Kevin Kelly

Kevin Kelly on The Inevitable: 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future

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Kevin KellyThe Inevitable book cover has been a high profile maverick of both silicon valley and technology in general for the past 35 years. Some of his books have gained not just a best-seller status but a near-cult following in places like China. Popular personalities such as Tim Ferriss have called Kelly “the most interesting man in the world.” Thus I was very excited to have Kevin back on my podcast and discuss his latest book The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Tech Forces That Will Shape Our Future.

During our 90 min discussion with Kevin Kelly we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: why he thinks of himself as a sharer and packager of ideas; his Amish style beard; singular vs pluralist views of the future; the singularity and myth-making; what we can learn about technology from the Amish and his prediction about farm-land-ownership in the next 150 years; his 3 most important lessons about life in general, technology and ethics; his last two books What Technology Wants  and The Inevitable; whether technological evolution is inevitable and teleological or not; determinism and free will; Moore’s Law; the process of cognifying and why there is no such thing as general purpose intelligence; the dangers posted by AI; protopia, dystopia and utopia; the importance of asking questions…

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation or become a patron on Patreon.

Who is Kevin Kelly?

Kevin Kelly (2)Kevin Kelly is Senior Maverick at Wired magazine. He co-founded Wired in 1993, and served as its Executive Editor for its first seven years. He is also founding editor and co-publisher of the popular Cool Tools website, which has been reviewing tools daily since 2003. From 1984-1990 Kelly was publisher and editor of the Whole Earth Review, a journal of unorthodox technical news. He co-founded the ongoing Hackers’ Conference, and was involved with the launch of the WELL, a pioneering online service started in 1985. His books include the best-selling New Rules for the New Economy, the classic book on decentralized emergent systems, Out of Control, a graphic novel about robots and angels, The Silver Cord, an oversize catalog of the best of Cool Tools, and his summary theory of technology in What Technology Wants (2010). His new book for Viking/Penguin is called The Inevitable.

Kevin Kelly: Technology Doesn’t Want A Singularity

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Today’s podcast episode features prominent author, maverick technologist, and regular TED speaker Kevin Kelly. Kevin just published a new book called What Technology Wants. Seth Godin blogged about it and called it The Book Of The Year because, in Seth’s opinion, “if there’s justice, it will win the Pulitzer Prize.” Steven Johnson called it the anti-Unabomber manifesto.

After such endorsements, I could not help but buy and read the book myself. Having done so, I have to say that I agree with both of the above ratings. In my opinion, What Technology Wants is perhaps the most optimistic, coherent, beautiful, and poetic defense of technology. It provides unique depth and breadth of its techno-analysis together with an altogether new theory of the evolution and interplay of both technology and biology (and Homo Sapiens). (In some ways, it may arguably serve as the unofficial prequel to Ray Kurzweil‘s The Singularity Is Near.)

During our 45-minute conversation, I got Kevin to share his thoughts on technology in general and his book in particular, but also other topics such as religion, the Unabomber, artificial intelligence, the technological singularity, and the omega point. You can listen to or download the audio podcast above or scroll down and watch the YouTube videos of our conversation below. Unfortunately, after the 6th minute of our discussion, our Skype video feed gets interrupted, and the video becomes choppy and out-of-sync with the audio. While this problem persists until the end of the interview, the sound is excellent. I believe there is a lot of value in listening to or watching what Kevin has to say, even while the Technium is trying to sabotage his message. The good news is that in due time I may use this technical issue as an excuse to get Kevin for another interview.

Who is Kevin Kelly?

Kevin Kelly is Senior Maverick at Wired magazine. He co-founded Wired in 1993 and served as its Executive Editor from its inception until 1999. His most recent book called What Technology Wants was published on October 18, 2010. Kevin is also editor and publisher of the Cool Tools website, which gets half a million unique visitors per month. From 1984-1990 Kelly was publisher and editor of the Whole Earth Review, a journal of unorthodox technical news. He co-founded the ongoing Hackers’ Conference and was involved with the launch of the WELL, a pioneering online service started in 1985. He authored the best-selling New Rules for the New Economy and the classic book on decentralized emergent systems, Out of Control.

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Kevin Kelly At TED: What Technology Wants

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Kevin Kelly just published a new book called What Technology Wants. I have been planning to buy it ever since I heard he was writing another book but after Seth Godin called it The Book Of The Year and said that “if there’s justice it will win the Pulitzer prize,” I just couldn’t wait and ordered it online.

In the meantime, I decided to watch and post some of the most interesting TED videos that Kelly did during the last several years. The 3 videos bellow were shot in 2 year intervals (from 2006 to 2010) and represent a chronological progression of Kevin’s quest to answer the titular question of his book. I recommend you watch them in order or, if you really don’t have the time, skip to the very last one.

Kevin Kelly’s Profile on TED:

Perhaps there is no one better to contemplate the meaning of cultural change — bad? good? too slow? too bold? — than Kevin Kelly, whose life story reads like a treatise on the value of technology. Whether by renouncing all material things save his bicycle (which he then rode 3,000 miles), founding an organization (the All-Species Foundation) to catalog all life on earth, or by touting new gadgets in WIRED, Kelly hasn’t stopped exploring the phenomena of technical and biological creation.

In articles for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, among others, he has celebrated scientific breakthroughs, and at the Long Now Foundation, where he serves on the board, he champions projects that look 10,000 years into the future. One such project is the Rosetta Project, which will catalogue more than 1,000 languages on a disks to be placed nearby the 10,000 Year Clock. Kelly’s newest book What Technology Wants asks what appears to be his life’s core question: “How should I think about new technology when it comes along?”

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