Singularity.FM

After 300+ interviews on Singularity. FM, it felt strange to sit on the other side of the mic. But when Cadell Last invited me onto Philosophy Portal, saying no was never an option. He asks the questions that go all the way down, and this time he put me in the hot seat. Here is the core of it: the singularity is a story, not a prison. Ray Kurzweil's six epochs converge on a single storyline where...

Some people see a world coming apart. Peter Leyden sees an old world dying so a better one can be born. That, in essence, is The Great Progression, the thesis of Peter Leyden’s forthcoming HarperCollins book and the spine of our conversation. Peter is the OG Silicon Valley futurist who came to San Francisco at the dawn of WIRED, co-authored the iconic 1997 Long Boom cover story with Peter Schwartz...

We have godlike technology. Do we have godlike responsibility to match? In this third conversation with Steven Kotler — our first in 14 years — we dig into his latest book, We Are As Gods: A Survival Guide for the Age of Abundance, co-written with Peter Diamandis. And while the book makes a powerful case for abundance, I came prepared to challenge it. Because abundance without purpose, as Kotler h...

We don’t need more AI. We need a better why for our AI. We are told the why is obvious — cure everything, fix everything, transcend everything. But “solve everything” is not a philosophy. It is an assumption. Even the most powerful intelligence cannot erase moral disagreement or competing visions of justice. Because without a why, intelligence becomes acceleration without direction. It helps us ge...

I cancelled my ChatGPT paid subscription and switched to Claude. Not because of the technology. Because of the values — or the lack thereof. On February 27, 2026, Anthropic — the company behind Claude — refused to give the Pentagon unrestricted access to its AI for mass surveillance and autonomous killer weapons. Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei said plainly that he "cannot in good conscience" accede...

Was the Renaissance truly a Golden Age? Or was it something far more powerful — and far more revealing? In my third conversation with Ada Palmer, we dive into her new book, Inventing the Renaissance: Myths of a Golden Age, and dismantle one of the most enduring myths in Western history: that civilization moves cleanly from darkness to light. This is our third long-form discussion. If you’re new to...

What if some contradictions are not mistakes — but truths? For over 2,500 years, Western philosophy has treated contradiction as catastrophic. From Aristotle’s law of non-contradiction to modern formal systems, logic has operated under one sacred assumption: a statement cannot be both true and false. But what if that assumption is wrong? In this deep, wide-ranging conversation, I sit down with Gra...

In my latest Singularity. FM conversation with Dr. Jad Tarifi, CEO of Integral AI, I heard something I don’t say lightly: a credible claim that AGI may have just arrived — or at least the foundation of it. I don’t often say “Wow” during interviews, but in this one I simply couldn’t stop. Tarifi describes a new AGI-capable model built on an architecture and learning paradigm fundamentally different...

What happens to free will in a world where AI tells us what to watch, buy, believe, and even who to love? In this new episode of Singularity. FM, I sit down with Jacob Ward — veteran technology journalist and author of The Loop: How AI Is Creating a World Without Choices and How to Fight Back — to ask a deceptively simple question: what is a choice, and what happens when we quietly hand that power...

Robot Souls & Junk Code Dr. Eve Poole on Programming Humanity into AI by Nikola Danaylov

What do Facebook, Google, and TikTok really see when they look at us — and what do they miss? In this episode of Singularity. FM, Nikola Danaylov (aka Socrates) interviews Petter Törnberg, Assistant Professor of Computational Social Science at the University of Amsterdam and co-author of Seeing Like a Platform: An Inquiry into the Condition of Digital Modernity. Together they explore: How platform...

What if the world isn’t just a stage… but a circus? 🎪 In this opening keynote at St. John’s International Circus Fest 2025, futurist and philosopher Nikola Danaylov (aka Socrates) explores why context is more powerful than content — and why those who create context don’t just win attention, they shape the future. 👉 Themes you’ll hear in this talk: Content vs. Context — why meaning, not informati...

Adam Becker is a science journalist with a PhD in astrophysics and the author of the provocative new book More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity. I reached out to Adam because I found his book sharp, timely, and necessary — a long-overdue reality check to the fantasies of techno-utopianism flooding our culture. In More Eve...

