Podcast
Thinking On Paper
Hosted by Mark Fielding and Jeremy Gilbertson · EN
We are a technological species. Thinking On Paper is an independent podcast that helps you keep track of all the moving pieces. Conversations about the human impact of artificial intelligence, quantum computers, NASA, asteroid mining, coordination, trust, books, robotics, space technology, web3, physics, chemistry, sustainability, music, art, science, neuroscience, work, rest and play. New episodes every Thursday. Tech book club every month.
36episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
IBM And The Quantum Computer That's Isolated From the Rest of the Universe
2w ago00:44:22Tap to summarizeAs Vice President of IBM Quantum Adoption, Scott Crowder has spent the last decade moving quantum from a lab to the real world. They might have just done it. Ten years ago, IBM put a five qubit machine on the cloud and let anyone run a program on it. Today, researchers have published nearly 6,000 papers on IBM hardware, and the field sits at a tipping point.Quantum computers now run algorithms too complex for any classical machine. The question is whether they will soon run them better, not just differently. That threshold will collapse the field’s two warring camps.Scott walks us through where the field actually is right now. Cleveland Clinic recently simulated a 303 atom protein by splitting the problem between quantum and classical hardware, a jump from the 14 atoms they could handle nine months earlier.Researchers at RIKEN in Japan are coordinating quantum hardware and the country's largest HPC cluster in the same building. Both efforts point toward what IBM calls a quantum-centric supercomputer, an architecture where quantum and classical resources accelerate each other rather than compete.By 2029, IBM plans to deliver a scalable, fault-tolerant quantum system the size of a few racks rather than a football field. Scott gave us his actual error bar on that date: minus six months, plus one year, at 80% confidence. The biggest challenge is no longer the hardware. It is getting enough humans to invent the algorithms that make the hardware useful.We explore why superconducting qubits beat the alternatives, how a quantum computer draws about the same power as a single rack of AI hardware, whether quantum data centers belong in space, why helium-3 may become a real constraint by the mid-2030s, and what Richard Feynman would make of his 1981 vision finally coming to life.🏠 HQ: www.thinkingonpaper.xyz📺 INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/thinkingonpaperpodcast/🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/00volKqMsQntToeho35W47🎧 APPLE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinking-on-paper-technology-moves-fast-think-slower/id1713227258--Mark x: https://x.com/markfielding99Jeremy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremygilbertson/–Chapters(00:00) Trailer(01:20) Quantum computing: real, hyped, or both(02:40) Why reference architectures decide which technologies win(05:05) Superconducting vs. trapped ion vs. spin qubits(06:47) Why accessibility and algorithmic discovery are the real bottlenecks(12:34) Cleveland Clinic's 303-atom protein simulation(13:44) IBM's quantum-centric supercomputing architecture(16:07) What already runs on quantum computers today(17:58) The roadmap: how quantum and classical converge(22:28) What Richard Feynman would make of the field today(25:25) What quantum computing means for the future of data centers(32:01) Quantum computers in space, and why Crowder rejects Elon's pitch(34:10) What computing is actually for(42:19) Why Qiskit, NVIDIA, and open source matter for adoption
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You'll Be Able To Upload Your Brain In 2054: Anders Sandberg
3w ago01:54:12Tap to summarizeHold on to your hats you beautiful curious minds, your brain is about to get a serious work out. Anders Sandberg, futurist, transhumanist and curiosity magpie joins us for one of the widest-ranging conversations we've ever recorded.This is a tour through the next thousand years. The good, the bad, the strange and the wonderful, Anders flicks between them with elegance, depth, insight and humour.You'll learn about brain emulation, the politics of space, AI run economies, NASA, transhumanism, longevity, maths, neuroscience, memory, middle age and aliens. We'll ask you why Dracula wouldn't be bored if he was around today, what drone warfare and AGI means for peace, prosperity and economics and whether Bryan Johnson really can live forever. Enjoy. 