The Big Questions with Adam Spencer

While he is best known as an academy award winning director of the two greatest grossing films of all time, in this conversation recorded at the Vivid Festival in 2018, James Cameron would much rather speak about the engineering challenges involved in designing, building and piloting a vessel to the lowest point at the bottom of the sea.

One of Australia’s best known and most controversial artists Ben Quilty speaks to Adam about his life, his motivation, art meeting politics and how even children in regions devastated by war can find expression in art. Follow Adam Spencer on Twitter Fo llow PodcastOne Australia on Instagram   Follow PodcastOne Australia on Twitter 

One of the world’s most famous and respected dj’s Neil Armstrong (no not THAT Neil Armstrong, the other one) opens up about the realities of life on the road and on the decks. Follow Adam Spencer on Twitter Fo llow PodcastOne Australia on Instagram  Follow PodcastOne Australia on Twitter 

Professor Toby Walsh is one of the world’s leading experts on Artificial Intelligence and has surveyed a lot of experts in the field in his book 2062: The world that AI made. What do they say about the future of humanity? Professor Walsh is an advisor to the Federal Government on the impact of AI on all industries, and is considered one of the most important digital innovators in Australia. Follow Adam Spencer on Twitter Fo llow PodcastOne Australia on Instagram  Follow PodcastOne Australia on Twitter 

Adam speaks with former Baltimore Ravens Centre John Urschel who is even more at home creating “eigensolvers for minimal Laplacian eigenvectors” than he is crashing into players in the NFL! Follow Adam Spencer on Twitter Follow PodcastOne Australia on Instagram  Follow PodcastOne Australia on Twitter 

In this episode of The Big Questions, we talk big … big, big, bigger than big … how about about infinitely big! Dr Eugenia Cheng is Scientist In Residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has tenure in Pure Mathematics at the University of Sheffield, UK. She holds a PhD in pure mathematics from the University of Cambridge, is a concert pianist, pioneer of math on YouTube and author of math books, “How to Bake Pi” and “Thinking Better: The Art of Logic in an Illogic World”. Connect with Adam Spencer at: https://twitter.com/adambspencer Find PodcastOne Australia on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/podcastoneau/ Follow PodcastOne Australia on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/podcastoneau/ Follow PodcastOne Australia on Twitter: https://twitter.com/podcastoneau

We live in a complex, interconnected globalised world - but how interconnected and how complex and what are the impacts of how connected our world is? A new study and paper outlines the work of Australian scientists, and their attempts to truly measure the environmental and social footprints of international trade. This is a big topic and such fascinating research that we couldn’t resist the chance to ask Professor Manfred Lanzen some Big Questions.  Connect with Adam Spencer at: https://twitter.com/adambspencer Find PodcastOne Australia on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/podcastoneau/ Follow PodcastOne Australia on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/podcastoneau/ Follow PodcastOne Australia on Twitter: https://twitter.com/podcastoneau

James Maskalyk is an emergency doctor, an ER doctor with a difference. He splits his time between the first world emergency rooms in Toronto, Canada and working in emergency rooms in southern Africa. He is also the author of a couple of highly celebrated books on the topic of being a doctor in ER, the most recent of which is called ‘Life on the Ground Floor’. This interview was recorded when James was in Australia for the Sydney Writers Festival in 2018.  Connect with Adam Spencer at: https://twitter.com/adambspencer Find PodcastOne Australia on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/podcastoneau/ Follow PodcastOne Australia on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/podcastoneau/ Follow PodcastOne Australia on Twitter: https://twitter.com/podcastoneau

How does applying technology to biology, genetics, medicine and agriculture effect every one of us? Adam speaks to Raymond McCauley, a thinker & do-er, bioninformaticist, computer scientist, engineer and entrepreneur working at the forefront of biotechnology. Raymond is co-founder and Chief Architect for BioCurious, the hackerspace for biotech, where professional scientists, DIYbio hobbyists and entrepreneurs come together to design the next big thing to come out of a Silicon Valley garage. Raymond is one interesting cat ... Connect with Adam Spencer at: https://twitter.com/adambspencer Find PodcastOne Australia on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/podcastoneau/ Follow PodcastOne Australia on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/podcastoneau/ Follow PodcastOne Australia on Twitter: https://twitter.com/podcastoneau

