The first time I met Omer Ozdemir was at my Conversations with the Future book reading when Omer drove more than 4 hours just so he can be there. So when he asked me to do an interview for the Turkish Her-An website I was very happy to do it, even if I was sick with the flu at that time. Her-An is a platform that covers a wide range of popular topics including Transhumanism, Singularity, Advanced Technology, AI, AGI and Venture Capital, and Technology Investing. As Transhumanism and Singularity have evolved into the very center of all these topics, a big part of the articles and interviews in Her-An eventually revolve around Singularity and Transhumanism. You can see the original article published in Turkish or you can watch the video produced by Omer Ozdemir, directed by Mahmut Taşdemir and edited by [...]

Jose Cordeiro, MBA, Ph.D., is an amazing person with endless supplies of energy and optimism. In fact, I have never met a more involved and proactive person than Dr. Cordeiro because he is literally always traveling across the world and is directly involved in a variety of cutting edge fields and projects from Japan and Korea, spanning all over Europe and all the way to South America and Silicon Valley. I honestly have no idea how Jose Cordeiro is able to sustain his restless schedule but it is very clear that he absolutely loves what he does and is incredibly passionate about making the world a better place. So, following his generous invitation to attend the Longevity and Cryonics Summit in Madrid I could not pass such a rare opportunity to interview Dr. Cordeiro in-person. Hope you enjoy this as much [...]

Prof. Lawrence Krauss is a world-famous theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and activist against superstition whom I have dreamed of interviewing for years. So, when we finally booked the date, I feverishly spent a full week reading his last 2 books and watching 20+ hours of his past interviews and documentaries. Alas, I got the flu and didn't manage to sleep at all the last couple of days before the interview. Lawrence, in turn, had a root canal done just the day before. And so I feel that I could have and should have done a much better job of this interview but, as Krauss says, "most experiments fail the first time". Good news is that I will use this as an excuse to ask for another interview. During our 82 min discussion with Lawrence Krauss we cover a variety of interesting topics [...]

A couple of weeks ago, during the last Transhumanist Meetup in Toronto, I did a Conversations with the Future book reading. Basically, I read my book's foreword - the story of how I got to do what I do, as well as the book introduction - what my book is all about, and the epilogue - what people should take away from it. This event would not have happened without the great work of David McFadzean and Agah Bahari as well as meetup space provided by Rangle.IO. Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to Dave Gibson and Billy Jimmy Lee, who took great video and pictures respectively that I can now share with people like you. Hope you enjoy it. As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To [...]

What does a creative writer do that a computer can't? Could an AI have drummed up Hamlet? Artificial Intelligence has come a long way in the last several years, and now the filmmakers behind "Sunspring" have returned with a new short starring David Hasselhoff. Once again, Oscar Sharp who directed the first ever all AI Artificial Intelligence has come a long way in the last several years, and now the filmmakers behind "Sunspring" have returned with a new short starring David Hasselhoff. Once again, Oscar Sharp who directed the first ever all AI movie has teamed up with "Benjamin," an A.I. programmed by Ross Goodwin to write screenplays. This year, they trained four new long short-term memory (LSTM) recurrent neural network models on subtitles from David Hasselhoff's 1980s TV shows, Shakespeare, Golden Age Hollywood films, and Aaron Sorkin. In addition, [...]

Matthew Le Merle is co-founder of Fifth Era and managing partner of Keiretsu Capital, which is the world’s largest angel network and most active US venture investor. Most recently, Le Merle is the author of a new book titled Build Your Fortune in the Fifth Era: How to Prosper in an Age of Unprecedented Innovation. During our 90 min discussion with Matthew we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: who Matthew Le Merle is and the origins of his family name; how he got involved in disruptive innovation first and angel investing later; the difference between angel and venture investors and what entrepreneurs can learn from that; Le Merle's take on the singularity and the coming together of the digital and biotech revolutions; his book Build Your Fortune in the Fifth Era and why the vast majority of people sit [...]

What if your toothbrush is smarter than you? I know, this may sound ridiculous but let us look at the present trends, and you can judge for yourself. In the 19th century, we moved from natural to artificial power. So we took a hand-pump and turned it into an electric pump. A horse carriage and turned it into an automobile. A toothbrush and made an electric one. All those things existed before, but now they were better because of artificial power. Today we are undergoing a similar process. But this time we’re moving from natural to artificial intelligence. So we take a phone and add AI to make a smartphone. We take a watch and make a smart watch. Take a car and make a smart car. And we have smart software, smart appliances, smart buildings, etc. My toothbrush has [...]

If the state is an information structure, then the reason that it has been “computed” using representative government, is because that was a way to enforce rigid, static, computer-like processing. You can have a state without a monopoly on violence. The blockchain is exactly that. In other words, with computers, there is a new medium for running code. Previously that was limited to the human brain, which is why the nation-state evolved. Nick Szabo who coined the word “smart contract” in Formalizing and Securing Relationships on a Public Network (1997) talks about the distinction between “wet code with traditional legal contracts that run in the heads of lawyers”, and dry code that runs in computers. So nation-states use a static, rigid structure, where the government of the state is defined by a monopoly on violence, as a way of enforcing [...]

We've been trying to better our minds for some time. In recent years, folks have flocked to the nootropic marketplace to purchase cognitive enhancement supplements that would sharpen their focus and expand their memory recall. Now, scientists are hard at work to develop technology that would enable us to one-up AI (Artificial Intelligence). While the technology is intended to be microscopic and is quite complicated in nature, the idea is rather simple: Create a fine net that would pick up on our neural signals and shield us from any perceived threat that AI might pose. Nanotechnology is something that is spreading like wildfire among some of the biggest names in cutting-edge scientific development. Ray Kurzweil, one of our leading futurists, has jumped on the nanotech bandwagon, speaking publicly about his intention for there to be nanobots in the not-so-distant-future. But [...]