Cognitive Engineering

What determines how we respond to approaching threats like moving objects or approaching deadlines? Fraser, Nick and Peter explore how we detect oncoming danger and how that response drives anxiety, fear and procrastination.The conversation begins with locusts watching Star Wars, then moves from collision avoidance to the way humans judge threats. Along the way, the team discusses why diaries can make future obligations feel closer, the time-as-distance metaphor, whether making a deadline feel urgent actually helps and how an endlessly rising sound can create a sense that something is about to happen.Rind and Simmons describe what happens when locusts watch Star Wars: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1479436/Sharp Edge Eye Syndrome: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9675685/Threat imminence and the periaqueductal grey: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17717184/Threatening students seem closer than repulsive students: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23160204/This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp

Did Mark Zuckerberg build one of the world's greatest companies through extraordinary skill, or was he simply in the right place at the right time? Using Meta's $77 billion Metaverse gamble as a starting point, Fraser, Nick, and Peter explore one of the most important questions in business, sport and life: how do we distinguish luck from skill?The conversation ranges from chess and noughts-and-crosses, to Napoleon, David Bowie, Kubrick, Elon Musk and Einstein, examining whether repeated success is the strongest evidence of genuine ability. Along the way, the hosts discuss probability, decision-making under uncertainty, why outcomes alone can be misleading and whether "business genius" is often just survivorship bias in disguise.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp

As large language models become a routine part of office life, a curious workflow is emerging: people ask AI to expand a handful of bullet points into polished reports or emails, only for someone else to ask AI to summarise them back into bullet points.In this episode, Fraser, Nick and Peter ask whether this middle step still serves a purpose, or whether we're witnessing the beginning of the end for traditional written reports. The discussion explores how information is compressed and decompressed, why summaries inevitably lose nuance, and whether AI can sometimes add genuinely useful context rather than simply padding out prose. They also examine the role of language itself, asking whether future communication might move beyond text altogether towards highly personalised, AI-mediated experiences.Along the way they discuss information theory, business communication, the limits of human attention, visual communication, the relationship between language and thought, and some speculative visions of how humans might communicate with AI in the future.YouGov survey - 'How are Britons using AI at work?'Bit rate of spoken languageSpeed of human thoughtBloom's 'Two Sigma' problemThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp

"Fake it till you make it" is one of the most repeated pieces of career advice, but does it actually work? In this episode, the team explores the origin of the idea, when it genuinely helps people succeed, and where it crosses the line into deception or outright fraud. From Arnold Schwarzenegger, Richard Branson and Steven Spielberg to Elizabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried, they examine the fine line between confidence, ambition and dishonesty.Along the way they discuss why some professions are surprisingly easy to "fake" while others expose incompetence almost immediately, the psychology behind behavioural activation and imposter syndrome, and why genuine expertise still matters. The conversation concludes with a practical framework for deciding when projecting confidence is useful, and and when you're better off simply doing the work.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp

Elon Musk has become the world's first trillionaire. But is this simply the result of inflation and economic growth, or does it signal that we're entering a new era of wealth creation?In this episode, Nick, Peter and Fraser ask whether today's extraordinary fortunes are genuinely unprecedented or simply the latest point on a centuries-long trend. Along the way they unpack the difference between nominal and real wealth, ask who history's first 'real' billionaire might have been, and examine how technological revolutions have created new extremes of wealth.The conversation then broadens into a discussion about exponential growth, artificial intelligence and the future of capitalism. As AI increasingly replaces cognitive labour, could wealth become concentrated in the hands of those who own the technology rather than those who work? If so, what happens to employment, economic growth and the social contract?SpaceX acquires CursorFirst dollar millionaire - John Jacob AstorFirst dollar billionaire - John D RockefellerHolden Karnofsky, 'The Most Important Century'Thomas Young, 'The Last Man Who Knew Everything'This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp