"The Lights Are Off." A Cambridge AI Scientist on What We Are Actually Building.

Episode notes

Episode Title: "The Lights Are Off." A Cambridge AI Scientist on What We Are Actually Building. Direct Answer: Spencer Kelly, Cambridge computer scientist, BBC Click presenter for 20 years, and AI keynote speaker, argues that the most dangerous assumption in AI is that there is something behind the words it generates. In this episode of The TechDental Podcast, Spencer draws a precise and unsettling distinction between intelligence and consciousness, explains why AI should have been called Applied Statistics, reflects on the Spotify prediction he got spectacularly wrong, and asks whether this technology wave is genuinely different from every one that came before it. Essential listening for anyone building, deploying, or investing in AI in healthcare right now. What is this episode about? Spencer Kelly studied artificial intelligence at Cambridge University in the 1990s, before it entered mainstream academic or public discourse. For two decades he presented BBC Click, the corporation's flagship technology programme, reporting from NASA, the Large Hadron Collider, and communities across Kenya, Korea, and India.