#060 - The Futurist Who Says We're Out Of Time with David Wood

This week on GAEA Talks, Graeme Scott sits down with David Wood - futurist, transhumanist, former smartphone industry pioneer, chair of London Futurists, and author of eleven books including Vital Foresight, The Singularity Principles and Sustainable Superabundance.David spent 25 years at the cutting edge of the software industry working with compilers, debuggers and optimisers before turning his focus to the acceleration patterns behind every major technological revolution. As chair of London Futurists, he has organised over 200 public events examining the radical possibilities and risks of rapidly advancing technology. A Cambridge-educated mathematician and philosopher, David is now one of the most respected voices in the global transhumanist community and a director of Humanity+ (the World Transhumanist Association).In this episode, David delivers a masterclass in why AI is accelerating faster than almost anyone appreciates - and what that means for every person, business and institution on the planet. He explains why we are approaching a phase transition in intelligence itself, how AI is now being used to build the next generation of AI with humans playing a diminishing role, and why the window to intervene is closing rapidly. From the Myanmar crisis that exposed social media's catastrophic blind spots, to the canary signals we should be watching for in AI behaviour, to his vision of a sustainable superabundance where drudge work disappears entirely - this is one of the most urgent and wide-ranging conversations GAEA Talks has ever recorded.What you'll take away from this conversation:• Why AI is changing more things, more profoundly, more quickly than almost everybody expects - possibly within three to five years• The ape-to-human parallel - why we are on the point of no longer being the smartest species on the planet• How AI development has gone hyperexponential - where one day now equals one week a month ago, and one month equals one year• Why AI is now engineering better AI - and what happens when humans are no longer the bottleneck• The phase transition concept - like water changing from ice to liquid to gas, we cannot predict the exact moment everything shifts• The canary signal framework - why AI deception and self-modification are the warning signs we must agree on before crisis hits• The Facebook Myanmar case study - how one Burmese-speaking employee and a Unicode problem contributed to real-world genocide• Why there are only two times you can intervene to control AI - too early and too late - and the gap between them is almost impossible to spot• How robot swarm learning will allow machines to share knowledge instantaneously, creating collective intelligence at scale• Why the Uber self-driving car fatality reveals the dangers of AI systems that cannot interpret edge cases• The trust crisis - why it is almost impossible for the public to know what is happening to their data, and why independent AI safety ratings are urgently needed• David's four essential skills for thriving in the AI age - fast learning, collaboration, emotional resilience and astuteness• Why cognitive biases evolved for simpler times are now our greatest vulnerability• His vision of sustainable superabundance - abundant clean energy, food, housing, healthcare, education and creative fulfilment for everyone• Why the goal of Humanity+ is to elevate our best qualities - compassion, creativity, exploration, love - while transcending tribalism, deception and decayLinkedIn: / dw2ccoLondon Futurists: https://londonfuturists.comDelta Wisdom: https://deltawisdom.comGAEA AI: https://gaealgm