Singularity.FM

Cory Doctorow is probably my all time most favorite science fiction writer. The reason for that is simple – Doctorow is not only a great story-teller but also an activist. To paraphrase Karl Marx, writers have tried to capture and describe the world but the point, however, is to change it. And Cory is a fantastic example of an author who doesn’t spend his life in solitude or writing retreats. No....

During my 70-minute interview with Tristan Harris, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: Tristan’s magician background and the universal hackability of human nature; his studies at Stanford’s Persuasive Tech Lab; his journey to founding the Center for Humane Technology; human downgrading and the definition of technology; high tech’s race down our brain stems and the ethics of persuasiv...

I first met Andreas Antonopoulos at the 2014 Bitcoin Expo conference in Toronto, Canada. At that time Andreas was already established as the most publicly recognized expert in the field of crypto-currency, not in the least due to his impressive capacity to take the geek out of bitcoin and make it relevant to and understandable by everyone. To top it off, Antonopoulos is extremely eloquent, has an...

Today my guest is world-renowned cosmologist and Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees. Martin has written 11 books and more than 500 scientific papers on topics ranging from the Big Bang and cosmology to technology and the future of humanity. Sir Rees has also been concerned with the threats stemming from humanity’s ever-heavier ‘footprint’ on the global environment and with the runaway consequences o...

Douglas Rushkoff has been named one of the world’s ten most influential intellectuals by MIT. He is an award-winning author, broadcaster, media theorist and documentarian who studies human autonomy in the digital age. Rushkoff is the host of the popular Team Human podcast and was among the very first guests I ever interviewed when I started my own podcast, nearly 10 years ago. Needless to say, it...

With 15 million unique visitors per month, Dr. Joseph Mercola is the founder of the largest health and wellness website on the internet. His life’s mission is to cure rather than treat disease and Dr. Mercola has not only published extensively but also treated successfully a variety of chronic health conditions with natural methods such as diet, exercise, and sleep. Joseph also lives his own messa...

Joscha Bach is one of those rare people whose primary motivation is unbound curiosity and inspiration. He clearly loves what he does and you can’t help but notice his radiating passion and youthful exuberance. Joscha has an impressively wide and deep knowledge in a variety of scientific, philosophical and artistic disciplines and I had to do my best just to keep up with Bach’s brilliant fast-paced...

There are two people who caused me to become vegan and switch to a whole-plant-based diet: the first was Prof. Peter Singer who put the idea in my head many years ago when I started studying ethics. The 2nd person is Dr. Michael Greger whose books How not to Die and The How Not To Die Cookbook are a must-read for anyone interested in evidence-based healthy living and healthy longevity. And so it h...

Stuart Russell is a professor of Computer Science at UC Berkeley as well as co-author of the most popular textbook in the field – Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach. Given that it has been translated into 13 languages and is used in more than 1,300 universities in 118 countries, I can hardly think of anyone more qualified or more appropriate to discuss issues related to AI or the technolog...

There are those of us who philosophize and debate the finer points surrounding the dangers of artificial intelligence. And then there are those who dare go in the trenches and get their hands dirty by doing the actual work that may just end up making the difference. So if AI turns out to be like the terminator then Prof. Roman Yampolskiy may turn out to be like John Connor – but better. Because in...

Inc Magazine called Tim O’Reilly the “Oracle of Silicon Valley.” Wired called him “The Trend Spotter.” Others have noted that “the Internet was built on O’Reilly books.” All in all, Tim O’Reilly is as perfect of a guest for my Singularity. FM podcast as I can ever imagine. So, I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did. During our 90 min conversation with Tim O’Reilly we cover a variety of i...

Max Tegmark is sometimes referred to as "Mad Max". I am not sure if he is "mad" but I am pretty sure he is very much "fun" Max Tegmark because I had a total blast talking to him about his recent book Life 3.0, the Future of Life Institute, Artificial Intelligence, the Singularity and technological unemployment. If you enjoy this podcast then you can show your support by: writing a review on iTunes...

