The Next Billion Seconds with Mark Pesce

The Next Billion Seconds treats the future as something already pressing against the present. Its best episodes move quickly, but they do not feel weightless. Mark Pesce connects technical change to institutions people rely on: banks, tax offices, workplaces, care systems, transport networks, government departments, and media platforms. AI is a major thread. Recent conversations examine Anthropic, Mythos, OpenAI, Sam Altman, the Pentagon, and the uneasy line between safety research and military use. Security is another recurring pressure point, from quantum threats to encryption to Microsoft holding BitLocker keys that can be handed over to the FBI. The show also watches social trust fray in smaller, stranger ways. AI-generated receipts, deepfake images, social media regulation, and government apps become evidence of systems struggling to keep up with their own tools. Then the frame shifts to aging. The age-tech episodes are more humane than glossy: care work, demographic inversion, tremor-assist devices, green-line canes, exoskeletons, and flexible work all become part of a bigger argument about agency and support. The Next Billion Cars strand brings a looser panel rhythm. Sally Dominguez, Drew Smith, and Mark Pesce argue through hybrids, EV policy, China, Australia, Waymo, vehicle-to-grid power, algae-based fuels, and the messy reality of climate transition. The show can be blunt. It is also practical. It prefers consequences over hype, and it keeps returning to the same question from different directions: when technology accelerates, who gets protected, who adapts, and who is left carrying the risk?