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The Minds of Modern AI: Jensen Huang, Yann LeCun, Fei-Fei Li & the AI Vision of the Future | FT Live

Six of the most influential minds in artificial intelligence joined FT Live for an exclusive conversation on how their breakthroughs and the current state of AI are shaping our world.

On 6 November, Jensen Huang, Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton, Fei-Fei Li, Yann LeCun, and Bill Dally spoke with the FT’s AI editor, Madhumita Murgia at the FT Future of AI Summit in London. Together, they reflected on decades of pioneering work — from neural networks to generative AI and discuss the ethical, social, and economic implications of the technology they helped to create.

All six, along with Professor John Hopfield, are recipients of the 2025 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering for their foundational contributions to machine learning and AI.

👉 For more exclusive interviews and agenda-setting conversations with global AI leaders, visit our website: https://ai.live.ft.com/

#ArtificialIntelligence #JensenHuang #GeoffreyHinton #AI #MachineLearning #FTLive #FutureofAI

California Needs Supercities—and We Should Build Them Now

My latest, part of my CA Gov run!

These cities could also confront two of California’s biggest crises: homelessness and housing affordability. We could plan from day one for low-income and permanent supportive housing, integrated into neighborhoods rather than hidden on the margins. Additionally, for young people, who have watched the dream of owning a home slip away, these new cities could offer a real future—places where the middle class can afford to live, not just survive.

Supercities would also allow us to build sustainability into the foundation of urban life. Powered by renewable energy, designed around walkability and transit, and filled with parks, green roofs and cutting-edge architecture, they could show the world that growth and environmental responsibility can coexist. California has always been a leader in innovation. Why not apply that same imagination to how we live?

This isn’t fantasy—it’s pragmatism. California’s housing shortage is measured in millions of units. Fixing that within the current system is nearly impossible. Building new cities from scratch is the cleanest, fastest way to meet the scale of the problem. It would put people to work, attract investment and reignite the sense of purpose that once defined this state.

The choice is simple: stagnation or creation. We can let our cities decay under the weight of overregulation and paralysis, or we can build new ones that embody the California ideal of progress. The state that built Silicon Valley, Hollywood and the Golden Gate Bridge shouldn’t be afraid to build again. Supercities aren’t some futuristic fantasy—they’re the bold, realistic solution California needs to revive its economy, house its people and remind the world what ambition looks like.

Experts warn of wider health impact of tropical cyclones in a warming climate

Beyond direct injuries, exposure to tropical cyclones is associated with higher risks of death across a range of causes including kidney, heart and lung diseases, neuropsychiatric conditions, and diabetes, finds a study published in The BMJ’s climate issue.

Risks were substantially higher in deprived communities and areas that have previously experienced fewer tropical cyclones, suggesting an urgent need to integrate more evidence on into disaster response plans, say the authors.

Tropical cyclones are one of the most devastating and costly extreme weather events, affecting an average of 20.4 million people a year with direct economic losses of US$51.5 billion over the past decade.

How hops produce chiral α-bitter acids that give beer its signature taste

Hops are an essential ingredient in beer brewing and an important economic crop. The female flowers of hops are covered in tiny glandular trichomes that synthesize and store a variety of specialized metabolites, collectively defining the flavor and quality of beer. Terpenes provide the distinctive aroma, xanthohumol has potent antioxidant properties that benefit human health, and α-bitter acids give beer its characteristic bitterness.

The Impact Of Tech On Geopolitics: Why Business Needs To Rethink Risk

#risk #tech #business #geopolitical

Geopolitical tensions and kinetic conflicts can impact both physical security and supply chain stability, as well as overall economic stability. Evolving and often contradictory regulatory environments can create compliance challenges across different jurisdictions. Operating on the home turf of potentially hostile nation-states can increase insider risk, as employees may choose or be compelled to misuse their privileged access to appropriate and exfiltrate sensitive information from the organization. There are also risks that remain agnostic of jurisdiction, such as cyber threats, whether perpetrated by criminals, state-backed actors, or even hacktivists.

Climate intervention may not be enough to save coffee, chocolate and wine

A new study published in Environmental Research Letters reveals that even advanced climate intervention strategies may not be enough to secure the future of wine grapes, coffee and cacao.

These crops are vital to many economies and provide livelihoods for farmers worldwide. However, they are increasingly vulnerable to the effects of . Rising temperatures and changing cause big variations in from year to year, meaning that farmers cannot rely on the stability of their harvest, and their produce is at risk.

The researchers specifically investigated Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) as a way of mitigating climate change in the top grape, coffee and cacao growing regions of western Europe, South America and West Africa. SAI is a hypothetical solar geoengineering method that involves releasing reflective particles into the stratosphere to cool Earth’s surface, mimicking the natural cooling effects of volcanic eruptions.

We could use neutrino detectors as giant particle colliders

There is a limit to how big we can build particle colliders on Earth, whether that is because of limited space or limited economics. Since size is equivalent to energy output for particle colliders, that also means there’s a limit to how energetic we can make them. And again, since high energies are required to test theories that go beyond the standard model (BSM) of particle physics, that means we will be limited in our ability to validate those theories until we build a collider big enough.

But a team of scientists led by Yang Bai at the University of Wisconsin thinks they might have a better idea—use already existing neutrino detectors as a large scale particle collider that can reach energies way beyond what the LHC is capable of. The findings are published on the arXiv preprint server.

Neutrinos are notorious for very weakly interacting with things—there are trillions of them passing through you as you read this sentence. However, put enough matter in their way and eventually a special few will run directly into a proton or electron. The resulting particle spray, which is typically going faster than light in whatever medium the neutrino hits, creates a light known as Cherenkov radiation. But really what causes the Cherenkov radiation are the particles created by what is essentially a giant particle .

Global initiative advances next-generation light sensors based on emerging materials

A global team of experts from academia and industry has joined forces in a landmark Consensus Statement on next-generation photodetectors based on emerging light-responsive materials, which could accelerate innovative applications across health care, smart homes, agriculture, and manufacturing.

Professor Vincenzo Pecunia, head of the Sustainable Optoelectronics Research Group (www.sfu.ca/see/soe), has led this global initiative culminating in the publication of a Consensus Statement in Nature Photonics. Featured on the journal’s cover, the paper provides a unified framework for characterizing, reporting, and benchmarking emerging light-sensing technologies. These guidelines could catalyze the adoption of such sensors across a wide range of applications, enhancing quality of life, productivity, and sustainability.

Light sensors, also known as photodetectors, are devices that convert light into electrical signals. They are at the heart of countless smart devices and represent a valued at over $30 billion, reflecting both their ubiquity and economic significance. Emerging photodetectors—including those based on organic semiconductors, perovskites, , and two-dimensional materials—could take this field even further by enabling ultrathin, flexible, stretchable, and lightweight sensors. These next-generation photodetectors promise lower costs, enhanced performance, and unique functionalities, paving the way for applications that were previously impossible.

Experts feared a disease rebound after COVID-19—it didn’t happen

As the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 stretched on, scientists watched for all sorts of unintended effects, from social to economic to environmental.

But the experts who predict wondered specifically whether other than COVID-19 would surge after the prolonged isolation of the population. Would cause us to have less immunity to common diseases? Would those diseases rebound with deadly consequences?

In a paper published in Science, the University of Georgia’s Tobias Brett and Pejman Rohani explored which infectious diseases were impacted by COVID-19 control measures and, of those, which rebounded. They found airborne diseases were most likely to rebound—but not as much as some feared. Surprisingly, the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases remained low, even long after -era behaviors changed.

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