Lincoln Cannon is one of those people who break the mold. He is not only a software engineer with degrees in philosophy and business but also the president of the Mormon Transhumanist Association. So if like me, you thought that Mormon Transhumanism is an oxymoron, you should put your presumptions away and give Lincoln the chance […]
Dec 17, 2012•1 hr 14 min
Last Night I did a one hour interview for FastForward Radio by the Speculist. During our conversation with hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon I covered a few topics such as the personal story behind the start of SingularitySymposium.com, SingularityWeblog.com and Singularity1on1.com. I also talked about technology in general and the singularity in particular and […]
Dec 06, 2012•1 hr
David Brin is not only a Ph.D. in astrophysics but also an award-winning, best-selling science fiction author, perhaps best known for his uplift series of novels and, most recently, Existence. Originally, I was supposed to interview Brin in the summer. Unfortunately, I got a concussion the day before and thus had to delay it. David […]
Nov 29, 2012•58 min
Jamais Cascio is one of the world’s top 100 thinkers according to Foreign Policy. He writes and speaks on a variety of topics from technology and global warming, to war, nuclear proliferation, ethics, and sustainable development. Thus my goal was to discuss most of those topics for, in one way or another, they are relevant […]
Nov 28, 2012•53 min
Tracy R. Atkins is not only a contributor to Singularity Weblog but also the author of a brand new singularity book titled Aeternum Ray. Aeternum Ray is rather unique because it is openly and whole-heartedly utopian in character. It is written in the epistolary literary tradition of classic science fiction works such as Frankenstein and […]
Nov 20, 2012•53 min
Dr. James Hughes is not only the executive director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET) but also a well-known book author and transhumanist. I enjoyed having him on the show and will probably ask him to return. During our conversation with Dr. Hughes, we cover a wide variety of topics such as […]
Nov 12, 2012•1 hr 2 min
The first time that I looked at The Alpha Centauri Project by Marco Santini, I was struck by the book’s dedication: To he who explores new horizons, because knowledge doesn’t have limits, to he who tries new ways, because dreams become reality, to he who pursues brotherhood, because peace is not a chimera. Having read such […]
Nov 08, 2012•22 min
Ray Kurzweil‘s impact on my life in general but especially on what I have been doing for the past 3 or 4 years is hard to exaggerate. It is a simple fact that, if I haven’t read his seminal book The Singularity is Near, I would be neither blogging nor podcasting about exponential technologies, not to […]
Oct 13, 2012•1 hr 4 min
Cory Doctorow is one of my all-time most favorite science fiction writers. So it is no surprise I had so much fun interviewing him. I don’t know how he does it, but Cory is one of those rare individuals who can juggle successfully being a father, an avid reader, a blogger, an activist, a journalist, […]
Sep 11, 2012•45 min
Transhumanism is both misunderstood and feared. Ignorant people with an ideological agenda have labeled it “the most dangerous idea.” I thought that it was time to bring some basic intellectual clarity on the topic, and who is better prepared to help us do that than “the first female philosopher of transhumanism”!? Dr. Natasha Vita-More has already […]
Sep 05, 2012•56 min
“When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened.” [John M. Richardson, Jr.] Brian David Johnson – Intel’s futurist and principal engineer with 25 patents behind his back, is without any doubt one of those who really […]
Aug 28, 2012•54 min
Giulio Prisco is an Italian information technology virtual reality consultant, as well as a writer, futurist, and transhumanist. Formerly a senior manager in the European Space Agency, Prisco is a physicist and computer scientist who started his career at CERN. Giulio is an avid advocate of cryonics. He is also a member of the advisory board of […]
Aug 25, 2012•1 hr 15 min
Jerome C. Glenn is co-founder and Director of The Millennium Project. He is well known for inventing the Futures Wheel technique and, among many other things, is also the primary author on their annual state of the future report and editor of futures research methodology. Thus, when Jason Ganz suggested that I invite Jerome on Singularity 1 […]
Aug 23, 2012•48 min
