Hollow Echoes: Why AI art will never have a soul with Sean Wolcott

The Future is Feminine: On who gets to imagine the future with Graça Fonseca

What  if we gave ordinary citizens the power to decide how public money is spent? Graça Fonseca did just that. With her pioneering vision, she built the world’s first national participatory budget, helped transform a crisis-era Lisbon into Europe’s entrepreneurial city of the year, and served as Portugal’s Minister of Culture through COVID. Now she’s asking an even bigger question: who gets to imagine the future? In this episode, Ben sits down with Graça Fonseca to trace a throughline from her years in Lisbon’s city government through her time in national office to her current role as Chief Imagination Officer at the Futura Foundation – a Lisbon-based fellowship for young women working on global challenges. Graça’s story is grounded in remarkably concrete examples: a Post-it wall on the Design Museum in downtown Lisbon that turned passersby into urban planners, a playground proposed through a participatory budget that showed a grandmother she could reshape her own neighborhood, a first startup incubator that was literally voted into existence by citizens. What we’re discussing is a philosophy of leadership rooted in trust, care, and a stubborn refusal to get trapped in the present. Graça argues that the most dangerous thing a leader can do – in government or in business – is become so consumed by daily urgencies that they lose the capacity to imagine what comes after. She makes the case for a “minister of the future”, someone unburdened by the status quo and whose job is simply to ask: when this crisis ends, what will people find? Resources & References Futura Foundation [https://www.futurafoundation.org/] — Lisbon-based foundation and fellowship for women under 35 working on global challenges; co-founded by Graça Fonseca and Ruth Shaber Future Tense [https://www.youtube.com/@FuturaxFoundation] – Futura Foundation podcast Patti Smith, “People Have the Power” (1988) — Song referenced by Graça; written by Patti Smith and Fred “Sonic” Smith European Commission Citizens’ Assemblies [https://citizens.ec.europa.eu/] — Graça served on the knowledge committee for the intergenerational fairness panel Sweden’s Minister for Strategy and Future Issues [https://longnow.org/ideas/swedens-minister-of-the-future/] — Kristina Persson, appointed by PM Stefan Löfven; referenced by Graça as precedent Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 [https://futuregenerations.wales/] — Referenced by Graça; Wales was the first country to legislate to protect future generations' interests Connect with Graça Fonseca Website: https://www.futurafoundation.org/ [https://www.futurafoundation.org/] Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fonsecagraca/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/fonsecagraca/] Bio: Graça Fonseca is the Chief Imagination Officer and Co-Founder of Futura Foundation. A social scientist and expert in governance, public policy, social innovation, and participatory democracy, she served as Portugal’s Minister of Culture from 2018–22. During her tenure as Secretary of State for Administrative Modernization from 2015–18, she pioneered the world’s first national-level participatory budget. As Lisbon City Councilor (2009–15), Graça spearheaded the city’s transformation into a leading entrepreneurial hub, developing the Economy and Entrepreneurship Strategy that led to Lisbon being named 2015’s “European Entrepreneurial City of the Year.” She also pioneered the Lisbon Participatory Budget, giving citizens direct decision-making power over municipal investments. In 2023, Fonseca was distinguished as a “Democratic Innovator of the 21st Century” by the Apolitical Foundation for her contributions to participatory democracy and citizen-centered policy development. She teaches and serves as advisor to several national and international organizations focused on arts, democracy, climate, and ensuring a better world for future generations. Graça finds deep purpose in designing the future by bringing people together to work through participatory processes. Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2450427/fan_mail/new] Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/poetsandthinkerspodcast/ Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/poets-thinkers/id1799627484 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4N4jnNEJraemvlHIyUZdww?si=2195345fa6d249fd Send your ideas, feedback and guest recommendations to ben@poetsandthinkers.co

Human Conservationism: On improv, creative play and developing negative capability as leadership practices with Gabriella White

