#singularity.fm

Prof. Steve Fuller is the author of 25 books including a trilogy relating to the idea of a ‘post-’ or ‘trans-‘ human future, and most recently, Nietzschean Meditations: Untimely Thoughts at the Dawn of the Transhuman Age. He has an incredibly broad amount of knowledge from a diversity of disciplines and I have to admit that I had a total blast interviewing him. In fact, I feel we could have easily gone for another 2 hours while still having fun. And so there is a great chance I will ask Prof. Fuller for another interview very soon indeed.

During this 2h 15 min interview with Steve Fuller we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: the social foundations of knowledge and our shared love of books; Transhumanism as a scientistic way of understanding who we are; the proactionary vs the precautionary principle; Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and the Omega Point; Julian and Aldous Huxley’s diverging takes on Transhumanism; David Pearce’s Hedonistic Imperative as a concept straight out of Brave New World; the concept and meaning of being human, transhuman and posthuman; humanity’s special place in the cosmos; my Socratic Test of (Artificial) Intelligence; Transhumanism as a materialist theology; Elon Musk, cosmism and populating Mars; de-extinction, genetics and the sociological elements of a given species; the greatest issues that humanity is facing today; AI, the Singularity and armed conflict; morphological freedom and becoming human; longevity and the Death is Wrong argument; Zoltan Istvan and the Transhumanist Wager; Transhumanism as a way of entrenching rather than transcending one’s original views…

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation or become a patron on Patreon.

Who is Steve Fuller?

Steve Fuller is Auguste Comte Professor of Social Epistemology in the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick, UK.

Originally trained in history, philosophy and sociology of science at Columbia, Cambridge and Pittsburgh, Fuller is best known for his foundational work in the field of ‘social epistemology’, which is the name of a quarterly journal that he founded in 1987 as well as the first of his nearly 25 books. From 2011 to 2014 he published a trilogy of books relating to the idea of a ‘post-’ or ‘trans-‘ human future, all published with Palgrave Macmillan: Humanity 2.0: What It Means to Be Human Past, Present and Future (2011), Preparing for Life in Humanity 2.0 (2012) and (with Veronika Lipinska) The Proactionary Imperative: A Foundation for Transhumanism (2014).

Prof. Fuller’s most recent books include Knowledge: The Philosophical Quest in History (Routledge 2015), The Academic Caesar (Sage 2016), Post-Truth: Knowledge as a Power Game (Anthem 2018) and most recently, Nietzschean Meditations: Untimely Thoughts at the Dawn of the Transhuman Age (Schwabe 2019). His works have been translated into around thirty languages. He was awarded a D.Litt. by the University of Warwick in 2007 for sustained lifelong contributions to scholarship. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, the UK Academy of Social Sciences, and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Prof. Steve Fuller on Transhumanism: Ask yourself what is human?

Valley: Ethical Threats and Emotional Unintelligence in the Tech Industry is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the conflicting motivations, mythologies, identities and inherent tensions within Silicon Valley. It offers a unique understanding as per why we have seen the magic, manic and monstrous trajectory of Big Tech, it catalogs what the impact has been, and it offers a way forward. All in all, I learned a ton from Katy Cook and loved having her on my podcast. In fact, I honestly feel that I didn’t do justice to how absolutely fantastic her book is so I highly recommend that you simply go and grab a free copy of the Psychology of Silicon Valley and judge for yourselves.

During this 1 h 40 min interview with Katy Cook, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: her original interest in the mental health effects of tech; her journey from being a counselor to studying psychology, sociology, the psychology of progress and ending up in ethics in tech; the relationship between power and empathy; her fantastic book the Psychology of Silicon Valley; the importance of socializing oneself without the mediation of a computer; emotional intelligence as a foundation for ethics; how origin stories and culture shape tech companies; why intelligence is a gift but compassion is a choice; why Katy decided to give away the electronic version of her book as a free open access; the treatment of workers by Big Tech such as Amazon; inequality as the best predictor for revolution; the importance of diversity; why Instagram is the most depressed and depressing platform; the vulnerability of young adults and children to social media; the Center for Technology Awareness that Katy co-founded.

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation or become a patron on Patreon.

Who is Katy Cook?

Katy Cook is the author of The Psychology of Silicon Valley: Ethical Threats and Emotional Unintelligence in the Tech Industry, founder of the nonprofit Centre for Technology Awareness, and a consultant and speaker on ethics and technology. Katy holds a Ph.D. in Clinical, Educational, and Health Psychology from University College London, and Masters degrees in English and Psychology, and a BA in English Literature.

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 interesting topics such as: why Tim sees himself as a change-maker; the change he is after; the aesthetic and the useful; the importance of story; Tim’s background in Latin and Ancient Greek; his thesis on Mysticism and Logic in Plato’s Dialogues; ethics as a way of debugging technology and society; reality and truth; why he is not a singularity fan; whether we can influence the future or not; why technology is not enough; his book WTF: What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us; Uber and Lyft; runaway AI; the Emperor Has No Clothes and serving the wrong algorithm; rewriting the human story…

My favorite quote that I will take away from this interview with Tim O’Reilly is:

“Economic determinism is probably the cardinal sin of the present moment.”

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation or become a patron on Patreon.

To read more and listen to the podcast to here: https://www.singularityweblog.com/tim-oreilly/

At the Heart of Intelligence is an emotionally compelling and well-made short film discussing artificial intelligence. It was produced in collaboration between popular futurist Gerd Leonhard and Telia Finland. The movie employes powerful visuals, fantastic music and high-quality production but not at the expense of also asking some vital questions about intelligence – in general, and artificial intelligence – in particular. Hope you enjoy it.

Synopsis: What will happen to humans when machines get more and more intelligent? Futurist Gerd Leonhard and the Helsinki Data Center are figuring it all out…

to learn more check it out here: https://www.singularityweblog.com/at-the-heart-of-intelligence/

In this installment of the Future Grind podcast, host Ryan O’Shea is joined by bestselling author and futurist speaker Nikola Danaylov. Nikola writes about the future at his website Singularity Weblog and hosts the Singularity.FM podcast. His 2017 book Conversations with the Future features highlights from his interviews with some of this field’s most noteworthy individuals, including Ray Kurzweil, Kevin Kelly, Verner Vinge, and more. They discuss the importance of ethics and the influence of Socrates in Nikola’s work, as well as his path from serving in the armed forces of Bulgaria to studying drone warfare in North America, and how that ultimately lead to his fascination with the technological singularity.

It’s time once again for your frequent disclaimer that the thoughts of the guests on this podcast do not necessarily reflect the views of Future Grind or Ryan O’Shea.

We’re posting in two forms, an audio podcast and a video podcast. Please subscribe to Future Grind via our YouTube channel, DTube channel, and iTunes feed as we have some exclusive content that is not posted on both channels. You can also find us on Facebook.

check out the episode here: https://www.singularityweblog.com/nikola-danaylov-future-grind/

“Conversations with the Future” Book Reading

“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 forward – 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 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 forward – 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 and Agah Bahari as well as meetup space provided by Rangle.IO. Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to Dave Gibson and Billy Jimmy Lee, who took great video and pictures respectively that I can now share with people like you. Hope you enjoy it.

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes or make a donation.”

Check out the rest of the post here:  https://www.singularityweblog.com/conversations-with-the-future-book-reading/

where it was originally posted, and written and produced by Nikola Danaylov “Socrates”