Welcome to Singularity 1 on 1

Singularity 1 on 1 is a series of podcast interviews with the best scientists, writers, entrepreneurs, film-makers, journalists, philosophers and artists, debating the technological singularity.

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Karl Schroeder: The Singularity is an Old Idea. Keep Moving Forward!

by Socrates
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Karl Schroeder is one of those fantastic science fiction authors and futurists who, despite his numerous and profound books, have not quite made it into the mainstream yet. In fact, it was just a week ago that Eric Boyd emailed me to suggest that I interview Karl on Singularity 1 on 1 and I was skeptically struggling to figure out who Schroeder is, why I’ve never heard of him before and why he would be a good interview subject. Little did I know that Karl Schroeder will turn out to be one of the smartest and most enjoyable interviewees I have ever had on the show. He not only managed to challenge and stimulate me intellectually but also provided alternative lenses that I can now use when looking at the world and thinking about the future. I can honestly admit that it took [...]

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John Smart on Singularity 1on1: Accelerating Change Isn’t Slowing Down

by Socrates
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Yesterday I interviewed John Smart on Singularity 1 on 1. Among many other things John is an advisor in Futures Studies and Forecasting for Singularity University where I met him last summer. He is also one of those rare people who are (literary) Smart since birth and totally justify the name. So it was no surprise that I learned a lot during our one-hour-long conversation and I hope you can learn from him too. During our discussion with John we cover a wide variety of topics such as: the Foresight Education and Research Network (FERN); planning and creating your personal and professional future; the story of how John got interested in futurism and technology; his Acceleration Studies Foundation as well as the meaning of accelerating change; his totally fascinating idea of STEM compression; the Barrow scale vs the Kardashev scale; cosmology, [...]

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Singularity 1 on 1: Randal Koene on the Ethics of Mind Uploading

by Socrates
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This is my second interview with Dr. Randal Koene for Singularity 1 on 1. Dr. Koene is perhaps one of the world’s foremost neuroscientists. He is director of analysis at Halcyon Molecular, co-founder of Carbon Copies and co-founder of and director at the Neural Engineering Corporation of Massachusetts. Randal’s research objective is whole brain emulation, creating the large-scale high-resolution representations and emulations of activity in neuronal circuitry that are needed in patient-specific neuroprostheses. During our first interview Dr. Koene argued that Mind Uploading Is Not Science Fiction and gave a general overview of his personal and professional background as well as the challenges in working on whole brain emulation. This time around I wanted to focus our conversation primarily on the ethics of mind uploading so we cover topics such as: ethical dilemmas in whole brain emulation; legal and ethical frameworks and [...]

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James Harvey on Singularity 1 on 1: The Singularity is Just the Tip of the Iceberg

by Socrates
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A couple of days ago I interviewed Australian James Harvey. James is pretty unique among my guests because he was the very first interviewee whose willingness to take a chance on a brand new podcast helped me kick off Singularity 1 on 1. This, however, is not the only thing that makes him different for James is also “a musician, a poet, a mystic and learned observer of Life…” Most notably, in 2009 Harvey published his thought provoking book Singularia: Being at an Edge of Time which was my reason for inviting him the first time. This time around I asked James to share and discuss his unique Both/And point of view of the singularity, which eludes the traditional dichotomy of the struggle of opposites but stresses instead their unity as parts of a whole. In our first conversation two quotes stood out [...]

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Linda MacDonald Glenn on Singularity 1 on 1: Sentience Matters!

by Socrates
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Today I interviewed Prof. Linda MacDonald Glenn on Singularity 1 on 1. Linda is an American bioethicist, healthcare educator, lecturer, consultant, and attorney-at-law. Her academic research encompasses the legal, ethical, and social impact of emerging technologies and “evolving notions of personhood”. During our conversation with Prof. Glenn we discuss a variety of topics such as: the very personal and moving story behind her interest in bioethics;  women in technology; human rights versus sentience rights; the legal differences of being human vs being a “person”; the legal test (or lack thereof) for recognizing personhood; the problems of defining and measuring intelligence. (As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the adapted video interview in full. There is delay between my own video and audio, which are out of sync, but Linda Glenn’s end is very [...]

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David Ferrucci on Singularity 1 on 1: Pursue the Big Challenges

by Socrates
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This Monday I interviewed Dr. David Ferrucci on Singularity 1 on 1. David is the IBM team leader behind Watson – the computer that succeeded in dethroning humanity’s greatest ever jeopardy champion – Ken Jennings. I met both Dr. Ferrucci and Ken Jennings during last year’s Singularity Summit where both of them spoke about Watson and the opportunities and challenges associated with it. It was then and there that I hatched my plan to get David (and Ken) on Singularity 1 on 1. I have to say that I learned a lot from and enjoyed talking to David very much. My favorite quote that I will take away from him is this: “Pursue the big challenges and do the big things that inspire people and make them scratch their heads.” During our conversation with Dr. Ferrucci we also discuss topics [...]

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Vivek Wadhwa: Take What You Know and Do Good

by Socrates
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Last week I interviewed Vivek Wadhwa on Singularity 1 on 1. I met Vivek last summer at Singularity University where he is the VP of accademics and innovation. Vivek is one of those multi-talented and very outspoken people who is never afraid to take the risk and say what they think. He is also a successful entrepreneur and, as a contrarian in the true Socratic fashion, is someone motivated by impact not profit. During our conversation with Vivek we discuss issues such as: the stories behind his becoming (accidental) entrepreneur and an (accidental) SU linchpin; his current position at Singularity University, its structure and the amazing group of people gravitating around it; the convergence of exponential technology and Vivek’s motivation to do good; the pro’s and con’s of being an outspoken contrarian; the bubble in some tech stocks such as GroupOn; his [...]

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David Chalmers on Singularity 1 on 1: We Can Be Rigorous in Thinking about the Future

by Socrates
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Yesterday I interviewed David Chalmers for Singularity 1 on 1. David is one of world’s best known philosophers of mind and thought leaders on consciousness and I was a freshman at the University of Toronto when I first read some of his work. Since then Chalmers has been one of the few philosophers (together with Nick Bostrom) who has written and spoken publicly about the Matrix’ simulation argument and the technological singularity. (See for example David’s presentation at the 2009 Singularity Summit or read his The Singularity: A Philosophical Analysis) During our conversation with David we discuss topics such as: how and why Chalmers got interested in philosophy; his search in answering what he considers to be some of the biggest questions – issues such as the nature of reality, consciousness and artificial intelligence; the fact that academia in general and philosophy [...]

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