In today’s podcast, we discuss the future of movies. We begin by addressing virtual reality and asking what impacts it will have on traditional moviemaking. In recent times, the cost of making an independent film has gone way down, and we consider whether those costs can drop even further, possibly as a result of better […]

In today’s episode we are joined by basic income advocate Scott Santens. Scott explains his version of a basic income and how it might be paid for. Although future technological unemployment might increase the need for a basic income, there are actually many reasons besides concerns about automation to adopt such a policy. We discuss the various advantages of basic […]

In today’s episode, we discuss the future of advertising, which we define as the ‘sale of attention.’ People mostly hate ads, but why do they? Is it possible to make ads so well targeted that people actually enjoy the experience? We discuss the remarkably constant amount of advertising as a percent of GDP over a […]

In today’s episode we give a comprehensive list of the sci-fi tropes that bother us the most. While not all science fiction has an obligation to be speculative, we would like to see more science fiction that avoids certain cliches when it comes to predicting the future. We discuss the following tropes: The Prometheus Problem The Boot-in-the-face Dystopia Societal Regression […]

In today’s podcast we are joined by Nikola Danaylov, host of the popular Singularity 1 on 1 podcast, and a man who has interviewed 170 experts about singularity related topics. After establishing the meaning of the term singularity, we discuss the wide range of opinions held by thinkers in the field. We learn that although there is […]

In today’s podcast we are joined by Steve Anderson PhD, an associate professor of cinematic arts at USC. We discuss the depiction of computers and surveillance in Hollywood films and the many factors, such as the need to tell a visual story and the convenience of certain props, that contribute to Hollywood’s often skewed portrayals. We also identify ways […]

In this week’s episode, we consider the rapid progress and recent impressive demos in the realm of speech recognition technology. We consider the difference between transcribing and understanding language, and work out a thought experiment of what might change when full transcription is widely and cheaply available. We talk about the challenges facing current generation […]

In today’s podcast, we talk with Martin Ford about his new book Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future. We discuss which job sectors are most vulnerable to automation in the near future and to what degree technology might be the driving force behind troubling economic trends. Martin describes his version of a […]

In today’s podcast, we review the new science fiction thriller Ex Machina. We talk about how this is one of the better movies we’ve seen about AI, and how in general movies seem to be getting better at handling these topics. However, we question whether the movie’s use of the phrase “Turing Test” really makes […]

There are many reasons to reduce or eliminate meat production, and in this week’s episode we cover them and ask the question: are we soon going to be eating synthetic meat? From resources to ethics, there is tremendous pressure to bring down the costs associated with meat. We discuss the challenges tissue engineers face in […]