The next decade will be shaped by intelligent systems and the people who choose how they are built and governed.
BASELINE is a long-form conversation series with founders, academic, policymakers, and operators working at the frontier of AI and digital systems.
These conversations surface judgement, intent, and lived experience - helping you orient yourself for what comes next.
**NEW** For leadership teams, that same work also informs a fixed-scope BASELINE Execution Sprint, designed to turn organisational insight into clear, executable decisions.
Watch. Listen. Engage with intent.
The Incentive Trap Beneath AI - John Fletcher
We thought decentralisation would protect value. Bitcoin promised credible neutrality, but incentives reshaped it. Liquidity won. Ideology lost. In this conversation, John Fletcher explains why proof-of-work security models are structurally fragile, how Tether quietly undermined the neutrality of Bitcoin, and why incentive design always dominates belief systems.
Then the discussion turns to AI. Large language models already contain the world’s written knowledge, but they do not yet fully possess tacit human intuition. The strategic hints, transferable heuristics, and instinctive course corrections that live inside experts are now being extracted through everyday interaction. The game theory is uncomfortable: opt out and fall behind, or opt in and help train the system that may replace you.
Subscribe to BASELINE for long-form conversations exploring AI, creativity, and human intelligence.
When Intelligence Stops Being Scarce - Dr Asieh Tabaghdehi, PhD
Modern economies were built on a simple assumption: intelligence, expertise, and judgement were scarce.
That assumption no longer holds. In this conversation, economist S Asieh Tabaghdehi, PhD explores how AI is reshaping labour markets, destabilising human capital, and quietly breaking the assumptions modern economies were built on.
We discuss why entry-level knowledge work is being replaced first, why skills and credentials no longer offer the protection people expect, and why education systems and institutions are structurally unable to keep pace with the speed of AI capability.
Subscribe to BASELINE for long-form conversations exploring AI, creativity, and human intelligence.
The invisible Architecture of Power - Esra Kasapoglu
Artificial intelligence is no longer a distant concept or a laboratory experiment. It is embedded in our interfaces, shaping how we think, decide and act. In this episode of BASELINE, I sit down with Esra Kasapoglu to explore what happens when knowledge becomes abundant, agency becomes distributed, and AI moves from being a tool to becoming what she calls a “cognitive prosthetic.”
We discuss how generative AI is reshaping power structures inside corporations, governments and everyday life. If everyone now has access to knowledge, where does real power sit? Who designs the incentives that shape behaviour? And what does it actually mean for a country to become an “AI superpower”?
Drawing on her experience building national AI capability at Innovate UK and working at the intersection of funding, regulation and enterprise transformation, Esra unpacks the invisible architecture that now underpins decision-making.
Subscribe to BASELINE for long-form conversations exploring AI, creativity, and human intelligence.
AI Writes Code. Humans Design Control - Ying Chan
In this episode of BASELINE, Ian speaks with Ying Chan, CTO of The Innovation Game. As AI accelerates software development, much of the conversation focuses on speed. But speed does not make systems resilient. Incentives do. The Innovation Game is a protocol designed to incentivise the development of state-of-the-art algorithms through open participation. Innovators submit code. Benchmarkers evaluate performance. Incentives shape behaviour.
The strongest solutions emerge. Ying explains why AI-generated code is a powerful tool for first-pass execution, but not a substitute for strategic thinking or adversarial design. While models can interpolate from existing knowledge, pushing the frontier still requires human judgment, intuition, and carefully aligned incentives. This conversation explores why real systems must be designed for worst-case behaviour, how AI accelerates output but not necessarily insight, why protocol design matters more than product features, and how The Innovation Game aligns incentives to drive meaningful innovation.
As execution becomes cheaper, incentive design becomes more important. Technology accelerates. Incentives decide what survives.
Subscribe to BASELINE for long-form conversations exploring AI, creativity, and human intelligence.
I Didn’t Expect AI to Save So Much Money - Rob Paton
For a long time, creativity, marketing, and software were separate, outsourced functions. AI is collapsing those boundaries. In this conversation with independent brand consultant and creative Rob Paton, we explore what changes when execution becomes fast, cheap, and accessible to everyone. We talk about why traditional agency models are under pressure, why creativity still matters but shows up differently, and how AI-assisted tools are shifting work in-house.
From branding and production to custom software and “vibe coding,” this episode looks at what happens when teams can build directly instead of buying capability. We also ground the discussion in a real case study from a heating installation business, showing how AI-assisted tools can remove bottlenecks, reduce cost, and change how decisions get made.
Subscribe to BASELINE for long-form conversations exploring AI, creativity, and human intelligence.
How Your Values and Identity Hold Up in an AI Influenced World - Professor Kevin Money
AI is influencing how we work, how we communicate and how we make decisions. But the deeper change is personal. It affects our values, our identity and the stories we tell ourselves about who we are. In this episode, Professor Kevin Money explores how identity is formed, why it feels fragile during rapid change and what helps people stay grounded in an AI influenced world.
Kevin is a behavioural scientist and Co-Director of the John Madejski Centre for Reputation at Henley Business School. His research focuses on identity, reputation, motivation, trust and responsible leadership. He advises the UK Government, global businesses and nonprofit organisations on how people think, feel and act.
This conversation looks at the psychology behind identity, emotional labour, belonging and the impact of trauma. It also considers how AI amplifies uncertainty and what we can do to stay anchored to our values while the world around us changes.
Artificial Intelligence: Utopia or dystopia?
Why Low Earth Orbit Is Becoming Dangerous - Bianca Cefalo
Low Earth Orbit is getting crowded, chaotic and harder to manage. In this episode, Space DOTS founder Bianca Cefalo explains why satellites are failing, why 90 percent of orbital anomalies have no known cause, and how space weather and hidden threats are reshaping the environment above Earth.
We explore the reality of Kessler syndrome, rapid material degradation, non kinetic attacks and why current data is no longer enough. This is the intelligence layer we need for the next decade of space operations.
Artificial Intelligence: Utopia or dystopia?
The Algorithmic Leap | AI, Innovation, and the Rules of the Game - Dr John Fletcher
In BASELINE052, Ian Smith sits down with Dr John Fletcher an Oxford, Imperial, and Cambridge-trained physicist and Chief Scientist at The Innovation Game. John is not just a world-class academic - he’s a rare innovator who bridges the gap between research and real-world impact.
At The Innovation Game, he is building technology that creates genuine competitive advantage, not just another layer of AI hype. His work proves how algorithms can solve critical problems in logistics, medicine, and science showing that the future of AI is about application, not buzzwords.
Artificial Intelligence: Utopia or dystopia?