and how we can catch it when it doesn't.  Given how quickly agentic AI is spreading through business and even Anthropic and Open AI can’t keep their research agents in check, this is a seriously important conversation. Enjoy this thought-provoking episode with Professor Svetha Venkatesh. Useful Links Deakin's Applied Artificial Intelligence Initiative (A2I2): https://a2i2.deakin.edu.au Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week’s episode takes us inside the world of medical imaging and the AI that's innovating it to make this vital part of healthcare and diagnostics more accessible for patients everywhere.  Our guest is Dr Jarrel Seah, Chief Medical Officer and Chief AI Officer at Harrison AI, an Australian AI-native company on a mission to ease the persistent bottlenecks caused by radiology backlogs globally. As you’ll hear, things are going pretty well for Harrison, their products are already deployed extensively in the NHS in the UK, the US, Asia, Australia and the Middle East. Jarrel is uniquely placed to talk about Harrison’s work and impact because not only is he Chief Medical and Chief AI Officer at Harrison Ai, he is also a radiologist at a major public hospital in Melbourne.  His rare combination of clinical reality and AI expertise means Jarrel deeply understands the radiology bottlenecks and issues.  In this conversation you'll also hear: Why radiology is so often a constraint in healthcare systems and what AI can actually do about itWhy Jarrel believes AI will create more radiology jobsHow advances in AI have radically changed how Harrison now train their AI models What makes Harrison AI unique in the market with its offerings, and …How Harrison uses AI internally, and how Jarrel uses it himself. If you've ever wondered how AI has the potential to reshape healthcare this is a brilliant example.  Enjoy this episode with the multi-talented Dr Jarrel Seah. Useful Links Jarrel on LinkedIn Harrison AI website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Scammers are a global epidemic and most of us feel powerless against them. The good news is that our guest this week has built the tech, and a company, to fight back. Dali Kaafar is the founder and CEO of Apate, a counter-intelligence company that deploys conversational AI to fight scammers at scale. Dali is also a Professor of Cybersecurity at Macquarie University and the Executive Director of its Cyber Security Hub. In 2025 he was named AI Academic/Researcher of the Year at the Australian AI Awards, and has been recognised as one of The Australian's Top 100 Innovators two years running. The scale of scammers is staggering: scam losses are doubling year on year. Globally, people are losing hundreds of billions of dollars annually and it's getting worse, not better.  Incredibly, when a scammer gets you on the phone, they have a one in five chance of succeeding! In this fascinating conversation you'll hear: How Apate's undercover AI agents engage and frustrate scammer networksThe real-time intelligence Apate's agents extract directly from scammers working across phone, text and Whats App channels to name a fewHow scam operations are exploding with thousands of new WhatsApp groups appearing daily in many countries, andWhy Apate has perhaps one of the most unusual KPIs we’ve ever come across.  We’ve all been on the receiving end of scam attempts so, if you’re anything like us, you’ll be very glad to hear about the innovative ways Dali and his team are setting out to protect us.  Enjoy this episode with the innovative and pioneering Dali Kaafar. Useful Links Apate website  Professor Dali Kaafar on LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you've ever had a nagging feeling that the way you, and most other people, are using AI right now might actually be doing you harm, our guest this week has the research to back that hunch up. Dr. Vivienne Ming is a theoretical neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and author who calls herself a ‘Professional Mad Scientist’ and she means it!. She co-founded Socos Labs, a think tank dedicated to the future of human potential, and has spent nearly 30 years working with AI, long before it became a household word.  Vivienne has founded six startups, served as chief scientist at two others, and her latest book, Robot-Proof, When machines have all the answers, build better people, argues the vast majority of us are using AI the wrong way increasing our risk of cognitive decline and even dementia. She outlines the right way to use AI so that it makes us sharper versus hollowing us out. In this episode, you'll learn: Why having an army of robot minions is not the goal and what to aim for insteadThe skills that predict who thrives with AIWhy the best decisions are ones neither human nor AI could reach aloneAbout Vivienne’s ‘nemesis’ prompt and why it makes her work sharper, and …What Vivienne would say directly to the founders of the big AI companies. We were pretty blown away by the span and purpose of Vivienne’s work, and how she frames thinking about AI. As she says it’s NOT about fear of AI replacing us, it’s about AI defining us.   