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231. The AI That Stunned Lawyers – Greg Baker
48:28||Ep. 231Picture 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 LinksGreg's SubstackLink for updates on Greg’s forthcoming book ‘An Infinite Supply of Someone’ detailing how he won his legal caseMachines of Loving Grace, the essay by Dario Amodei that Greg referencesSubscribe to Don't Stop Us Now – AI Edition wherever you get your podcastsShare this episode with a friend or colleague curious about what AI could mean for their work
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230. When Agents Go Rogue - Claire & Greta
24:43||Ep. 230When 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 linksMETR, 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 2026229. Learnings from AI Native Co’s – Marc Winter & Laura Gordon
29:48||Ep. 229This 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 LinksLibra Collective WebsiteLaura on LinkedIn Marc on LinkedIn228. On Keeping AI in Check - Professor Svetha Venkatesh
32:49||Ep. 228You'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 LinksDeakin's Applied Artificial Intelligence Initiative (A2I2): https://a2i2.deakin.edu.au227. The highly trained ‘eyes’ of Harrison AI - Jarrel Seah
45:27||Ep. 227This 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 LinksJarrel on LinkedInHarrison AI website226. Undercover ‘Agents’ vs Scammers - Dali Kaafar
40:29||Ep. 226Scammers 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 LinksApate website Professor Dali Kaafar on LinkedIn225. AI Should Make Us Better – Dr. Vivienne Ming
49:29||Ep. 225If 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.LinksSocos.orgVivienne’s book: Robot-Proof, When machines have all the answers, build better people