My guest today is Akshay Kothari , the Chief Operating Officer at Notion . As COO, Akshay is one of the top people driving the ship at this next-generation software platform that's enabling everyday users to create their own software tools instead of settling for what's provided on the market. Despite Notion being a young and small company of around 50 people, it has received a valuation of $2 billion dollars in its latest venture capital funding round — making it one of the fastest moving ventu...
Sep 23, 2020•49 min
My guest today is Dr. Bertalan Mesko , also known as The Medical Futurist. He's the Director of The Medical Futurist Institute , delivers keynote addresses all over the world, and runs a popular magazine and YouTube channel on the future of medicine with an emphasis on how technology will shape healthcare. Dr. Mesko is a physician with a PhD in genomics, and an Amazon Top 100 author. With the Coronavirus pandemic underway, we get into the nature of pandemics, what stages to look for in the evolu...
Apr 05, 2020•49 min
My guest today is Nir Eyal , who writes and teaches about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business. The MIT Technology Review dubbed Nir, "The Prophet of Habit-Forming Technology." Nir has taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Institute of Design at Stanford. He's the author of two bestselling books, " Hooked : How to Build Habit-Forming Products" and " Indistractable : How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life". We explore the the psychology of focu...
Mar 16, 2020•58 min
My guest today is Anders Ericsson , author of the renowned book " Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise ". He is among the world's leading authorities on how to new master skills. Anders is a Professor of Psychology and conducted much of the research on expertise and peak performance that Malcolm Gladwell famously referenced to develop the 10,000 hour rule in Gladwell's book Outliers. However, as we discuss today, Malcom Gladwell mis-interpreted much of the science behind the 10,000 ho...
Feb 05, 2020•1 hr 3 min
My guest today is Steven Kotler . Steven is one of the world's leading experts on achieving Ultimate Human Performance through Flow States . "Flow" is the cognitive state of full immersion and focus in which brain activity changes to enable peak human capability across an intellectual or physical activity. It's characterized by rapt attention so deep that one loses their sense of space and time, tapping into radically heightened performance, creativity, and learning. Steven is the Executive Dire...
Jan 21, 2020•56 min
My guest today is Douglas Rushkoff , who has been named one of the “world’s ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT. He's an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in the digital age. He's written over twenty books include the recently-published " Team Human ", and he hosts a popular podcast, also called "Team Human", focusing on the economic, technological, and social programs that determine how we live, work, and interact. His perspective challenges conventional thinking, often...
Jan 09, 2020•1 hr 2 min
My guest today is Dr. Christof Koch , one of the worlds foremost experts on neuroscience and consciousness . Dr. Koch is the Chief Scientist and President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science . He recently released his latest book, The Feeling of Life Itself – Why Consciousness is Everywhere But Can’t be Computed. It explores new insights and perspectives into human consciousness, as well as ideas surrounding the potential of sentient machines. We explore a wide range of issues surrounding c...
Dec 18, 2019•55 min
My guest today is Paul Shapiro , author of the national bestseller " Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World". He's also the CEO and co-founder of The Better Meat Co. , a four-time TEDx speaker, the co-host of the Business for Good Podcast. In our conversation today we explore the future of food, with a particular focus on lab-grown meat that's identical to meat from animals. I came away from this conversation with enhanced hope for our ability to use...
Nov 26, 2019•1 hr 1 min
We explore Human Enhancement and Personal Performance Hacking with Matt Ward (@mattwardio), the host The Disruptors podcast, startup investor, adviser and business innovation consultant. Matt and I thought it would be fun to do two episodes, one here on MIND & MACHINE and the other on The Disruptors, where we explore what we've learned, the ideas we've formed and our takeaways across all these different fields that we cover. So with this episode here on MIND & MACHINE, we focus on human ...
Nov 18, 2019•51 min
In a follow-up to our previous episode, my guest today is again cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman , author of the book " The Case Against Reality ". In this addendum to the previous episode, we explore how Don's First Principles Thinking enabled his remarkably original theory on reality (covered fully in the previous episode). Then further into today's discussion we hear about the Secret Mastermind of Brain Scientists that Don was a part of for nearly two decades, Don has been making waves late...
