Podcast
Thinking On Paper
Hosted by Mark Fielding and Jeremy Gilbertson · EN
Technology is moving faster than you can make sense of it. How do you keep up without surrendering your judgement to the people selling you the future?
Thinking On Paper brings you inside AI, quantum computing, robotics, space, energy and biotechnology with the founders, scientists, engineers and CEOs building them. Then we follow the money, infrastructure, power and human consequences.
See how the pieces connect, which promises survive contact with reality and where change is really heading, so you can prepare for what comes next and form your own view.
51episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Asteroid Mining: Not An Armageddon Sequel
Apr 1500:27:48Tap to summarizeWho owns space, and who has the right to mine the Moon, asteroids, and the resources of the solar system? This episode uses Space to Grow to examine the Outer Space Treaty, the Moon Treaty, asteroid mining, moon mining, space property rights, and the companies trying to turn space resources into an economy. It then follows the same question into Space Force, China, anti-satellite tests, national security, and the risk that the race for space resources repeats the power struggles already shaping Earth.Please enjoy the show. --Thinking on paper is a technology podcast on The Social, Environmental, Cultural & Business Impacts Of Technology. --Chapters(00:00) Global Conflict(02:04) Human Nature (03:28) Asteroid Mining(05:53) Space Mining(11:05) The Space Resource Exploration Act(13:01) Space Mining Legislation(17:19) Philosophical Perspectives (20:14) National Security in Space(20:40) Government in Space Innovation(21:34) National Security (23:10) Weaponization of Space(24:47) The Prisoner's Dilemma (26:40) Humanity's Moral Compass (27:03) The Future of Humanity in Space
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Top Space Tech Funding Rounds of 2026: Starcloud, Vast, Sierra Space, and iSpace
Apr 900:28:36Tap to summarizeThe biggest space tech funding rounds of 2026 show where investors think the space economy is heading: space-based data centers, private space stations, launch companies, satellite navigation, weather intelligence, and national security infrastructure. We count down the top ten raises, from Starcloud, Xona Space, Tomorrow.io, PLD Space, Stoke Space, Axiom Space, CesiumAstro, Vast, Sierra Space, and China’s iSpace. The episode follows the money behind orbital data centers, commercial space stations, GPS alternatives, reusable rockets, secure satellite communications, microgravity research, and the growing role of defense funding in the space industry.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.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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The 1899 Law for 2026 Technology
Apr 700:27:49Tap to summarizeThis episode explores the Martens Clause, a 19th century principle of international law that could shape the future of AI governance, autonomous weapons, military technology, and human accountability in the age of AGI. We discuss the Nuremberg trials, AI safety, the black box problem, autonomous warfare, space governance, and whether humanity can build advanced technologies without losing moral control over them.Please enjoy the show. And keep the peace. --Thinking on Paper is a technology podcast about AI, computing, science, and the systems shaping the future.🎧 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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The Pentagon’s AI War Strategy
Apr 300:21:42Tap to summarizeThis episode explores the Pentagon’s AI strategy, America’s race for military AI dominance, and what happens when autonomous systems move from Silicon Valley into modern warfare. We discuss AI enabled targeting, Project Maven, Anthropic, OpenAI, AI alignment, surveillance systems, autonomous weapons, and whether the speed of AI development makes global conflict 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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Spin Qubits, Semiconductors, and the Million-Qubit Race: Brandon Severin
Mar 1900:43:31Tap to summarizeQuantum computing's quiet advantage might not come from exotic physics. It might come from the silicon chip industry we already have. On this episode of Thinking on Paper, we talk with Brandon Severin, founder of Conductor Quantum, about why spin qubits could be the modality that finally rides semiconductor manufacturing all the way to a million qubits. Severin walks us through what a spin qubit actually is, a single electron isolated in silicon with its spin pointing up or down as the fundamental quantum bit, and how the trillion-dollar semiconductor industry that perfected the transistor over fifty years gives spin qubits a manufacturing path no other modality can match. Along the way: how Google's new quantum NMR algorithm hints at where verifiable quantum advantage is heading, why the "more qubits versus better qubits" debate misses the point, how spin qubits compare with trapped ions and superconducting approaches, the brutal calibration problem of tuning twenty parameters per qubit by hand, and why building for a million qubits from day one is a fundamentally different mindset than adding them one at a time.Have fun with this one. We did. --Brandon Severin: https://www.conductorquantum.com/--Listen to every podcastFollow us on InstagramFollow us on XFollow Mark on LinkedInFollow Jeremy on LinkedInRead our SubstackEmail: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz--Timestamps(00:00) Introduction: spin qubits and the quantum scaling problem(03:47) Trapped ions vs spin qubits: fidelity, coherence, and tradeoffs(06:14) What qubit fidelity means and why it determines scaling limits(08:25) What is a spin qubit? Building from the transistor up(11:06) Semiconductor fabrication as quantum computing's manufacturing advantage(15:00) The quantum circus: superposition, measurement, Schrödinger's cat(17:17) Shuttling qubits — moving electrons across a chip(20:33) How AI automates quantum calibration (the control problem)(25:00) Quantum scaling vs AI scaling: the GPU parallel(29:08) Quantum startup culture and the AI generation gap(32:59) Building for a million qubits — rocket ships vs ladders(36:52) Why quantum is taking so long: talent, concentration, and meaning(39:43) What seems impossible now that will be routine in 20 years
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This Is What You Can Do With 100 Logical Qubits: The Race To The Quantum Tipping Point
Mar 1200:06:39Tap to summarizeQuantum computing has been five years away for thirty-five years. Infleqtion CTO Pranav Gokhale makes the case that 2028 is different, because for the first time, logical qubits actually exist.He explains what a logical qubit is using a Wi-Fi analogy: noisy physical qubits are like corrupted data packets; logical qubits are the clean, usable signal that comes out the other end. Humanity had zero logical qubits before 2023. Infleqtion now has twelve, with a public roadmap to thirty in 2026 and one hundred in 2028.At one hundred logical qubits, material science and drug discovery become the first real quantum use cases - and the timeline stops being a prediction and starts being an engineering problem.--Other ways to connect with us:Listen to every podcastFollow us on InstagramFollow us on XFollow Mark on LinkedInFollow Jeremy on LinkedInRead our SubstackEmail: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz
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Space Startups Lost 90% of Their Value. Here's Who Survived.