What if the most important thing a leader can (re)learn now is to be silly and playful? In a world obsessed with optimization and yearning for certainty, Gabriella White makes the case for a radically different kind of readiness and skill building in the age of AI: one rooted in play, presence, and the courage to be ordinary. Gabriella is a trained actor turned interdisciplinary creative leader who calls herself a “human conservationist”. A deliberately playful provocation that names something many of us are feeling. Drawing on the German word/concept of “Torschlusspanik”, that gate-closing panic of time running out, she argues we’re in a moment of collective unease that deserves attention, not dismissal. Rather than prescribing answers, through her work she invites people into creative practices – improv theatre, somatic exercises, automatic writing, embodied learning – that build the capacity to sit with uncertainty instead of grasping for false certainties. Ben sits down with Gabriella to trace a line from the Industrial Revolution’s obsession with predictability to today’s AI moment and what she calls “a beyond-human” future. The conversation goes deep into what’s broken about how we train leaders (and people more generally speaking). Since the Industrial Revolution we’ve been trying to compare ourselves to our machines, and now with AI we’ve finally built the version of ourselves we could never become – and we worship it. Together, we explore why the creative process, particularly improv, acts as what one teacher calls “a gym for the heart” – stripping away self-consciousness, perfectionism, and competitiveness to reveal that we already have everything we need. Gabriella’s advice to young people captures the whole conversation in five words: don’t be afraid to be ordinary. Resources & References John Keats / Negative Capability — Concept from Keats’s 1817 letter to his brothers [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_capability]: “being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason” Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet Jacob Collier, multi-instrumentalist and Grammy-winning musician; referenced for his concept of “wiggliness [https://www.ted.com/podcasts/ted.com/podcasts/permission-to-play-with-jacob-collier-transcript]” – the idea that people are born to wiggle but live in a straight-line world Christopher Heimann, improv teacher at RADA [https://www.rada.ac.uk/about-us/acting-teaching-staff/christopher-heimann/], founder of Spacecraft [https://spacecraft.london/], based in Berlin; coined the phrase “a gym for the heart” for improv Maria Montessori — Referenced for the quote “The hands are the instrument of man’s intelligence” from The Absorbent Mind House of Beautiful Business [https://houseofbeautifulbusiness.com/], global network for the life-centered economy, Gabriella oversaw strategic development and experience design Improv Art Club [https://www.humanconservationist.com/], community series founded by Gabriella in Lisbon (2024) exploring improv theatre and blended arts Connect with Gabriella White Website: https://www.humanconservationist.com/ [https://www.humanconservationist.com/] Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriella-white/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriella-white/] Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2450427/fan_mail/new] Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/poetsandthinkerspodcast/ Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/poets-thinkers/id1799627484 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4N4jnNEJraemvlHIyUZdww?si=2195345fa6d249fd Send your ideas, feedback and guest recommendations to ben@poetsandthinkers.co

Hollow Echoes: Why AI art will never have a soul with Sean Wolcott

What happens to art when the systems designed to replicate it at mass can’t actually feel anything? In this conversation, Ben sits down with designer-turned-composer Sean Wolcott who draws a sharp lines between technology, knowledge and lived human experience – and makes the case that no amount of computation can bridge the gap. Sean has lived at the intersection of visual art, design, and music for over three decades. From early days making cassette tape artwork in high school to shaping Microsoft’s design language as a principal designer, he’s consistently followed his creative instincts wherever they led. A student of legendary designer Massimo Vignelli and a lifelong musician, Sean has spent the last several years building a recording studio in Everett, Washington: a 2,000-square-foot space modeled on the analog recording environments of the 1960s and ’70s that no longer exist. The result: 10 albums in three years, made with real musicians playing real instruments. The conversation gets into what Sean calls the “hall of mirrors”, a tech landscape obsessed with valuation bubbles and AI products being crammed into every corner of creative life. He’s blunt about what he sees: Spotify promoting artificial artists, AI tools that amount to “a pink meat paste of sonic okayness,” and a race to the bottom that insults the people who’ve spent their lives developing craft. But he’s not pessimistic. Sean argues there will always be a niche for work made by humans with care. At its core, this is a conversation about why lived experience is what makes art meaningful, why the process of making art can’t be separated from the art itself, and what it means to trust your own path in a world that keeps trying to streamline and automate it away. Resources & References Sean’s Studio: Soundview Analog Recorders [https://www.seanwolcott.com/studio] Oliver Jeffers’ Dipped Painting Project [https://oliverjeffers.com/art/the-dipped-painting-project] Ben’s article: Authentically Human [https://benediktlehnert.substack.com/p/authentically-human] Connect with Sean Wolcott Website: https://www.seanwolcott.com/ [https://www.seanwolcott.com/] Bio: Sean Wolcott is a Seattle-based composer, producer, and recording engineer whose music blends jazz, funk, soul, and soundtrack-inspired sounds. Drawing deep influence from 1970s aesthetics and classic film scores, his work merges cinematic storytelling with rich musicality — earning him a growing audience of listeners around the globe. Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2450427/fan_mail/new] Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/poetsandthinkerspodcast/ Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/poets-thinkers/id1799627484 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4N4jnNEJraemvlHIyUZdww?si=2195345fa6d249fd Send your ideas, feedback and guest recommendations to ben@poetsandthinkers.co

