Innovation19 with Daniel Anstandig

In the final installment of the three-part series on Robots, Futuri CEO Daniel Anstandig wonders if robots can, or ever will, have a soul. As robotics continues to advance, this is a tricky question that has caused science and spirituality to converge in unprecedented ways. What exactly is a soul? Where does it reside in our bodies? And if we don’t know, how can we bestow it onto something we create? Perhaps putting our own souls into robots is the closest we’ll get: Anti-aging is a huge business, and technology will have a huge part to play in our longevity, from legacy pages on Facebook to uploading our consciousness into the Cloud to Elon Musk’s goal of merging our brains with computers. But as far as AI developing a soul of its own, the jury is still out. It seems to Daniel, after this three-episode deep dive, that “AI and robots do not have much purpose without us – they’re assistive, not substitutive, and they wouldn’t be here without us.” But with their help, we can have more time to be human than ever before.

On the second part of this three-part series on Robots, Futuri CEO Daniel Anstandig looks at the bodies artificial intelligence are inhabiting. While most of our sci-fi assumes that robots will be built to look human, in real life, they’re anything but. The most ubiquitous robots are service bots built for e-commerce – like the over 200,000 robots Amazon has working in their warehouses – or cleaning, like Roombas. No one would say they look anything like people, but they get the job done; so well, in fact, that Fortune has said that automation could replace 40% of human jobs in the next 15 years. Other robots include drones, delivery bots, self-driving cars, and robot pets; Samsung has even unveiled a robot butler. Then there’s the wearables, like Apple Glass, Eyeborg, VR headsets, and more that incorporate robotics into our own bodies. As with the first episode on the robot mind, Daniel is excited about all this technology, but wants to keep what’s unique about humanity front and center. As we approach an increasingly automated economy, how should we be rethinking work and society to give humans more time to be human? Find out on this episode about the robot body, and don’t miss the final installment tackling the trickiest question of all: Can a robot have a soul?

In this three-part series, Futuri CEO Daniel Anstandig dives deep into robots. The more innovative we get with robotics, the more we’re faced with existential questions. Are robots on a course to becoming indistinguishable from humans, like in the sci-fi drama Westworld? And if so, then what makes humanity unique? For the first part, Daniel looks at the mind in the machine. So far, artificial intelligence operates a lot like a better brain, capable of problem-solving, spotting patterns, and recalling information. But “mind” indicates a sense of identity and consciousness that robots may never achieve. We can see that when they're programmed to create art, like an AI that wrote a Beatles song or another that painted a portrait in the style of the Old Masters: There’s something eerily off-putting about their creations because they lack an essential emotionality or humanity. Should we digitize our own humanity? Or is there a happy medium where AI and humans collaborate, instead of compete? Hear all about the robot mind in this episode, and don’t miss the follow-up episodes on Body and Soul to get the whole picture of the future of robotics.

Technologist, connector, and entrepreneur Mariana Acuña-Acosta was a pioneer in her hometown of Mexico City, where she founded the first VR and 360-video-production-and-branding agency, Jolt VR. But about five years ago, she tells Futuri CEO Daniel Anstandig, she saw the potential of virtual film production (like what we see in Avatar or The Mandalorian) and realized there was an opportunity to democratize the technology that makes virtual production possible. So she founded Glassbox Technologies with the goal of making these tools accessible to independent content creators all over the world. On this episode of Innovation 19, she explains her vision for the future of filmmaking, from the VR and AR hardware and software that excites her most to the many doors that opened for virtual experiences since the start of the pandemic – plus, the exciting content collaborations that are available in this space that weren't possible before.

Employment law, human relations, harassment, and diversity training: These things might not be sexy, but they are extremely important to running a successful business – particularly if you employ people in multiple states. On this episode of Innovation19, Daniel Anstandig gets a detailed breakdown from Cherie Silberman, employment law attorney and founder of Empath Employment & HR Law, about why understanding employment law is essential for businesses to not only avoid the courtroom, but to retain talent and increase productivity. She goes over why she believes empathy and transparency are key ingredients to good leadership, why recruiting and hiring managers need employment law training, the role she thinks AI has to play in talent recruitment, the potholes of social media, and so much more to help companies “hire the right people and let them do their job.” As the old saying goes: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” so grab your ounces from this episode today – your future self will thank you.

