singularity podcast

Douglas Rushkoff: Program or be Programmed

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Today I have Douglas Rushkoff as my guest at Singularity Podcast and we discuss a variety of topics such as his most recent book Program or Be Programmed, the impact of modern media and social networking, technology in general, and the technological singularity in particular.

Who is Douglas Rushkoff?

Douglas Rushkoff is an author, teacher, and documentarian who focuses on the ways people, cultures, and institutions create, share, and influence each other’s values. He teaches media studies at New York University, serves as a technology columnist for The Daily Beast, and lectures around the world.

Rushkoff’s new book, Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age, is a follow-up to his Frontline documentary Digital Nation. His previous book was called Life Inc. was also made into a short, award-winning film.

Douglas has ten best-selling books on new media and popular culture which have been translated to over thirty languages. They include titles such as Cyberia, Media Virus!, Nothing Sacred, Get Back in the Box, and Coercion. He has written and hosted three award-winning Frontline documentaries – The Merchants of Cool, The Persuaders, and most recently, Digital Nation.

John Horgan On The End Of Science

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It was an interesting and enriching contrast to have John Horgan as my guest at Singularity Podcast. Following Jason Silva‘s super impassioned and optimistic defense of the singularity, accompanied by Jason’s belief that humanity will eventually conquer death and accomplish immortality,  it was intellectually stimulating to discuss the opposite point of view.

John is perhaps the best-known critic of both Ray Kurzweil and the technological singularity, and in the spirit of Singularity Symposium, I invited him to present some of his views and criticisms here at Singularity Weblog.

As always, Socrates asks the questions, my guests such as John and Jason provide their answers, and then you make up your mind on your own. (That is not to say that I don’t have an opinion of my own for I clearly do. It is just that I don’t think you must put that much value in it really…)

Who is John Horgan?

Singularity 1on1: John Horgan On The End Of Science from Nikola Danaylov on Vimeo.

John Horgan is a science journalist and Director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology at Hoboken, New Jersey. A former senior writer at Scientific American, he has also written for The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and many other publications around the world. Currently, John writes the Cross-check Blog for Scientific American, does video chats for Bloggingheads.tv, and writes a column for BBC Knowledge.

Many of John’s publications have received international coverage, including front-page reviews and news articles. His first book The End Of Science: Facing The Limits Of Knowledge In The Twilight Of The Scientific Age was a bestseller translated into 13 languages. His follow up The Undiscovered Mind: How the Human Brain Defies Replication, Medication, and Explanation was a finalist for the 2000 British Mind Book of the Year and has been translated into eight languages.

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Aubrey de Grey: Longevity Escape Velocity May Be Closer Than We Think

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Last week I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Aubrey de Grey. He is a world famous and controversial author and theoretician in the field of gerontology and is currently serving as a chief science officer at the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) foundation.

During his interview for singularity podcast, Dr. de Grey shared his views on a wide spectrum of topics such as his concept of longevity escape velocity as well as aging, religion, artificial intelligence, the technological singularity, Ray Kurzweil, human uploading and others.

You can listen to or download the full interview above.

To find out more about Dr. Aubrey de Grey click here.

To see Christopher Syke’s full documentary about the controversial gerontologist watch Do You Want to Live Forever?

To find out more about the SENS foundation click the banner below.

So, do you want to live forever?

Kevin Warwick: You Have To Take Risks To Be Part Of The Future

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In today’s podcast episode I had the privilege of doing an hour-long interview with the first cyborg — Prof. Kevin Warwick. I enjoyed talking to Prof. Warwick immensely and got him to share his views on a wide variety of topics such as human and artificial intelligence, robotics, the technological singularity, God, the beginning of the universe, and so on.

Also, during the interview, Kevin Warwick threw a friendly challenge towards Ray Kurzweil by asking: “Why is it that Ray hasn’t experimented with implant technology yet?”

Enjoy!

Who is Kevin Warwick?

Kevin Warwick is a Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, England, where he carries out research in artificial intelligence, control, robotics, and cyborgs.

As well as publishing over 500 research papers, Kevin’s experiments into implant technology led to him being featured as the cover story on the US magazine Wired. He has been awarded higher doctorates (DSc) both by Imperial College and the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, and has received Honorary Doctorates from Aston University, Bradford University, and Coventry University. He was presented with The Future of Health Technology Award in MIT, was made an Honorary Member of the Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, received The IEE Senior Achievement Medal and the Mountbatten Medal. In 2000 Kevin presented the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, entitled “The Rise of the Robots”.

