Episode description

Robert J. Sawyer--Part 2. Topics: indicators we might see if the Internet were to wake up and become conscious as an artificial intelligence; clever things such a web-mind might do to make the world a better place; why Artificial Intelligence or Artificial Super Intelligence is not likely to be dangerous; why it is likely that we will develop artificial intelligence; the future of 3-D printers of ordinary stuff, and of organs for transplant; features of a post-scarcity world; epigenetics; the astounding wealth of knowledge we all have at our keyboards; the free audio books available for download from LibriVox; the Neanderthal Genome Project; and the ethical problems with cloning a neanderthal.

Robert J. Sawyer is one of only eight writers in history — and the only Canadian — to win all three of the world’s top Science Fiction awards for best novel of the year: the Hugo, the Nebula, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. (The full list of includes: Frederik Pohl, David Brin, Joe Haldeman, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Robert J. Sawyer, Arthur C. Clarke, Connie Willis, Paolo Bacigalupi.) Robert J. Sawyer  is also an award-winning scriptwriter and an in-demand keynote speaker.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the April 22, 2015 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 38 minutes] This interview was recorded using Skype on March 22, 2015.

Stephen Euin Cobb has interviewed over 350 people for his work as an author, futurist, magazine writer and award-winning podcaster. A contributing editor for Space and Time Magazine; he has also been a regular contributor for Robot, H+, Grim Couture and Port Iris magazines; and he spent three years as a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine. For the last nine years he has produced a weekly podcast, The Future And You, which explores (through interviews, panel discussions and commentary) all the ways the future will be different from today. He is an artist, essayist, game designer, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation. Stephen is the author of an ebook about the future entitled: Indistinguishable from Magic: Predictions of Revolutionary Future Science.