We cannot expect the technology of tomorrow to be better than the humans of today. So, if we want Artificial Intelligence and other tech to be better, then we need to improve as people.
Dr Cornelia Walther, from our hosts the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, joins us at the Global Tipping Points 2026 Conference at Sunway University to discuss AI’s links to tipping points, and to the future of humanity.
The complexity of AI makes it hard to know what’s to come, but Cornelia stresses the technology can be both good and bad. The problem is it operates on the garbage in, garbage out principle, when we need it to work on a values in, values out basis. If we want to see that change, we must alter our priorities.
As the last of the analogue generations, living through the move towards a time of hybrid intelligence (HI) – mixing natural intelligence and AI – we consider the effects on our brains of delegating previously everyday functions to the phone in our pocket or the computer on our desk. Will it lead to us all having robot partners?!
We find ourselves asking, how can we avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and take advantage of AI as a force for good?
This episode was produced in conjunction with the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, hosts of the conference.
Transforming Tomorrow
Sustainability is key for any business that wants to build a lasting legacy. From carbon footprints to biodiversity to modern slavery, seabeds to factory floors, everything matters.
On Transforming Tomorrow, we make the complex understandable, the theory practical, as we guide you through the ever-changing and often exciting world of sustainability in business.
Speaking to internationally renowned experts and business leaders, we uncover how to mainstream environmental, social and economic sustainability into purposeful business strategy and performance.
Whether you are leading transition in your business, want to build a corporation with a green heart or change your individual actions, or just want to know more about how space weather might affect your operations, Transforming Tomorrow is the show for you.
Hosts Jan and Paul bring insight, perspective, and not a little amount of disagreement, to all the subjects, helping you find the message among the madness.
Join us every Monday to uncover new insights and become a little more inspired that you can make a difference.
You can find transcripts for most episodes at: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/pentland/resources-for-education-and-practice/transforming-tomorrow-podcast/transcripts/
Send your questions on any of the issues we discuss in Transforming Tomorrow to [email protected] or fill in our feedback form here: https://forms.office.com/e/7Bw4rDiRDt
Find out more about the Pentland Centre and its work here: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/pentland/
Meet the Hosts
Professor Jan Bebbington is the Director of the Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business at Lancaster University. Jan is an expert on accounting, benchmarking (to her co-host’s annoyance), and how business and sustainability intersect.
Jan loves nature and wants to protect it – and hopes she can change the world (ideally for the better). She is also motivated to address inequality wherever it is found and especially to eliminate forced, bonded or child labour. Transforming Tomorrow is one small step on that quest.
Paul Turner is a former sports journalist who now works promoting the research activities in Lancaster University Management School – a poacher turned gamekeeper as his former colleagues would have it.
Paul has always been interested in nature and the natural environment – it comes from growing up in Cumbria – and has been a vocal proponent of the work of the Pentland Centre since joining Lancaster University. He does not like rankings and benchmarking, and is not afraid to say so.