A couple of weeks ago Joi Ito – head of the MIT Media Lab and contributor to WIRED Magazine, interviewed me about my Transhumanist Manifesto and related topics such as life-extension, immortality, speciesim, and ethics. Some people have said that this is the best interview I have done so far. It is hard for me to judge objectively if that is indeed the best interview I have ever done or not. Howev...

Peter Singer is arguably the most influential living philosopher of our day. His book on Animal Liberation basically started the animal rights movement and his textbook on Practical Ethics is the standard philosophy text of first-year students across the world. No wonder that Time Magazine called Peter Singer one of the 100 most influential people in the world. But for me, personally, having Profe...

Last month Ryan O’Shea – founder and host of the Future Grind Podcast, did what is arguably the most thorough interview with me so far. I thought it might be good to repost it on Singularity. FM so that you can listen to me being interviewed for a change while also getting exposed to another fantastic podcast that I recommend highly. Hope you enjoy it but, either way, do let me know. 😉 The Future...

Jonathan Taplin is the Director Emeritus of the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab, and a former tour manager for Bob Dylan and The Band, as well as a film producer for Martin Scorsese. If that is not enough to make him a worthy guest of Singularity. FM then let me add that Jonathan is a visionary entrepreneur who started the very first streaming VOD startup called Intertainer way back in 1996. Finally,...

Joi Ito is just one of those people who simply don’t fit a mold. Any mold. He is an entrepreneur who is an activist. He is an academic without a degree. He is a leader who follows. He is a teacher who listens. And an interlocutor who wants you to disagree with him. Overall, I hate to say it but I must put forward my own biases by admitting that this was probably the most fun interview I have ever...

It was all the way back in 2013 when Sean Gourley published a blog post titled Prediction just is a parlor trick. Manipulation is much more interesting. In it he wrote: “The 2012 election will ultimately go down as the ‘prediction’ election (aka the Nate Silver election), 2016 may well be the first ‘persuasion’ election. An election where models accurately predict the likely outcomes of different...

Transhumanism is a growing social and philosophical movement with more and more people becoming aware of and sympathetic to it. In fact, in the last couple of years, transhumanism has gone political with new transhumanist parties emerging in the UK and the United States. And, since I have already argued that technology is the future of politics [and vice versa], I thought it is about time to bring...

PJ Manney is an award-winning science fiction writer interested in transhumanism, empathy, story-telling and the future of humanity. Her latest book (ID)entity is a can’t-put-it-down action-packed mind-uploading/downloading world-crashing the-Empire-Strikes-Back of a masterpiece that vividly depicts the dangers of monetizing and weaponizing narrative, which is what companies such as Cambridge Anal...

https://www.singularityweblog.com/transcending-politics/ “There’s no escape: the journey to a healthier society inevitably involves politics.” This is how well-known futurist David Wood starts his most recent book Transcending Politics: A Technoprogressive Roadmap to a Comprehensively Better Future. And so I thought I’d bring him back on Singularity. FM to share with us how exactly is it he sugges...

Bill Nye – the Science Guy, was the science educator to a whole generation not only in the United States but also in Canada and the rest of the English-speaking world. He was among a handful of TV celebrities who made science cool, interesting and fun. But most of all, Bill Nye inspired a generation of students not only to respect but also to love science and become scientists themselves. Today Mr...

Jose Cordeiro, MBA, PhD, is an amazing person with endless supplies of energy and optimism. In fact, I have never met a more involved and proactive person than Dr. Cordeiro because he is literally always traveling across the world and is directly involved in a variety of cutting edge fields and projects from Japan and Korea, spanning all over Europe and all the way to South America and Silicon Val...

Prof. Lawrence Krauss is a world-famous theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and activist against superstition whom I have dreamed of interviewing for years. So, when we finally booked the date, I feverishly spent a full week reading his last 2 books and watching 20+ hours of his past interviews and documentaries. Alas, I got the flu and didn’t manage to sleep at all the last couple of days before...

A couple of weeks ago, during the last Transhumanist Meetup in Toronto, I did a Conversations with the Future book reading. Basically, I read my book’s foreword – the story of how I got to do what I do, as well as the book introduction – what my book is all about, and the epilogue – what people should take away from it. This event would not have happened without the great work of David McFadzean a...