🎧 Listen to every podcast📺 Follow us on Instagram🏠 Follow us on X🏠 Follow Jeremy on LinkedInTo suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz--Chapters(00:00) Augmentation and Human Potential(08:09) The Impact of Mobile Technology on Humanity(11:51) Accountability in AI Agents(18:25) The Role of Empathy in Human-AI Interaction(25:35) AGI vs. Alien Life: A Comparative Analysis(27:36) Consciousness and Brain Emulation(35:52) The Future of Uploaded Minds(40:33) Exploring Parallel Realities and Memory Merging(45:16) The Future of Human Collaboration and Organizations(46:24) AI's Role in Managing Global Systems(51:23) The Dual Economy: Human vs AI Management(57:43) The Complexities of Space Ownership and Governance(01:05:18) The Future of Space Exploration and Human Expansion(01:17:49) The Impact of Space Race on Human Progress(01:21:43) The Role of Nations and Corporations in Space Exploration(01:24:22) Experimenting with New Forms of Governance(01:26:18) NASA's Future in the Age of Innovation(01:28:41) The Potential for Breakaway Movements in Space(01:30:16) Trust and Coordination in Space Governance(01:34:18) The Future of Fusion Energy(01:42:15) The Value of Time and Life Extension(01:48:06) Reinventing Identity in Extended Lifespans(01:52:03) The Future of Humanity and Technology
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Carissa Véliz - How Self-Fulfilling Prophecies Work In The Age Of AI
3w ago00:59:50Tap to summarizeCarissa Véliz joins us to Think On Paper about her new book Prophecy.You'll learn about the history of prophecy, why Rasputin couldn't be trusted, why Polymarket needs to be regulated, and what CEOs and founders of the biggest tech companies in the world have to gain by predicting your future.On the way, you'll hear about Seinfeld, turkeys, stoicism, philosophy, books and a lot more.This conversation really is worth your time.Please enjoy it. --📺 Watch On YouTube: 🎧 Listen to every podcast📺 Follow us on Instagram🏠 Follow us on X🏠 Follow Jeremy on LinkedInTo suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz--CHAPTERS (00:00) Intro(01:00) What is the good life? (02:00) Why knowing yourself matters more than strategy (04:44) The analog world vs the digital world (06:45) How prophecies exploit our need for security (08:47) Why ancient Rome banned predicting the emperor's death (10:11) The illusion of safety that AI sells us (12:27) When predictions work, and when they don't (15:00) Altman, Amodei, Huang: predictions or sales pitches? (28:29) How to resist prophecies as a busy person (29:53) Prediction markets, Polymarket, and democracy (31:49) TikTok, algorithms, and the Molly Russell case (36:08) "Engagement algorithms are cocaine in food" (40:54) Self-fulfilling prophecies as the perfect crime (43:44) Why comedy is the enemy of prophecy (46:59) What Seinfeld teaches us about predictive algorithms (52:16) Karikó and the Nobel Prize we almost missed (53:40) Increase your serendipity (56:13) Why Epicurus beats the Stoics
Transcribe →Trump Lost The Meme War With Iran
4w ago00:15:11Tap to summarizeThe AI meme war between the US and Iran has evolved into an absolute shit show. If you thought it was awful a few weeks ago, you ain't seen nothing yet.AI-generated Lego propaganda videos were a curiosity. Sometimes funny, often violent, always troublesome and never diplomatic, they quickly gained millions of views across social media... because social media. The White House Twitter (X) account was responsible for the US videos. An Iranian media company called Explosive Media, the Iranian. America, either put off by the global consensus that it was losing the war, or bored, switched their AI models to tax season (with equal ineptitude).Iran, losing the guns and missiles part of the war, has changed tact. Explosive Media turned up the heat. And was duly banned from YouTube. Which could of unleashed the beast. Now Iranian embassies are posting them on Twitter (X) and US creators are using the same format to mock it all with Lego.. Just watch it yourself. And let us know what you think. --🎧 Listen to every podcast📺 Follow us on Instagram🏠 Follow us on X🏠 Follow Jeremy on LinkedInTo suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz----TIMESTAMPS(00:00) Explosive Media(00:38) US Bowling Iran(01:52) Trump's Mask(03:20) Blockade, Blockade(06:28) Drunken Hegseth(08:00) Truth
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Who Owns The Moon? You're Not Going To Like The Answer
