What Next | The Tech Reckoning: Who Shapes the Next Economy?
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What Next? Leadership Conversations for a Better Future examines how leaders can build future-fit economies in a time of accelerating technological and societal change.
This episode looks at the power shifts created by AI and digital systems - asks where real agency still lies.
Hosts Lindsay Hooper and Marc Kahn sit down with Thomas Lingard, who previously founded Unilever’s Global Advocacy team to influence international public policy on sustainable development and who now heads the Centre for Future Generations, to explore where the real opportunity and agency exist to ensure that emerging technologies are used in the best interest of humanity.
The discussion probes how digital power is concentrating, why regulatory systems are struggling to keep pace, and what it would take to steer emerging technologies toward societal benefit rather than narrow commercial gain. Thomas highlights the leadership capacities that now matter most: ethical judgement, systems intelligence, and the confidence to question deterministic narratives about technology.
The episode asks a central question: how do we build an economy where technology strengthens society - and who has the responsibility and agency to shape that path?
In partnership with the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and Investec.
This episode looks at the power shifts created by AI and digital systems - asks where real agency still lies.
Hosts Lindsay Hooper and Marc Kahn sit down with Thomas Lingard, who previously founded Unilever’s Global Advocacy team to influence international public policy on sustainable development and who now heads the Centre for Future Generations, to explore where the real opportunity and agency exist to ensure that emerging technologies are used in the best interest of humanity.
The discussion probes how digital power is concentrating, why regulatory systems are struggling to keep pace, and what it would take to steer emerging technologies toward societal benefit rather than narrow commercial gain. Thomas highlights the leadership capacities that now matter most: ethical judgement, systems intelligence, and the confidence to question deterministic narratives about technology.
The episode asks a central question: how do we build an economy where technology strengthens society - and who has the responsibility and agency to shape that path?
In partnership with the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and Investec.
Chapters
- 00:00 From Sustainability to Tech Governance: Thomas’s strategic shift
- 04:30 Governing Technology at Exponential Speed
- 09:20 Four Futures for AI: Concentration, Slowdowns, Arm Race and Diplomacy:
- 14:40 The Near Term Risks: Inequality, Information Disorder , and Power Asymmetry:
- 20:10 Leadership Mindsets: Agency, Imagination and the “One-Way Door” Problem
- 26:30 Europe’s Choice and the Path to a Positive Tech Future
