Future weapons: Tomorrow’s technology

Future weapons: Tomorrow’s technology

Author: Financial Times May 13, 2025 Duration: 30:22

How is defence tech reshaping geopolitics? And what does the battlefield of the future look like? In the final episode of our series on the technological weapons of war, the FT’s innovation editor John Thornhill sits down with the FT’s industry correspondent Sylvia Pfeifer, deputy Beijing bureau chief Ryan McMorrow and US-China correspondent Demetri Sevastopulo. Clips: MCA/Universal Pictures, CCTV, NBC

  

Free to read:

China gains dexterous upper hand in humanoid robot tussle with US 

Buyout groups and VCs ready to play role in Europe’s rearmament 

US ability to defeat China in Taiwan threatened, top Indo-Pacific commander warns 


Tech Tonic is produced by Josh Gabert-Doyon and Persis Love. Edwin Lane is senior producer. Flo Phillips is the executive producer. Manuela Saragosa is the FT’s acting co-head of audio. Original music is by Metaphor Music. Samantha Giovinco and Breen Turner were the sound engineers for this season. This episode is dedicated to our engineer Joseph Salcedo, who tragically passed away last month.


Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.


From the Financial Times, FT Tech Tonic steps beyond the breathless headlines and gadget launches to explore how technology is fundamentally reshaping our lives, economies, and social structures. This isn't just a series about the latest app; it's a deep, considered examination of the forces driving the digital age and their often unintended consequences. Each episode grapples with the complex interplay between innovation and its real-world impact, drawing on the FT's global reporting expertise to provide clarity and context. You'll hear conversations that dissect the power dynamics in Silicon Valley, investigate the ethical dilemmas of artificial intelligence, and explore how entrepreneurship is being redefined across different cultures. The podcast digs into the substance behind the hype, asking whether emerging technologies truly deliver on their promise to improve society or if they introduce new perils we are only beginning to understand. By weaving together threads from technology, business, and culture, the discussions offer a nuanced perspective that challenges simplistic narratives. Tune in for thoughtful analysis that connects the dots between boardroom strategies, algorithmic biases, and the everyday experiences that define our increasingly connected world.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

FT Tech Tonic
Podcast Episodes
Introducing: The Russian Banker [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:44
Who is Sergei Leontiev? To the US asylum system, he’s an exiled Russian banker who was persecuted by the state and forced to flee. To Russia, he’s said to be responsible for massive fraud. On The Russian Banker, a new se…
Peak social media: The future [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 21:17
In the final episode of this Tech Tonic season, FT correspondents weigh in on the trends that will determine the future of social media. From Meta’s Threads to artificial intelligence, we ask how platforms will look and…
Peak social media: Building better platforms [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:00
Can we get rid of the bad bits of social media and keep the good? Is it possible to create a more positive social media experience than the one we get from the platforms that dominate the landscape today? In this episode…
Peak social media: The power of influencers [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:42
Social media today is less about making friends and more about following popular content creators. While those creators are starting to hold some power over the platforms themselves, they’re also looking to become less r…
Peak social media: The debate over young users’ mental health [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:13
There’s a growing feeling that social media is bad for us: bad for society and bad for our wellbeing. That trend has culminated in a new wave of legislation in the United States aiming to address social media’s impact on…
Peak social media: The ads machine [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:05
Mark Zuckerberg used advertising to turn Facebook into the first global social media giant, boasting 3bn users around the world. But today there are questions about the business model that has powered it for the past 15…
Peak social media: Trouble at Twitter [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 29:28
Elon Musk took over Twitter with the promise of promoting free speech and making the loss-making platform profitable again. But his critics say he’s destroying Twitter’s culture and driving it to bankruptcy. How much dan…
Coming soon: Peak social media [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 0:57
Social media platforms have defined our experience of the internet for nearly two decades. But as host Elaine Moore, deputy editor of the FT’s Lex column, outlines in this new six-part season of Tech Tonic, there are sig…
Introducing Behind the Money: Night School [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:23
There’s been a lot of big finance and economics news in 2023. Whether it's stories about rising interest rates, tech industry layoffs or bank runs, it can almost feel like you need an MBA just to make sense of it all. Th…
The quantum revolution: The way the world is [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 23:41
In the final episode of this series, we hear how radical quantum ideas are reshaping our fundamental understanding of the universe. Nobel Prize winner Anton Zeilinger tells the FT’s Madhumita Murgia about the future of t…