Apr 1500:27:48Tap to summarizeThe romantic version of the space economy is about exploration. We say it's about war. A while ago we interviewed Mark Boggart, the CEO of Seraphim Space. One number he said has stuck with us ever since.80% of all space investment, right now, is defence.Not 80% of launches. Not 80% of contracts. 80% of investment. The money flowing into the industry — the venture rounds, the strategic capital, the government dollars — is overwhelmingly going to one thing. Tracking, watching and blowing up enemies. This is the final episode in our five-week book club on Space to Grow by Matthew Weinzierl and Brendan Rosseau. Weinzierl is a professor at Harvard Business School and co-founder of the school's SPACE course. Rosseau, formerly an HBS teaching fellow and research associate, is now a Strategy Manager at Blue Origin. Its last two chapters ask who owns space and who actually runs it. The answers are different. You won't like either. --Chapters(00:00) Global Conflict and Space Resources(02:04) Human Nature and Space Exploration(03:28) The Economics of Asteroid Mining(05:53) Legal Frameworks for Space Mining(11:05) The Space Resource Exploration Act(13:01) International Reactions to Space Mining Legislation(17:19) Philosophical Perspectives on Space Ownership(20:14) The Role of National Security in Space(20:40) The Role of Government in Space Innovation(21:34) National Security and the Space Industry(23:10) Weaponization of Space: A New Era(24:47) The Prisoner's Dilemma in Space Cooperation(26:40) Humanity's Moral Compass in Space Exploration(27:03) The Future of Humanity in Space
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The Biggest Space Company You've Never Heard Of Just Raised $729 million
Apr 900:28:36Tap to summarizeIf you tried to guess the biggest space industry raise of 2026, you’d probably name a US company. You’d be wrong.“I feel a little bit like Casey Kasem, top 40,” Jeremy said when we started recording. We had ten companies, a quarter of funding rounds, and a question: where is the money in space tech actually going in 2026?Some of what we found was predictable. Most of it wasn’t. The biggest raise of the year so far isn’t American. The fourth-biggest is a company you’ve probably never heard of. And one of the names on the list, in Jeremy’s words, sounds like “a skater stoner name.”Here’s the countdown.--🎧 Listen to every podcast📺 Follow us on Instagram🏠 Follow us on X🏠 Follow Jeremy on LinkedInTo suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyzChapters(00:00) Starcloud(00:52) Xona Space(03:27) Tomorrow IO(06:01) PLD Space(08:00) Stoke Space(10:18) Axiom Space(12:29) Cesium Astro(14:50) VAST Space(19:02) Sierra Space(21:47) I-Space (Beijing Interstellar Glory Space Technology Ltd.)
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An 1899 Law for AI and Space: The Martens Clause
Apr 700:27:49Tap to summarizeFor 100,000 years, peace didn’t exist. And soon we’ll have AGI and cities on the moon and expect everyone to get along. The first conference on not killing each other wasn’t until 1899. What the hell were we doing before that? Why did it take humanity so long to sit down and speak about peace? That’s a question for another podcast. For this, let’s rewind the clock and have a story. The Martens Clause was a legal principle drafted by Russian-Imperial diplomat Fyodor Martens during the first Hague Peace Conference of 1899. It established that even in the absence of specific written law, nations and individuals remain bound by "the laws of humanity and the requirements of public conscience." In short, don’t be an asshole. Originally conceived as a compromise to prevent the collapse of early international humanitarian law negotiations - when smaller nations like Belgium objected to being smaller nations - the clause became a foundational backstop in international law. It was subsequently invoked in some of the most consequential legal proceedings of the twentieth century, including the Nuremberg Trials of 1945-46, the 1949 Corfu Channel dispute and the 1986 ICJ ruling against the United States for mining Nicaraguan harbors and supporting the Contra insurgency.Now we want to know whether this 127-year-old clause could serve as what Jeremy calls a "minimum viable architecture" for governing emerging technologies.Please enjoy the show. And keep the peace. --🎧 Listen to every podcast📺 Follow us on Instagram🏠 Follow us on X🏠 Follow Jeremy on LinkedInTo suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz--(00:00) The First Peace Conference: A Historical Perspective(07:37) The Martin's Clause: Implications for Modern Governance(10:05) Space Tech and the Outer Space Treaty(13:58) AI and the Need for Ethical Frameworks(17:21) Accountability in Technology Deployment(22:56) The Future of Humanity: Collaboration vs. Competition
