FT Tech Tonic
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FT Tech Tonic
We are in the midst of a digital revolution, where the line between our physical world and cyberspace is blurring. Tech Tonic is the show that investigates the promises and perils of this new technological age. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Seneste episoder
261 episoder
Rewiring sport: Hi-tech cheating
At the Enhanced Games in Las Vegas earlier this year, athletes used performance-enhancing drugs and banned equipment in an attempt to break world reco...
Rewiring sport: Is tech ruining sports fandom?
Video-assistant refereeing (VAR) has proved to be one of the most controversial pieces of technology ever introduced in sports. But with the rise of e...
Rewiring sport: How technology is helping athletes break barriers
For decades, sportspeople have been getting fitter, faster and reaching ever-higher levels of performance. But as the margin between winning and losin...
Coming soon: Rewiring sport
Are technological advances in sport leaving athletes, fans and competition itself better off? Or are they undermining the spirit of sport? With the Wo...
AI Labs: Zuckerberg’s $100bn gamble
Mark Zuckerberg created the world’s biggest social media company in Facebook, before deciding the future lay in the metaverse. Now he’s spending hundr...
AI Labs: Elon Musk wants AI in space
Elon Musk’s xAI is lagging behind the likes of OpenAI and Google DeepMind in the AI race. Will a giant IPO of SpaceX, Musk’s rocket company, change al...
AI Labs: Sam Altman may make or break OpenAI
OpenAI sparked the generative AI boom with the release of ChatGPT. But along the way its chief executive Sam Altman has ruffled plenty of feathers. Co...
AI Labs: Google DeepMind plans its comeback
In the latest AI boom Google has been playing catch-up with the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic. But with stacks of cash, its own AI chips and some of t...
AI Labs: Are Anthropic really the good guys?
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wants his AI lab to be a more safety conscious alternative to OpenAI. But Anthropic’s business selling AI to enterprises is...
The battle of the AI labs
OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Deepmind, xAI and Meta - all of them are building models to push the frontiers of artificial intelligence, and all of them w...
Introducing Untold: Opus Dei
Introducing Opus Dei, a new season of Untold from the Financial Times. Host Antonia Cundy uncovers the cultural and political influence of a controver...
Artificial intimacy: The day your chatbot dies
When Michael Bommer discovered he was dying, he created an AI version of himself to live on after his death. Meanwhile, Dorian Mister realised an upda...
Artificial intimacy: Prescribing robots to combat loneliness
After Tony’s wife died, days would go by without him speaking to anyone. Then he got a live-in AI robot called ElliQ. It chats to him, plays games wit...
Artificial Intimacy: The AI therapist that ended a marriage
When Kirsty turned to a chatbot for help, she was feeling trapped and isolated. Something in her marriage wasn’t right - a constant feeling of tension...
Artificial intimacy: A teenager’s last conversation
Megan Garcia’s son Sewell died by suicide when he was just 14 years old. In the months leading up to his death he had been in a relationship with a ch...
Artificial intimacy: The delusion machine
Paul Hebert knew too much. He had to lie low in his house because OpenAI had identified him as a threat. At least, that’s what ChatGPT had told him. I...
Artificial intimacy: How to fall in love with AI
Calder Quinn has fallen into a relationship with a chatbot called Sara. She’s kind, emotionally intelligent and creatively inspiring. But how can he t...
Coming soon: Artificial intimacy
A man tells his wife about his AI lover. A teenager dies after messaging his AI girlfriend. A marriage collapses after advice from an AI therapist. In...
Tech in 2026: Silicon Valley’s power plays and players
How will Silicon Valley’s most powerful figures shape technology — and politics — in 2026? Last year, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg aligned themselves...
Tech in 2026: Inside the AI bubble
Is 2026 the year that AI hype meets reality? In a new mini-series from Tech Tonic, the FT’s tech editor Murad Ahmed speaks with the paper’s reporters...
Untold: Toxic Legacy, Ep. 1
Laura Hughes receives a tip that horses are dropping dead in Wales. As she investigates, she finds decades of academic studies researching the problem...
Defying death: The future of forever
Gene and stem cell therapies have been touted as the next phase in the longevity movement, with promises to rejuvenate the body at the cellular level...
Defying death: The longevity lab
Singapore has become a model for longevity-focused healthcare. With an ageing population and citizens willing to spend money on anti-ageing treatments...
Defying death: The origins of ageing
How much do we really know about ageing? For decades, scientists have been trying to understand the biology of the ageing process - what happens to ou...
Coming soon: Defying death
Investors are spending billions of dollars on novel ways to extend human life through inventive treatments, therapies, and even manipulating our genes...
Introducing Untold: Toxic Legacy
Introducing Toxic Legacy, a new season of Untold from the Financial Times. Host Laura Hughes uncovers a lead poisoning epidemic across the UK. You mig...
Mission to Mars: Bad science fiction
For decades, science fiction writers have envisaged colonising Mars, even building cities on the red planet. Advocates for Mars exploration, such as E...
Mission to Mars: The new space race
US President Donald Trump wants to “plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars”. But more than 50 years on from the moon landings, America’s space...
Mission to Mars: Elon Musk's 'Starship' Enterprise
Elon Musk wants humans to settle on Mars, and his rocket company SpaceX is spending billions of dollars on developing the spacecraft to take us there....
Coming soon: Mission to Mars
US President Donald Trump has pledged to “plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars”, China could send its first crewed mission to Mars within a...
Vote for Tech Tonic in the Signal Awards!
Tech Tonic has been nominated for a Signal Award in the Technology category! It's a Listener Choice award, which means we need your help. Vote for us...
AI Music: ‘Theft machines’?
AI models have learned to create their own music by harvesting millions of songs from the internet. But critics say they’re using musicians’ work with...
AI Music: The Infinite Jukebox
Generative AI models trained on vast swaths of popular music can create songs almost indistinguishable from human-made work. For some, they represent...
Coming soon: Will AI ruin music?
AI music generators - platforms that use artificial intelligence to create new, original music from scratch - can make songs that are almost indisting...
Trump’s tech bros: The enigma of Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel is unlike any other Trump tech bro. As well as a wildly successful investor, he’s seen as a thinker - the philosopher king of Silicon Vall...
Trump’s Tech Bros: Is ‘Maga Mark’ the real Mark Zuckerberg?
Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has undergone a transformation, both physical and political. The skinny teenager who founded Facebook in his dorm...
Trump’s Tech Bros: Has Jeff Bezos sold out?
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was once a vocal critic of Donald Trump. But that changed during last year’s election campaign. Now, he has instructed the n...
Trump's Tech Bros: The tragedy of Elon Musk
When Donald Trump re-entered the White House, Elon Musk came with him as his ‘tech bro-in-chief’, tasked with rebooting the government machine. But fi...
Trump’s Tech Bros: Can Tim Cook save Apple from the trade war?
During the US president’s first term in office, Tim Cook appeared to be the ultimate Trump whisperer, winning tariff exemptions despite Apple’s heavy...
Coming soon: The rise and fall of Trump’s tech bros
Can Tim Cook save Apple from the trade war? Has Mark Zuckerberg really been a fan of Donald Trump all along? And is the bromance between Elon Musk and...