Make Doing Good Look Good: On designing for belonging, moral ambition and the pitfalls of privilege with Harald Dunnink

Can designing a movement get the smartest people to work on the biggest problems instead of disappearing into what one author calls “the Bermuda Triangle of talent”: consulting, tech, and banking? In this episode, Ben sits down with Harald Dunnink, designer, serial co-founder, and advocate for moral ambition. Harald founded Momkai, a Dutch design agency “for people who give a damn,” co-founded De Correspondent (a member-funded journalism platform on a mission for “unbreaking news”), and most recently launched the School for Moral Ambition with bestselling author Rutger Bregman. Harald’s design philosophy centers, as he describes, on “making doing good look as good as possible” – using the same branding and marketing tools that sell sneakers and energy drinks to instead sell noble causes. He challenges the extractive mindset of traditional business with what he calls “memberful design” – designing not for users to be hooked, but for members to belong. Through his work he tries to combine the idealism of an activist with the ambition of an entrepreneur. This is a conversation about the difference between being radically hopeful and being called naive. About the role privilege plays in being able to choose morally ambitious work, and how to redefine success when everyone around you follows the same maximalist capitalistic playbook. Resources & References Momkai: https://momkai.com/ [https://momkai.com/]  School for Moral Ambition: https://schoolformoralambition.org/ [https://schoolformoralambition.org/]  Small Fry by Lisa Brennan-Jobs  Humankind by Rutger Bregman  Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman  The Good-Enough Life by Avram Alpert  Connect with Harald Dunnink LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haralddunnink/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/haralddunnink/] Bio: Harald is a designer and serial co-founder who describes his philosophy as “cultivating calm and designing for belonging”. He founded Momkai, a Dutch design agency, working with international clients from Nike to Red Bull before pivoting to use those branding tools for social good. Harald also co-founded The Correspondent, a member-funded journalism platform for as he says “unbreaking news,” which also became a publishing house with nearly 30 bestselling books. Most recently, he co-founded the School for Moral Ambition with bestselling author Rutger Bregman, focusing on the biggest, most neglected, yet fixable problems. Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2450427/fan_mail/new] Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/poetsandthinkerspodcast/ Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/poets-thinkers/id1799627484 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4N4jnNEJraemvlHIyUZdww?si=2195345fa6d249fd Send your ideas, feedback and guest recommendations to ben@poetsandthinkers.co

For The Culture: On beauty, AI slop, and what lasts when software companies die with Andy Allen

What if the best business advice ever came from a five-year-old: “I think you should add some googly eyes and rainbow colors!” In this episode, Ben sits down with Andy Allen, co-founder of Not Boring Software, 2 times Apple Design Award winner, and former co-founder of the groundbreaking startup FiftyThree – makers of the Paper app and Pencil stylus.  Andy challenges the dominant narrative of software design: While the industry has matured and systematized around efficiency and automation over the last 30+ years, he argues we've lost the cultural impact, the playfulness, the human expression that makes software worth making. As he draws parallels to fashion and industrial design, Andy reveals why software designers have no heroes to look up to – only billionaires – and why that's a problem. His students at the University of Washington taught him to remember why he became a designer in the first place: not to optimize conversion funnels, but to make things that matter. This is a conversation about slowing down and embracing play. Resources & References For The Culture (Andy’s manifesto): https://notbor.ing/words/for-the-culture [https://notbor.ing/words/for-the-culture] Not Boring: https://notbor.ing/ [https://notbor.ing/] FiftyThree launches Pencil: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/19/fiftythree-paper-pencil-ipad-stylus [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/19/fiftythree-paper-pencil-ipad-stylus] Connect with Andy Allen Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewsallen/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewsallen/] Bio: Andy Allen is the Alaskan-born, founder of !Boring Software Ltd creating fun software for life's boring routines (2x Apple Design Awards). Co-Founder of FiftyThree and the popular drawing app, Paper (acquired). Adjunct Professor of Software Design at the University of Washington's School of Art. Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2450427/fan_mail/new] Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/poetsandthinkerspodcast/ Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/poets-thinkers/id1799627484 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4N4jnNEJraemvlHIyUZdww?si=2195345fa6d249fd Send your ideas, feedback and guest recommendations to ben@poetsandthinkers.co