In his second appearance on Singularity. FM, Professor Angus Fletcher returns to dive even deeper into the story of human intelligence. [See the first interview here.] Fletcher is no ordinary guest. A rare hybrid of neuroscientist and Shakespearean scholar, he has advised DARPA, Hollywood, and the U.S. Army, where his narrative-based research earned him the Commendation Medal for groundbreaking wo...

In this episode of Singularity. FM, I sit down with renowned author and philosopher Donald J. Robertson to explore his latest book, How to Think Like Socrates. As we navigate the crossroads of ancient wisdom and modern challenges, Donald shares timeless insights from Socrates that remain profoundly relevant in today’s age of rapid technological transformation and AI. We dive into the art of critic...

In this episode of Singularity. FM, Neil Redding, a near futurist and innovation architect, joins Nikola Danaylov for an insightful exploration into the intersections of technology, ecosystems, and human agency. With over 30 years of experience unlocking the transformative power of emerging technologies, Neil offers a fresh perspective on what it means to co-create reality in an increasingly inter...

In this thought-provoking episode of Singularity. FM, I sit down with Dr. Jad Tarifi, CEO and co-founder of Integral AI, to explore the cutting-edge developments at the intersection of artificial intelligence and human potential. Dr. Tarifi shares insights into Integral AI’s mission to create foundation world models for real-world applications and the profound implications of achieving artificial...

In this episode of Singularity FM, I speak with emotional intelligence (EQ) expert, executive coach, and keynote speaker Jamelle Lindo about the evolving role of EQ in our age of rapidly advancing artificial intelligence. While much of today’s discourse around AI focuses on technical prowess, data-driven decision-making, and automation, Jamelle highlights why understanding our inner emotional land...

Fifteen years ago, I penned the first versions of Hamlet’s Transhumanist Dilemma and A Transhumanist Manifesto. Much has changed since then, including my perspective. I began with a question inspired by Hamlet: Will technology replace biology? At the time, I believed this to be the modern iteration of Shakespeare’s existential query: to be or not to be. Since death is a tragedy, I believed technol...

Technology is the new religion, Silicon Valley – the new Promised Land, and entrepreneurs – the new prophets. They promise a future of abundance and immortality—a techno-heaven beyond our wildest dreams. And we are all believers. We often forget technology is the how, not the why or what. It is a means to an end, not an end in itself. ‘Technology’ comes from two Greek words: ‘techne,’ meaning art,...

Throughout history, capital and labor have been interdependent forces driving economic growth. Capital relies on labor to generate returns on investment, while labor depends on capital for wages. Despite historical fluctuations in their balance of power, classical economics suggests a theoretical long-term equilibrium where both parties benefit—capital sees growing returns, and labor enjoys rising...

I have now been vegan for 8 or 9 years and people keep asking me how I feel and why I did it. So let me share a quick health update as well as the original 6 reasons why I went vegan. Well, since going vegan I have lost and kept off 25 pounds or about 12 kgs. My body fat has gone down from about 22% to about 14%. My blood pressure went down from about 130 over 90 to about 115 over 75. My resting h...

I have noticed that almost every startup in almost every industry is claiming “a revolutionary AI or blockchain breakthrough.” [Often both.] More recently I’m flabbergasted to see a similar fad in the growing number of self-proclaimed Tech and AI ethicists. We apparently have an exponential proliferation of what someone called “ethics natives” such as angel investor ethicists, venture capital ethi...

Dr. Martin Shaw is the best oral storyteller that I know of. He is also the only person who can impromptu tell the entire Odyssey by his imagination alone. Martin is well versed in a variety of stories from classic Greek to pagan, indigenous, and religious ones. He is the author of 18 books and one of the very few people who make a living as a modern raconteur for audiences across the world. Durin...

When I started blogging and podcasting back in 2009 topics like wisdom were near-invisible, if not considered irrelevant to the conversations of AI, transhumanism, genetic engineering, human enhancement, and so on. So bringing ethics to the technology conversation became my longstanding goal and unique selling proposition for both Singularity Weblog and Singularity. FM. At the time, most conversat...