Louise Mercer is the Director of Innovation for Everledger, an emerging technology enterprise that tracks the provenance of authenticated high-value assets on a global digital ledger. Everledger has been well-recognised as a leader in the real-world application of blockchain technology, winning many innovative technology awards. Lisa is a creative thinker & leader who helps translate strategic business risk into innovation and opportunity Connect with Adam Spencer at: https://twitter.com/adambspencer Find PodcastOne Australia on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/podcastoneau/ Follow PodcastOne Australia on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/podcastoneau/ Follow PodcastOne Australia on Twitter: https://twitter.com/podcastoneau

Mandy Simpson is a professional director, consultant and speaker, with a particular focus on the human and business impacts of changing financial technologies. Mandy has held roles as CFO at technology consultancy Fronde, COO at the New Zealand Stock Exchange, where she was an advocate for the use of blockchain technology. Mandy is the Singularity University speaker on information security and blockchain technology. Connect with Adam Spencer at: https://twitter.com/adambspencer Find PodcastOne Australia on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/podcastoneau/ Follow PodcastOne Australia on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/podcastoneau/ Follow PodcastOne Australia on Twitter: https://twitter.com/podcastoneau (edited)

Australia film director Leigh Whannell, is probably best known for being one of the co-creators of the SAW franchise and the visionary behind the horror film, INSIDIOUS. His new film UPGRADE first premiered at SXSW, winning the festival's Midnighters Audience Award. It’s the first feature length film Whannell’s directed in his hometown, Melbourne. The film is set in a believable near future, where technology controls nearly everything from cars to crime-surveillance. It poses the question on society’s dependence on technology and the moral implications of AI, which I thought might be an interesting perspective to discuss with Whannell. Connect with Adam Spencer at: https://twitter.com/adambspencer Find PodcastOne Australia on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/podcastoneau/ Follow PodcastOne Australia on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/podcastoneau/ Follow PodcastOne Australia on Twitter: https://twitter.com/podcastoneau 

Dr Daniel Kraft is a Stanford and Harvard trained physician-scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, and innovator. With over 20 years of experience in clinical practice, biomedical research and healthcare innovation, he has chaired the Medicine Track for Singularity University since SU's inception, and founded and is Executive Director of Exponential Medicine, a program that explores convergent, rapidly developing technologies and their potential in biomedicine and healthcare. Connect with Adam Spencer at: https://twitter.com/adambspencer Find PodcastOne Australia on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/podcastoneau/ Follow PodcastOne Australia on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/podcastoneau/ Follow PodcastOne Australia on Twitter: https://twitter.com/podcastoneau

In 2011 Michael Hull survived a life-threatening grass fire while competing in an ultramarathon in the Kimberley, WA. He has since gone on to become the only Australian to ever complete the 566 km non stop footrace through the Yukon, Canada. His next challenges are taking him to the South Pole and Nepal (Mt Everest). Connect with Adam Spencer at: https://twitter.com/adambspencer Find PodcastOne Australia on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/podcastoneau/ Follow PodcastOne Australia on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/podcastoneau/ Follow PodcastOne Australia on Twitter: https://twitter.com/podcastoneau

How do you protect yourself against Cyber Crime? Marc Goodman is a New York Times Best-Selling author and global strategist focused on the profound change technology is having on security, business and international affairs. He is the founder of the Future Crimes Institute and has built his expertise in international cyber-crime and terrorism working with organisations including INTERPOL, the UN Counterterrorism Task Force, NATO and the US Government. We chatted to Marc at Singularity U* and asked him, What does future crime look like? *The Singularity University is a global community using exponential technologies to tackle the world’s biggest challenges, like what impact will Artificial Intelligence, robotics etc. have on the world in which we live? Adam recently MC’d the Singularity U event in Sydney, and got access to a bunch of big brains from around the world, in a big hall discussing big ideas … we went along and asked them some Big Questions. Connect with Adam Spencer at: https://twitter.com/adambspencer Find PodcastOne Australia on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/podcastoneau/ Follow PodcastOne Australia on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/podcastoneau/ Follow PodcastOne Australia on Twitter: https://twitter.com/podcastoneau