Enjoy this conversation with the unique, funny and whip smart Dr. Vivienne Ming. Links Socos.org Vivienne’s book: Robot-Proof, When machines have all the answers, build better people Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Until now, we've approached AI on the show as something we all need to experiment with, adapt to, and lean into. Today, we are taking a different approach.  This is the episode where we share our frank views on where the world is at with AI development, and why the governance gap between what's being built and how it's being governed keeps us awake at night. We're not here to alarm you but we do think this is a conversation we all need to be a part of. The good news is that plenty of others think this is important too. We talk about Pope Leo XIV's remarkable encyclical Magnifica Humanitas and the fact that he invited Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah to speak alongside him at its launch. What Olah said is under-reported yet very significant.  And now, the very morning after we recorded this, Anthropic has published a major blog piece on where AI model development is heading and they also included clear calls for a global slow down on frontier model development: “If it were possible to effectively slow the development of this technology to give ourselves more time to deal with its immense implications, we think that would likely be a good thing.”  The timing of this significant post just emphasises to us what an important window of time we are in right now.  In this episode you’ll hear: The astonishing AI city simulation that raises uncomfortable questions about autonomous agents left to their own devicesWhy voices from inside the AI industry itself are now calling loudly for oversight and regulationWhat the Pope's encyclical says about power, purpose, and who AI should serveWhy the state of Illinois just passed what many are calling America's strongest AI safety legislation yet, and Simple, concrete ways each of us can make our voices count This is the episode for those who want agency and to be pawns engaged citizens of the world.  Useful Links Pope Leo XIV’s Encyclical letter Anthropic’s June 4th blog  Emergence AI Agent Experiment Info Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you've ever wondered what it actually looks like when a CEO goes all in on AI, not just in their business but in their own daily work, then you are going to love this week’s conversation. Our guest is Joseph Lyons, CEO of ELMO Software, an HR and workforce management platform used across thousands of organisations. Joseph is a seasoned executive with many years at major tech companies including a stint as a regional Managing Director at accounting software powerhouse Xero. Joseph is genuinely one of the most hands-on AI leaders we've spoken to. As you’ll hear, he uses AI for everything from synthesising board papers to interrogating hundreds of customer calls for strategic insight. He describes having AI as like having a personal chief of staff that never sleeps.  In this episode Joseph also shares: How he and his team use AI as a "red hat" to challenge their strategic thinkingWhy his AI human coach turned out to be 25 years his juniorThe executive productivity agent built by his HR team, andWhat ELMO is doing to make AI adoption the norm, not the exception. Joseph also has some refreshingly practical advice for time-poor, busy leaders on how to actually get started using AI. In short, Joseph is very generous in sharing with us how he works with AI in his day to day role. Whether you're a CEO, a senior leader, or simply someone who wants to understand how AI is reshaping the way executives work, we’re confident you’ll take a lot from this conversation.  Enjoy this episode with the savvy and forward-thinking Joseph Lyons. Useful links ELMO Software website Joseph on LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Most of us can see that AI is reshaping our working lives. But what if you could actually see the data on exactly which parts of your job are heading for automation, and which skills you should be doubling down on right now because AI can’t do them better than you?  That's precisely what this week’s guest, Helena Turpin, and her company GoFIGR have built. Helena is the co-founder and CEO of GoFIGR, a workforce intelligence company that helps organisations make smarter and more human decisions about their future workforce. In this episode, Helena shares what she's seeing inside organisations right now and what typically surprises leaders when they see their GoFIGR data for the first time. Happily, there's also a genuinely optimistic strand running through this conversation. Helena makes a compelling case for redesigning roles around what humans do best and how we’ve imagined and constructed roles before, and that now it’s time for us to do this again.  