Jim Harris is one of North America’s foremost management consultants, public speakers, authors, and thinkers on change and leadership. He is also another local Canadian thought leader that I discovered during the World Future 2012 conference where Jim made the closing keynote speech. His speech was so entertaining, informative, and illuminating that I instantly decided to invite […]
Aug 09, 2012•49 min
Ryan Janzen applies principles of electrical engineering and physics to diverse fields, from biomedical science to fluid dynamics and aerospace, to music and acoustics. With eighteen international peer-reviewed publications, he does research and teaching as a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Toronto, with Steve Mann. Janzen is a composer not only for orchestra but […]
Aug 06, 2012•24 min
Steve Mann is sometimes called the first cyborg. Other times he is called the cyborg Luddite because of the stress he puts on choosing which technologies to embrace and which ones to abandon in order to be in harmony with nature. Whatever the case may be, I was super happy to get him on Singularity 1 […]
Aug 03, 2012•53 min
Dr. Anders Sandberg is a well-known transhumanist, futurist, and computational neuroscientist who is currently a research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. I enjoyed talking to him last time he was on Singularity 1 on 1 and was happy to have him back for another one. During our second conversation with Anders, […]
Jul 22, 2012•1 hr 11 min
George Dyson was born in 1953 and had a unique opportunity to witness firsthand the conjunction of mathematics and physics that brought the digital revolution to life. He has been observing the relationship between nature and technology ever since. Dyson’s latest book, Turing’s Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe, illuminates the transition from numbers that […]
Jul 06, 2012•1 hr 9 min
Hugo de Garis is the past director of the Artificial Brain Lab (ABL) at Xiamen University in China. Best known for his doomsday book The Artilect War, Dr. de Garis has always been on my wish-list of future guests on Singularity 1 on 1. Finally, a few weeks ago I managed to catch him for a 90 […]
Jun 27, 2012•1 hr 30 min
Daniel H. Wilson earned a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University. He is the author of The New York Times best-selling science fiction novel Robopocalypse and a columnist and contributing editor for Popular Mechanics magazine. He has also written: How To Survive a Robot Uprising, How to Build a Robot Army, A Boy and His Bot and Where’s My Jetpack?. Robopocalypse is not […]
Jun 15, 2012•43 min
Federico Pistono is perhaps the youngest guest I have ever had on Singularity 1 on 1. Despite that, Federico is already a scientific educator, social activist, blogger, and aspiring filmmaker. More recently, he is the author of a book called Robots Will Steal Your Job, But That’s OK, and an incoming student to Singularity University. During our […]
Jun 11, 2012•47 min
Dr. Anders Sandberg is a well-known transhumanist, futurist, computational neuroscientist, and currently a research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. I have been thinking of inviting him on Singularity 1 on 1 for some time and when one of my readers actually asked me to do it I could not be happier […]
May 27, 2012•54 min
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 […]
May 11, 2012•1 hr 10 min
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 […]
May 03, 2012•1 hr 6 min
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, […]
Apr 26, 2012•1 hr 3 min
A couple of days ago, I interviewed Australian James Harvey. James is unique among my guests because he was the first interviewee whose willingness to take a chance on a brand-new podcast helped me kick off Singularity 1 on 1. However, this is not the only thing that makes him different; James is also “a […]
Apr 20, 2012•53 min
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 emerging technologies’ legal, ethical, and social impact and “evolving notions of personhood.” During our conversation with Prof. Glenn, we discuss a variety of topics such as the very personal and […]
Apr 04, 2012•55 min
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 […]
Mar 15, 2012•55 min
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 academics and innovation. Vivek is one of those multi-talented and very outspoken people who are never afraid to take the risk and say what they think. He is also a […]
Mar 13, 2012•39 min
Yesterday I interviewed philosopher David Chalmers. David is one of the world’s best-known philosophers of mind and thought leaders on consciousness. 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 […]
Mar 10, 2012•50 min