An AI chief scientist, a policy strategist and a filmmaker take us upstream: who is deciding where AI goes, and does the public still have a say?
Tiberio Caetano sets the altitude: a handful of companies driving a technology outpacing even its own experts, locked in a race to the bottom. Holly Rankin refuses the powerlessness, drawing on her own win inside Parliament to argue that democracy works when real people show up. Damon Gameau reframes it as a storyteller: a tool built for extraction that could be rewired for regeneration.
They hold the enormity and the agency at once, and land somewhere unexpected. The decision was never a few people’s to make. We are not swimming against the stream, we are the stream. And what we do while the window is open is ours.
“AI is probably capitalism’s greatest heist. It’s managed to take all the collective knowledge and creativity humanity has ever created and hand it to three people who sell it back to us.”
Damon Gameau
“AI is not a thing, it’s a process. The AI now, when I finish this sentence, will be smarter than when I started it.”
Tiberio Caetano
“Instead of thinking we had to swim upstream to fix something, we are the stream. And instead of thinking billionaires are powerful, we remembered we are the billionaires.”
Holly Rankin
“Empathy has become kryptonite to the current system. The way we fight back is to slow down, to smile at a stranger, to restitch the fabric of social cohesion.”
Damon Gameau
“Remember that you are an assembly of information that has been flowing for hundreds of thousands of years, and it was just in the past couple of decades that all this craziness hit this extraordinarily biologically rich constitution. Be humble. Remember how big the universe is, and look inside.”
Tiberio Caetano
“Four global CEOs with trillions of dollars figuring out the fate of humanity. They say ‘please govern us’ on the front page of the magazine, then fly fifteen lobbying firms into Parliament when we try.”
Holly Rankin
Show Notes
Chief Scientist · Professor · OECD AI Advisor
Co-founder and chief scientist of Gradient Institute, an independent non-profit working toward safe and ethical AI, and an honorary professor at the ANU. He has spent more than twenty years in machine learning as a researcher, entrepreneur and practitioner, and advises the OECD on artificial intelligence.
Policy Strategist · Advocate · Artist
A recording artist, known as Jack River, and a cultural and political strategist who co-founded Sentiment, an agency built to close the gap between politics and pop culture. Her advocacy has reached the floor of Parliament on many issues, and helped push the government to protect Australian creators’ work from being mined to train AI.
Film Director · Producer · Author
An award-winning filmmaker, author and co-founder of Regen Studios, known for the documentaries 2040 and Future Council. His work imagines the futures we could choose and turns them into films, books and campaigns built to move people to act.
Democracy Counts · Campaign
A campaign for upstream reform of Australian democracy, working on the systems and incentives that shape political decisions before they reach us.
Australian Government · Department of Industry
The national body established to assess and respond to risks from advanced AI, and to coordinate Australia’s role in international safety efforts.
Gradient Institute · Resources
Practical explainers and training from the non-profit research institute where Tiberio Caetano is Chief Scientist, on building AI systems that behave safely and ethically.