In this episode you'll also learn: The sobering percentage of tasks across typical HR roles that are likely to be impacted by AIExamples of the uniquely human skills where humans will continue to do a better job than AI The three AI adoption scenarios Helena models for organisations, and how even those opting to go ‘light on’ with AI will still be far more impacted than they realise Why imagination may just be the key to how our roles will look in future, and . . .How GoFIGR’s free assessment tool disaggregates your role into individual tasks and shows you which tasks AI will automate or lead on, and which skills you should focus on building.Helena's perspective is grounded, data-led and surprisingly optimistic. She believes the future of work is ours to create, and this conversation will help you feel more equipped to do exactly that. Useful Links GoFIGR free AI Impact Assessment tool:  Helena Turpin on LinkedIn GoFIGR website Helena's Substack newsletter on the future of jobs and work Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Are you hearing about AI agents everywhere right now? Whether it's their presence in the software you use daily, special purpose or task “agents”, or customer service “agents”, it's safe to say they are the topic 'du jour'.  In this week’s episode, we segment this confusing landscape and cut through the hype to help you make more sense of it all. After weeks of interviewing guests across different corners of the agentic AI world, we realised the market has become genuinely bewildering, even for us! Vendors are slapping the word "agent" on almost anything, and it's getting harder to tell what's substantive and what's marketing. Listen in to hear about the simple framework we've developed to bring clarity to the whole ecosystem. It maps out the key choices facing any business considering agents, the questions you should be asking, and where the real risks are quietly hiding. Regardless of whether your organisation is ready to start experimenting with agents or not, this episode will help you take the first steps when you are ready. As they say, when you can see something clearly, your decisions become easier. In this episode you’ll learn: The four very different ways to bring agents into your organisation — and why the question isn't "which is best?"Why some of the SaaS tools you already pay for might quietly be putting you in a "hostage situation"What a team of Harvard, MIT and Stanford researchers just uncovered about one of the most hyped agent platforms on the marketThe layer of the agent ecosystem where the real cyber security risks liveFour sharp questions to ask any vendor before letting their agent anywhere near your data and systems Enjoy this practical and jargon-light guide to a topic that isn't going away anytime soon. Useful Links McKinsey / Quantum Black report: Seizing the agentic AI advantageCapgemini report - ‘Rise of Agentic AI’ MIT Sloan & BCG Report - Leading in the age of AI Agents (useful for Governance and structuring once you’ve made agentic decisions) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What does it actually mean to have a colleague who never sleeps, never calls in sick, and can hold thousands of conversations at once? Not in theory but right now, in real organisations? Our guest this week is Patrick Forth, an Group Executive Director at FutureSecure AI, a company that builds what they call AI co-workers: sophisticated agentic systems that sit on org charts, have names and personas, and are managed much like human employees.  Patrick shares what some of the AI co-workers they’ve built so far actually do in enterprises today and what it takes to get them working inside organisations. In this episode you'll hear: About the AI co-worker managing thousands of scheduling conversations on WhatsAppWhy their AI co-workers focus on complex, high-return use cases rather than simple automation Patrick's take on the job loss debateHow one organisation puts humans and AI co-workers on the same org chart just in different colours, and Whether AI co-workers should be treated like software or like colleagues. If you want a glimpse into the possible future of your workplace and colleagues then enjoy this episode with someone who’s at the coalface helping companies choose use cases and deploying AI co-workers right now Useful Links FutureSecure AI website  Patrick Forth on LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

