Trust Forward

About Trust Forward

Trust is one of the strangest things about being human. It's completely invisible, entirely made up, and yet it holds all of society together. Every time you hand over cash, cross the road, or click "buy," you're taking a small leap of faith that the whole system will hold. These are systems we've quietly built to make life with strangers possible. But trust is fragile, it has to be maintained or it breaks, and throughout history we've repeatedly had to rebuild it. That's what this series is about: trust, making it and breaking it. Over six episodes, anthropologist and archaeologist Mary-Ann Ochota talks to some of the world's sharpest minds, from poker players and astrophysicists to mafia experts and cryptographers, tracing how trust has evolved from the invention of money and the Scientific Revolution, through conmen, pirates and spies, to gossip and today's digital world. Beneath every story sits the same question: how do we build the invisible agreements that hold society together, and how do we decide what, and who, to believe? Trust Forward is a podcast from Sumsub, AI powered trust infrastructure for compliance operations at scale, made in collaboration with This is Distorted. Every story here is a version of the same problem playing out in a different era. Today it plays out online, in the moment a business decides whether to trust a stranger on the other side of a screen. That's the problem Sumsub exists to solve. CREDITS From Sumsub and This Is Distorted Presented by Mary-Ann Ochota Written, produced, and sound designed by Anna Staufenberg, This Is Distorted Assistant Producer is Sian Heron, This Is Distorted Additional Mixing by Amy Thomson Executive Producer is Alex Jungius, This Is Distorted Executive Producer is Anna Brusnik, Sumsub Visual identity and launch creative - Zhanna Stegalina and Georgy Slavin-Rudakov, Sumsub Trust Forward Homepage: https://trustforward.sumsub.com/ (https://trustforward.sumsub.com/) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

Publisher

Sumsub

Category

history · science · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

14 Aug 2026

Latest episode

10 Nov 2026

Latest episodes

2 of 7 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   10 Nov 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Trust in the Artificial Age

   Host Mary-Ann Ochota interviews Professor Crystal Abidin, Bruce Schneier, and Professor Sophie Scott about navigating trust in an AI-driven world and its impact on human connection.

2. 

   27 Oct 2026TRANSCRIPT

   The Gossip Machine

   Host Mary-Ann Ochota interviews Professor Sophie Scott, Tom Standage, and Cathy O’Neil about how gossip evolved as a social technology and its modern algorithmic implications.

3. 

   13 Oct 2026

   The Code of the Underworld

   Host Mary-Ann Ochota interviews pirate historian Rebecca Simon and criminologist Federico Varese about the enforced codes of trust within criminal organizations, revealing how loyalty is built and maintained.

4. 

   29 Sept 2026

   The Art Of The Con

   Host Mary-Ann Ochota interviews writer Maria Konnikova and Professor Sophie Scott about the psychology behind confidence tricks and why humans are wired to believe.

5. 

   15 Sept 2026

   Trust Me, I’m a Scientist

   Host Mary-Ann Ochota interviews journalist Angela Saini, astrophysicist Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, and cognitive neuroscientist Professor Sophie Scott about historical and psychological barriers to scientific trust.

6. 

   1 Sept 2026

   Money Is A Made-Up Thing

   Host Mary-Ann Ochota interviews cryptographer Bruce Schneier and cognitive neuroscientist Professor Sophie Scott about the historical and psychological foundations of trust in money.

7. 

   14 Aug 2026

   Trust Forward - A History Podcast - Coming September 1st

   Anthropologist Mary-Ann Ochota interviews industry experts about the evolution and fragility of trust throughout history, revealing how societies build invisible agreements.

Inside a recent episode

Trust in the Artificial Age

Published 10 Nov 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] However, that gets boring really, really fast. So platforms are also relying on us to bring other interests into these spaces. What are we curious about? What rabbit holes are we falling into? And increasingly, there's a particular group of people who know exactly how to lead us down those rabbit holes. […]

Who has been a guest on Trust Forward

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Crystal Abidin
• Bruce Schneier
• Cathy O’Neil
• Sophie Scott
• Tom Standage

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.8 / 5

17 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

4 ratings

Contact Trust Forward

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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Questions about Trust Forward