What are the questions we should be asking of the radically new and rapidly accelerating technologies that we are all living with now? Where are the possibilities? What are we hungry for? Where are the challenges and dangers? What are our responsibilities as care-givers, parents, educators and policy makers? How are we creating opportunities for our young people to really connect with themselves, with each other and with the world; to develop their own perceptual and relational capacities? This week’s episode is a wonderful reflective space exploring these profound questions with Nora Bateson, Zak Stein and Olli-Pekka Heinonen.
This episode begins with a dialogue between Nora, Zak and Olli-Pekka, which was recorded as part of the Warm Data Lab Host training online earlier this year. The second part of this episode is then a dialogue that Nora, Zak and I shared on the way in which warm data is meeting many of the challenges being raised now by the ubiquitousness of advanced artificial intelligence in our young people’s lives and learning, as well as the very exciting ideas being shared by Nora, from her father Gregory Bateson’s work on ‘second order teaching’, being published in a new book edited by Phillip Guddemi, entitled Gregory Bateson's 'Ecology of Mind': The Course.
Nora Bateson is the Founder and President of the International Bateson Institute (https://batesoninstitute.org/) and currently serves as President of the International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR). Nora is the author of Small Arcs of Larger Circles (2016), and Combining (2023), both published by Triarchy Press. Nora also wrote, directed and produced the award-winning documentary, An Ecology of Mind, a portrait of her father, Gregory Bateson: http://www.anecologyofmind.com/.
Nora’s new book Belly is launching the same day that this episode is released, July 19th 2026, at a special event in London! You can find out more here: https://www.warmdata.life/belly-book-launch-2026. And you can pre-order a copy of the book here: https://www.triarchypress.net/belly.html. You can also find out more about Warm Data Lab Host training here: https://www.warmdata.life/wdtraining
Also check out Ep116 'Warm Data in Education' (Sept '23).
Dr. Zak Stein (https://www.zakstein.org/) is a philosopher of education, psychologist, futurist, and author. He is a founding member of the AI Psychological Research Coalition, The Civilization Research Institute and the The Consilience Project (a publication of the CRI), with Daniel Schmachtenberger. Zak is also co-founder of Lectica, Inc. (with Dr. Theo Dawson), and the Center for World Philosophy and Religion.
Zak is the author of Social Justice and Educational Measurement and Education in a Time Between Worlds: Essays on the Future of Schools, Technology, and Society.
Also check out Ep106 'The Philosopher and the Neuroscientist (with Mary Helen Immordino-Yang)' (May '23).
Olli-Pekka Heinonen is a Finnish political leader, educator, and Director General of the International Baccalaureate (IB). He served as Finland’s Minister of Education and Science and later as State Secretary to the Prime Minister, before becoming Director General of the Finnish National Agency for Education. At the IB, he leads a global education organisation that reaches 2 million students annually in more than 160 countries. It is known for its rigorous programmes and its mission to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people. He is the author of the recently published and very popular book: Learning as If Life Depended on It: Why We Must See the World Anew, and Figure Out What Follows, published by Perspectiva Press (find out more here: https://www.opheinonen.com/)
Also check out Ep41 'On Leading a Learning System' (March 2021) and Ep212 ‘Learning as If Life Depended on It’ (October 2025).