AI shopping agents aren't just on the horizon, they're here, already transacting, and already raising some important questions. In this episode, we speak with Katja Forbes an award winning customer experience futurist, business strategist, and keynote speaker recognised for her insights into the intersection of AI, design, and human behaviour. She is also the author of Machine Customers: The Evolution Has Begun, a book about what happens when your best customer is no longer human. In this fascinating conversation we cover everything from what's already happening with agentic commerce right now, to an incredible story out of China that reveals just how fast consumer behaviour can be reshaped at massive scale. In this episode you'll hear: •   Why the shopping agents built by the retailers you already use may not be working in your interest  •   What it means that AI agents now have access to their own credit cards and the guardrails (or lack thereof) around them •   How some of the world’s largest businesses are already using AI to handle a significant share of their procurement  •   The practical steps marketers and business owners should be taking right now, before agentic commerce becomes the norm, and . . . •   Why your website could become largely irrelevant  and what that means for how you show up to both humans and machines. Katja also shares a candid look at the environmental and ethical questions we need to be asking as frictionless purchasing increasingly becomes a reality.  This conversation is set to change how you think about your next online purchase and, if you’re in marketing or procurement or e-commerce, then this is one you simply cannot miss.  Enjoy this episode with the passionate and ahead-of-the-curve, Katja Forbes. Useful Links Katja Forbes website Katja Forbes on LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Most conversations about AI implementation come from consultants selling solutions or vendors pitching tools. This one doesn't. Sean Seah is SVP of Strategy, Technology and Innovation at Langham Hospitality Group, where he's leading AI adoption across a global luxury hotel portfolio. With over two decades in digital transformation at Microsoft, HSBC, and Zuji, Sean brings a rare perspective as he's living inside the messy reality of making it actually work. What emerges from our conversation is a refreshingly practical playbook for AI implementation. Sean reveals why the "boring stuff" nobody discusses—data infrastructure, change management, measurement frameworks—determines whether AI delivers business value or not. He advocates starting small, proving value in weeks rather than years, and letting success create momentum for long term transformation. We explore how Sean balances short-term wins with long-term strategic vision, how he thinks about his AI strategy in a global context, and why luxury hospitality, with its complex blend of human service and operational efficiency offers surprisingly universal lessons for AI implementation across industries. In this episode: How Sean's approach to long term tech transformation includes the necessity that it must deliver short term value as well.Why one of Langham's first major AI investments is customer facing and how it’s faringExamples of how they practically trained their AI agents and staff, andHow Sean’s ensured Langhams isn’t reliant on any one large language model Whatever sector you’re in, Sean's boots-on-the-ground experience offers a practical roadmap for leaders navigating the gap between AI potential and AI reality. Enjoy this episode!     Useful Links: Sean Seah on Linkedin Langham Hospitality Group Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Happy New Year to you dear listener!  Have you ever felt that familiar January anxiety either because you’re feeling guilty that you don’t have a perfect set of goals for the new year or because you’re second-guessing if your goals are ambitious enough, structured enough, or even the right ones? If that’s you then this episode is for you. (Happens to us every year!)  They say it takes one to know one 😂so as 2026 began, we both wanted to help ourselves (and hopefully help you too) get the year off to a great start.  We got busy on our laptops and in this episode, we share our personal experiments where we used AI to reflect on 2025, as well as help us set meaningful goals for the year ahead. We road-tested ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. The results were super interesting . . . and helpful. One model delivered a remarkably accurate summary of Greta's entire year (likely because she'd used it most consistently), while another coached Claire through building a custom Project that will track her goals throughout 2026.  In this episode we discuss: The tension between letting AI lead your thinking versus using it as a thought partnerHow to set up an AI project (or GPT, Gem etc.)  that coaches you through goal-setting How you can quickly create vision boards and mind maps, and . . . How AI may just change how you frame and think about your entire year.  Whether you're a seasoned AI user or just getting started, listen now for  practical approaches you can try out right away.  Wishing you an intentional, productive and fulfilling 2026! Useful Links Claude – Anthropic's AI assistant ChatGPT – OpenAI's AI assistant (try "show me my year" for your personalised review) Google Gemini – Google's AI assistant (find Nano Banana here by looking in the prompt window on the bottom left and clicking on ‘tools’ then choose ‘create images’.``) Notebook LM - Google’s interesting AI tool that will allow you to create a Mindmap, an audio episode, presentations, flashcards, and many other forms of content from uploaded files. Definitely worth a play. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.