Nov 11, 2019•17 min
My guest today is cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman , author of the book " The Case Against Reality ". Don has been making waves lately in a range of scientific fields with a theory of reality that splinters all of our preconceived notions. What if everything we thought was real -- the physical world around us and the notion of time -- are not reality but a vast surface-level operating system designed to guide our behaviors for evolutionary survival. What if understanding true objective reality...
Nov 05, 2019•1 hr 4 min
Today we explore CRISPR and gene editing , embryo selection vs embryo editing , parental vs societal needs, emerging mind-reading technologies , and the ethics surrounding all of these issues. August Bradley's guest is Hank Greely , a Stanford Law School professor specializing in the ethical, legal, and social implications of new biomedical technologies, particularly those related to genetics and neuroscience. Hank frequently serves as an advisor on policy issues — he's the chair of California’s...
Oct 24, 2019•59 min
August Bradley's guest today is Martin Bryant , a technology and media writer, speaker and consultant who puts out the Big Revolution newsletter on what's happening at the intersection of technology and media. Martin was previously the Editor In Chief of the TNW digital magazine which operates alongside the influential The Next Web conference on emerging tech. We explore how tech companies are transforming the media world, and bringing many aspects of culture and politics along with it. Podcast ...
Oct 15, 2019•43 min
My guest today is Steven Furber , who has led the design of the SpiNNiker neuromorphic computer — a brain simulator with one million cores on a single machine, each core interacting with the others in ways mimicking how living brains function. His work on the SpiNNiker neuromorphic computer is designed to both teach us more about how human brains work and to advance computational capabilities. Neuromorphic computing is a sub-set of Artificial intelligence focusing on hardware that uses the infor...
Oct 02, 2019•54 min
My guest today is Paul Scharre , author of the book "Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War" — which Bill Gates recently featured in his top five book recommendations of the year. Paul is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security — a think tank based in Washinton D.C. Previously, Paul worked for the U.S. Secretary of Defense where he played a leading role in establishing policies on unmanned autonomous s...
Feb 07, 2019•54 min
My guest today is Chris Pain , director of the AI documentary film "Do You Trust This Computer?" and previously the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?". The new film is a powerful examination of artificial intelligence centered around insights from the most high-profile thinkers on the subject, including Elon Musk, Stuart Russell, Max Tegmark, Ray Kurzweil, Andrew Ng, Westworld creator Jonathan Nolan and many more. Chris set out to ask these leaders in the field "what scares smart people ...
Jan 28, 2019•42 min
My guest is Isaac Arthur — a theoretical space scientist, physicist, futurist and bold visionary of human expansion. He brings a mind-blowing level of research and storytelling to his series . While the subject matter sounds like science fiction and is certainly inspired by it, his exploration is framed within the known laws of physics. We will focus on space megastructures , a form of future world-building on a scale that's almost unimaginable. From Dyson Spheres and Ringworlds to Shell Worlds ...
Jan 15, 2019•1 hr 9 min
As artificial intelligence evolves, it will present itself to us in a variety of ways. One of the most intriguing manifestations of AI will be when it assumes our own faces — forming an autonomous double of ourselves . My guest today is Nikhil Jain, founder and CEO of ObEN which creates AI-driven digital humans in the likeness of its users to perform tasks when they cannot be there in person. These digital avatars simulate a person’s voice, face and personality, enabling never-before-possible so...
Dec 19, 2018•53 min
My guest today is J.L. Galache, an asteroid astronomer turned new-space entrepreneur. J.L. is Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Aten Engineering, a pioneering space mining company. He has designed and directed asteroid data projects with NASA’s Frontier Development Lab and Oracle. At the Minor Planet Center (part of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), J.L. was Acting Deputy Director, where he helped keep the world safe from killer asteroids. We discuss space mining and the...
Dec 05, 2018•55 min
Today we explore genomics and how it will transform medicine. My guest is Lisa Alderson , the CEO and co-founder of Genome Medical — a fast growing company in the emerging field of genomics. Genome Medical provides expertise to both individuals wanting to explore their DNA, and to health care providers wanting to offer genomic medicine. We explore how genomic medicine will transform health care. Lisa on Twitter: https://twitter.com/lisaa?lang=en Genome Medical: https://www.genomemedical.com More...