Kevin’s most recent research involves the invention of an intelligent deep brain stimulator to counteract the effects of Parkinson’s Disease tremors. Another project involves the use of biological neural networks to drive robots around. Kevin is though best known for his pioneering experiments involving a neuro-surgical implantation into the median nerves of his left arm to link his nervous system directly to a computer. He was successful with the first extra-sensory (ultrasonic) input for a human and with the first purely electronic telegraphic communication experiment between the nervous systems of two humans — himself and his wife Irena.

For more information, you can visit Kevin Warwick’s Official Site: http://www.kevinwarwick.com/

George Dvorsky on Transhumanism and the Singularity

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In this edition of Singularity Podcast, I had the pleasure of speaking with prominent Canadian transhumanist and animal rights advocate George Dvorsky. George is both a passionate and fascinating interlocutor and, even though I spend over 1h 15 min interviewing him, I feel that I could have easily spent double that time while still remaining highly interested in what he has to say. (So do not be surprised if I invite him for another podcast.)

Just one of the thoughts that I will personally take away from my conversation with Dvorsky:

Mass extinction is the simplest explanation for why we are seeing an uncolonized galaxy.

George Dvorsky’s Short Bio: Canadian futurist, ethicist, and animal rights advocate, George Dvorsky has written and spoken extensively about the impacts of cutting-edge science and technology—particularly as they pertain to the improvement of human performance and experience. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and has a popular blog called Sentient Developments.

Behind the Lens: Barry Ptolemy on Creating the Ray Kurzweil Documentary “Transcendent Man”

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In this edition of the Singularity Podcast, I was privileged to do a phone interview with Barry Ptolemy, the director and producer of Transcendent Man. Barry was very generous in making time in his busy schedule to share his thoughts on the making of the movie, the technological singularity in general, and Ray Kurzweil in particular.

Listen to the podcast and watch the trailer, but be forewarned — if you do so, then you may feel compelled to go and watch the movie 😉

Transcendent Man is a new documentary film about the life and ideas of inventor, futurist, singularitarian, and transhumanist Ray Kurzweil.

About Barry Ptolemy

At age 12, Barry Ptolemy was first inspired to create films on the set of E.T. where he worked closely alongside Steven Spielberg for the duration of the production. After attending USC Film School, Barry then wrote, directed and produced hundreds of commercials, television shows, and short-form documentaries. In 2006, his interest in the sciences led him to read Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity is Near, upon which his first feature film is based.

About the Movie:

In Transcendent Man, Ptolemy follows Kurzweil around the globe as he presents the daring arguments from his best-selling book, The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology.

Kurzweil predicts that with the ever-accelerating rate of technological change, humanity is fast approaching an era in which our intelligence will become increasingly non-biological and trillions of times more powerful than today. This will be the dawning of a new civilization that will enable us to transcend our biological limitations. In Kurzweil’s post-biological world, there will be no clear distinction between human and machine, real reality and virtual reality. Human aging and illness will be reversed, world hunger and poverty will be solved, and we will ultimately cure death.

Barry Ptolemy’s film is coming soon to theatres near you. You can watch the movie trailer below or click the banner for more information.

So, are you going to watch the movie?

I myself can’t wait to see it…

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Michael Anissimov on Singularity Without Compromise

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This is the second singularity podcast. Given my experience with James Harvey I already knew that interviewing people is an acquired skill that I really need to work on. This interview is another indicator that I have a long way to go before I get to be good at it. Luckily my guest Michael Anissimov is eloquent and knowledgeable for the both of us. Thus, despite Socrates‘ failure to live up fully to his name, Michael’s passion for and knowledge of the technological singularity made this podcast interesting, engaging, informative and very worthwhile.

Michael Anissimov is Media Director for the Singularity Institute and Fundraising Director, North America for the Lifeboat Foundation. He is a science and technology writer and futurist.

In 2006 Michael started the Accelerating Future blog. Since its founding, the blog has received over six million visits and has been featured on G4.TV’s Attack of the Show and SciFi.com. Michael’s blog posts have appeared on the front page of Digg and Reddit.

Michael has been a consultant for a variety of future-oriented non-profit organizations and for-profit companies including the Methuselah Foundation, Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, and Kurzweil Technologies. On behalf of the Lifeboat Foundation and the Singularity Institute, Michael has briefed the representatives of organizations such as the US Navy and spoken informally with reporters at outlets such as The New York Times, New Scientist, Financial Times, The Guardian, and many other regional newspapers.

During my interview with him, Michael discusses a variety of topics such as his early interest in technology and its enormous potential for making life better for humanity, his belief that the singularity is the biggest challenge facing humanity, his involvement in the Singularity Institute and the upcoming Singularity Summit, scheduled for August 14-15 in San Francisco.

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