More on Cherie:

Cherie Silberman is an employment law attorney and the founder of Empath Employment & HR Law. She partners with employers to understand their business needs and provide practical risk management advice, counseling, and training. Cherie provides harassment, diversity and other employee training and conducts workplace investigations to identify and correct legal risks in the workplace.

For more than 15 years, Cherie has worked with a variety of companies, ranging from some of the largest global employers to family-owned businesses and startups. This wide range of experience has given her the ability to have an understanding and appreciation of the challenges and risks that exist in various workplaces. Cherie has successfully defended companies in jury trials in both federal and state court. After litigating hundreds of employment disputes, Cherie has become passionate about providing proactive measures to keep companies compliant in the area of employment law, so they can stay out of the courtroom and focus on the success of their employees and business.

Cherie received her undergraduate degree from the University of Florida, with high honors, and her law degree from the University of Miami. She is listed in the 2021 Best Lawyers of America®, has been recognized as a Florida Super Lawyer® in 2018, 2019 and 2020, and received the Labor & Employment Star award by Benchmark Litigation in 2019.

Disclaimer: This episode is made available for educational purposes only, to give you general information and a general understanding of the law, not to provide specific legal advice or to establish an attorney-client relationship. This podcast should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a licensed attorney in your state.

Futuri CEO Daniel Anstandig is a huge fan of virtual reality; in fact, he’s ready for the full, immersive, Oasis-like experience from the film Ready Player One. Fortunately, it’s not as far away in the future than we might think! On this episode of Innovation19, Daniel sits down with Joanna Popper, the global head of virtual reality for location-based entertainment at HP. She’s spent most of her career in entertainment and branding, creating award-winning content and always seeing the latest in technological developments, so they talk about all the possibilities in virtual reality from the headsets to the haptics to the content and everything in between. Many of us might only think of video games when we think about virtual reality, but Joanna is excited about all the other potential applications, from employee training to healthcare to construction and more. Daniel’s Oasis dreams could be reality within the next decade – though probably with fewer ‘80s references.

With Valentine’s Day coming up, it’s a great time to talk about the big business of love and romance, which generates billions of dollars in revenue every year in the U.S. So on this episode of Innovation19, Daniel Anstandig dives into the multi-billion dollar dating industry. Even if your company isn’t centered around finding other people’s soulmates, any business can learn a lot from dating apps – especially how to dominate a crowded market through small but significant differentiations and creative marketing choices. Daniel goes through the history of technology in dating, from video services in the 1970s to AI programs that match people based on their Twitter accounts in 2021, using them as case studies on traditional and experiential marketing, building a brand, user experience, and much more. 

#datingapps #branding #ux #dating #tech #business #marketing

What if the future of websites looked like a game, where you could interact with objects as if you were in a real space? What if aliens aren’t from space, but from other dimensions? How can you measure human consciousness? Daniel Anstandig sits down with futurist Zenka Caro to answer all these questions and more, getting into the potential of wearable tech and augmented reality, her passion-based economy and citizen science projects, the importance of conscious capitalism, why she wants to quantify human enlightenment, and why she thinks we're leaving the Information Age for the Wisdom Age. “This is really a time where we’re recalibrating our worldview,” Zenka says. “Technology is going to speed us along that path….to change the world for the better.” Expand your mind with this episode of Innovation19. After the episode, you can learn more about Zenka at zenka.org.

The first-ever virtual CES is in the books, and while this year felt more about evolutions of existing technologies and products than launching major, industry-changing new ones, there's still a lot broadcast media can take away from the event. On this episode of #Innovation19, Daniel breaks down CES 2021 trends related to audience engagement, content, and revenue for broadcast media, capped off with a lightning round of the fun gears and gadgets that always come out of CES (ultra-premium bathtub with mood lighting, aroma, and fog? We’re in!). #CES2021 #tech #innovation

Dr. Louis Profeta is not only an emergency physician at St. Vincent Hospital, he’s also a renowned lecturer and author; his critically-acclaimed book The Patient in Room Nine Says He’s God, as well as his many articles tackling drug and alcohol abuse in teens, have made him one of the most widely-read opinion writers out there. On this episode of Innovation19, Daniel Anstandig sits down with Dr. Profeta to hear about what it’s like being on the frontlines of Covid-19, the future of technology in medicine, and his solution for fixing the health crisis in America, diving into everything from social media to bringing doctors back into public schools to how pig kidneys might make dialysis a thing of the past. You can learn more about Dr. Profeta and access his articles and talks at LouisProfeta.com.