Nov 28, 2018•1 hr 1 min
My guest today is Shannon Vallor , a technology and A.I. Ethicist . I was introduced to Shannon by Karina Montilla Edmonds at Google Cloud AI — we did an episode with Karina a few ago months focused on Google's A.I. efforts. Shannon works with the Google Cloud AI team on a regular basis helping them shape and frame difficult issues in the development of this emerging technology. Shannon is a Philosophy Professor specializing in the Philosophy of Science & Technology at Santa Clara University...
Nov 20, 2018•57 min
My guest today is Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of the book Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy. His previous book was "The Googlization of Everything". Siva is a Cultural Historian and Media Scholar at the University of Virginia. We explore the impact of Facebook and how it will continue to shape our world, and we discuss the mechanics of how social media influences human behavior and societies. Siva on Twitter: http://twitter.com/sivavaid Book: Anti-Social Media...
Nov 13, 2018•55 min
My guest today is Naveen Jain , a billionaire entrepreneur with two exceptionally ambitious ventures underway. We're addressing his two ventures in two separate episodes. In today's episode we discuss Naveen's effort to as he puts it "make illness optional" by establishing personalized medical care, prevention, and treatment through gut microbiome research and related medical advancements. His company, Viome , is understanding and eliminating human health problems arising from microbiome imbalan...
Oct 30, 2018•42 min
My guest today is Naveen Jain , a billionaire entrepreneur with two insanely ambitious ventures underway. He’s on the boards of the X-Prize and Singularity University , and has written a book called Moonshots about extreme entrepreneurship efforts. We're going to address his two moonshot ventures in two separate episodes. Since they address different topics and challenges, I wanted to go deep into each and do a full discussion around both topics. The first, in this episode, is Moon Express — his...
Oct 23, 2018•33 min
Today we explore human longevity and life extension efforts focused on adding healthy years to a person's lifespan, and even reversing the aging process. My guest is Dr. Aubrey de Grey , a leading voice in the field and the Chief Science Officer of the SENS Research Foundation which is doing pioneering work on significantly extending healthy, active lifespans. Aubrey is a biomedical gerontologist with a degree in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Biology. He is author of the book "Ending Aging" an...
Oct 11, 2018•1 hr
My guest today is Kent Kresa , who has had an extraordinary career in advanced technology fields. Kent has been the Chairman of General Motors , the chairman of Caltech 's board of directors, the chairman and chief executive of Northrop Grumman (the global aerospace and defense technology company), and Chairman of the biotech company MannKind Corporation. Earlier, he was with the top-secret defense research agency DARPA . How's that for a resume! We focus on the future of transportation and the ...
Oct 04, 2018•47 min
My guest today is Tim Dodd , better known as the Everyday Astronaut . Tim has become a prominent educator on space exploration through his various media platforms and live presentations – he's amassed a sizable audience eager to learn more about Space X, NASA and the growing field. We're in there midst of a renewal in space programs, and Tim digs deep into the ecosystem. Our discussion covers the various players in the space race, looks at each sector across civilian space travel, military and c...
Sep 26, 2018•56 min
My guest today is Austin Evans . With well over 3 million subscribers, Austin produces and hosts one of the top technology channels on YouTube . He reviews the leading edge of consumer products, often with early access to releases from the most influential manufactures. We explore how media is changing , how he as an individual content creator has built a show with viewership rivaling leading cable channels, and we discuss what he sees on the technological horizon across AI, AR/VR, Blockchain, R...
Sep 17, 2018•57 min
Today we take a look at Google's work in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning . My guest is Dr. Karina Montilla Edmonds . Karina works at Google Cloud AI & Machine Learning as the bridge between the Google Cloud AI team and leading university research labs in artificial Intelligence. Prior to this she worked at Caltech as the Executive Director of Corporate Partnerships. She has a PhD in Aeronautics from Caltech, and worked for many years at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. We explore...
Aug 23, 2018•46 min
This week we explore a broad range of high-concept futurist frameworks and future technologies. My guest is Gray Scott , a visionary futurist and creator of both the Serious Wonder digital magazine and the Futuristic Now video series. Gray takes fragments of modern life and extrapolates a wholistic framework of how technology, humanity and universal physics will intertwine. We explore technology as a natural phenomenon, how the future is inside of us, recording dreams, sharing brain streams, dig...
Aug 14, 2018•1 hr 5 min
