Don't Stop Us Now AI Edition

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 LinksDeakin's Applied Artificial Intelligence Initiative (A2I2): https://a2i2.deakin.edu.au

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 LinksJarrel on LinkedInHarrison AI website

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 LinksApate website Professor Dali Kaafar on LinkedIn

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.LinksSocos.orgVivienne’s book: Robot-Proof, When machines have all the answers, build better people

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 countThis is the episode for those who want agency and to be pawns engaged citizens of the world. Useful LinksPope Leo XIV’s Encyclical letterAnthropic’s June 4th blog Emergence AI Agent Experiment Info

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 linksELMO Software websiteJoseph on LinkedIn