Mar 1000:24:45Tap to summarize$100 invested in space startup stocks at IPO was worth roughly $10 by early 2024. Virgin Orbit went from a $3.7 billion valuation to bankruptcy. Astra went public at $2.1 billion without a single rocket that had reached orbit. What happened? SPACs happened. Special purpose acquisition companies gave pre-revenue space startups a shortcut to public markets, bypassing the scrutiny of a traditional IPO. Investors piled in on forward-looking projections. Then the redemptions started. In part three of the Thinking on Paper Book Club series on Space to Grow by Matthew Weinzierl and Brendan Rosseau, Mark and Jeremy trace how the money flowed in, why it collapsed, and what replaced it. NASA's SLS costs $4.1 billion per launch. SpaceX says Starship will cost $10 million. Even if SpaceX is exaggerating by 100x, it's still cheaper. NASA awarded $4 billion to SpaceX and $3.4 billion to Blue Origin for Artemis lunar landers. The agency is evolving from doing it to enabling it. The question is whether it will still exist in 25 years. --Listen to every podcastFollow us on InstagramFollow us on XFollow Mark on LinkedInFollow Jeremy on LinkedInRead our SubstackEmail: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz--Chapters(00:00) What is a SPAC? (01:30) Why space SPACs failed (03:20) Virgin Orbit & Astra: the worst examples (06:00) SPACs vs Crypto: same story? (08:30) The Stag Hunt: why space needs coordination (11:00) NASA Artemis explained (13:00) SLS vs Starship cost breakdown (17:00) SpaceX & Blue Origin lunar contracts (20:00) The Moon Race vs China (22:00) Can NASA survive the commercial space era?
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The Quantum Computer That Works at Room Temperature
Mar 900:40:22Tap to summarizeGPS is getting spoofed and jammed. Financial markets, power grids, RF networks, military systems and your phone all depend on timestamps sent from 30 satellites that are increasingly vulnerable. Quantum clocks are the fix. Matt Kinsella is the CEO of Infleqtion, a quantum technology company that put a quantum atomic clock inside a UK military submarine. In this conversation with Mark and Jeremy, he explains how hitting rubidium atoms with a 778 nanometer laser creates nature's most precise metronome, why the Rydberg state turns a single atom into a receiver that could replace every antenna on Earth, how neutral atom quantum computing differs from superconducting and trapped ion approaches, why GPS is really a timing system not a positioning system, and what quantum mechanics might have to do with free will and consciousness.--Listen to every podcastFollow us on InstagramFollow us on XFollow Mark on LinkedInFollow Jeremy on LinkedInRead our SubstackEmail: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz--Timestamps:(00:00) Trailer(01:50) Why coordination matters: From internal strategy to GPS timing(04:48) What is a quantum clock and how does it link to GPS?(07:18) Nature's metronome: How atoms keep time with laser precision(08:14) Room temperature quantum: Why neutral atoms don't need freezers(12:38) The Rydberg state: Making atoms sensitive to the entire RF spectrum(14:03) Quantum clock on a UK submarine(17:06) Quantum in space: Voyager partnership and the International Space Station(18:48) Hybrid quantum-classical workflows: How QPUs layer above GPUs(23:18) Software layers: From laser control to developer applications(25:32) Drug discovery example: GPU, CPU, QPU(29:03) The bridge between classical and quantum: Memory architecture innovations(31:54) How Quantum Clocks & Products Lead To Quantum Computers(33:48) Nvidia(35:42) Quality or Quantity of Qubits (38:00) Quantum mechanics and free will: Does wave collapse prove consciousness?Love it.Thanks. --Listen to every podcastFollow us on InstagramFollow us on XFollow Mark on LinkedInFollow Jeremy on LinkedInRead our SubstackEmail: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz--Chapters(00:00) Why quantum computing matters right now (01:20) Why Nvidia is betting big on quantum (02:52) NVQ-Link: the bridge between quantum and classical computing(09:29) Who decides what runs on the quantum computer vs the GPU?(12:33) AI helping quantum, quantum helping AI (16:56) Building a space elevator battery: a real quantum workflow (20:09) The quantum algorithm zoo (22:04) From noisy qubits to logical qubits (24:00) How much energy does a quantum computer actually use? (27:05) The no-cloning theorem: why you can't copy-paste quantum data(27:20) The biggest unanswered question in quantum computing(30:47) A $20M NASA program and a telescope for underground (33:32) What do we want humans to be?
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