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AI, the Kill Chain, and the Race Against China: The Pentagon's AI Memo
Apr 300:21:42Tap to summarizeImagine if the future of the world rested on the shoulders of Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth and their pet AI war strategy? Yep! We're about to find out.On January 9th 2026, the US Secretary of Defense signed a memorandum called Artificial Intelligence Strategy for the Department of War. Six weeks later, the US was at war with Iran and AI was identifying targets. Mark and Jeremy read the memo line by line. What they found: a strategy built on speed over safety, experimentation over caution, and the explicit statement that "the risks of not moving fast enough outweigh the risks of imperfect alignment." The memo outlines swarm warfare, AI-generated military intelligence, 30-day deadlines for federating classified data across all departments, and a talent war with Silicon Valley. Anthropic, the company that asked for safeguards against mass surveillance and full automation of the kill chain, was classified as a supply chain risk. This episode asks one question: does AI make war more likely or less likely?--🎧 Listen to every podcast📺 Follow us on Instagram🏠 Follow us on X🏠 Follow Jeremy on LinkedInTo suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz--Chapters(00:00) Artificial Intelligence Strategy for the Department of War(00:58) Executive Order 14179: America's AI Military Dominance(01:59) China And AI Arms Race(04:36) Anthropic & Eliminating Bureaucratic Barriers(07:20) The 7 Pace Setting Projects (PSPs) In The Memo(08:28) 100% LLM Kill Chain Capability(10:22) Palmer Luckey(11:53) Intelligence & The AI Open Arsenal(13:57) The War Time Approach To Blockers(16:46) AI Talent Acquisition At The DOW(18:54) We must accept that the risks of not moving fast enough outweigh the risks of imperfect alignment
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Iran Show America How To Use AI For Propaganda
Mar 3000:20:19Tap to summarizeIran made an AI Lego propaganda video about the United States. It was kind of funny. The US replied with Grand Theft Auto, Wii Sports, and Call of Duty. It wasn't. Children's toys and video games to push a distorted view of war at kids and morons on Twitter. Oh how they'll laugh. This is our first reaction video. Probably be our last.--🎧 Listen to every podcast📺 Follow us on Instagram🏠 Follow us on X🏠 Follow Jeremy on LinkedInTo suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyzTimestamps(00:00) What Is Propaganda?(00:36) Iran Lego Propaganda Video(02:45) Reaction(06:55) Whitehouse GTA Iran War Video(09:07) Epic Fury - US Wii Sports Video(13:22) Call Of Duty Iran War Video
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Space Junk, the Kessler Syndrome, and SpaceX's Monopoly: Space to Grow
Mar 2300:35:55Tap to summarizeThere’s nothing Elon Musk loves more than sending Starlink satellites to space. Except maybe money and bad tweets. He’s just filed to send a million up there. Yep! A million. Which doesn’t sit well with Donald Kessler, the man who first theorized the Kessler Syndrome in 1978. You see, Kessler and others think roughly 70,000 objects in LEO is the threshold beyond which collision cascades become self-sustaining and unstoppable, regardless of whether new launches cease entirely.That’s a lot less than one million. What does science say? And is anyone clearing up all the junk we’ve already sent up to space? We're reading Space To Grow by Matthew Weinzierl and Brendan Rosseau, to find out. This is Part 4. Please enjoy the show--🎧 Listen to every podcast📺 Follow us on Instagram🏠 Follow us on X🏠 Follow Jeremy on LinkedInTo suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz--Timestamps(00:00) How 150,000 pieces of space junk ended up in orbit and why nobody cleaned them up(06:21) Kessler syndrome explained: the tipping point where collisions become unstoppable(10:57) Why the insurance market is not pricing orbital collision risk(13:50) Government intervention, the Moon Treaty and the five-year deorbit rule(20:26) Active debris removal: magnets, robots and who is building the solutions(22:37) Astroscale: how one company is trying to clean up space junk commercially(24:53) Who pays to clean up orbit when the market has no incentive to(26:26) Is SpaceX a monopoly and does that matter for the space industry(29:08) NASA Administrator: there is only one thing worse than a government monopoly(33:04) Space governance, coordination and whether the tragedy of the commons can be solved in orbit
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