Recoup Podcast

We want to express ourselves. Through collaboration we can learn from teachers and mentors. Remixing experiences with rapidly evolving technologies creates opportunity for innovation.

Justin was my first mentor. He's built a lifestyle around curiosity and collaboration which allows him to create innovative startups within massive companies.

In an age of rapid evolution, it's important to understand what drives your lifestyle rather than chasing material. Staying curious and genuine creates the opportunity to develop meaningful lifestyles and work which expresses who we are as people.

Self-driving cars enter the grocery industry. Kroger is a national grocery chain. Nuro is a self-driving car startup founded by 2 ex-Google employees. Mix them together and what do you get? 2018 Grocery D I S R U P T I O N 🛒

Kroger has added technologies throughout 2018 to make shoppers' lives easier. In an effort to keep up with grocery delivery offered by Amazon + Whole Foods. And just-walk-out grocery offered at Amazon Go. 2018 has proven to be the year of grocery disruption.

Self-driving cars increase productivity, while decreasing ownership. From the book, The Inevitable, this plays on 3 major technological trends:

1) Accessing

2) Remixing

3) Becoming

🔭 N E X T 🔭

CaaS - Cars as a Service could be coming. Scale your fleet of self-driving cars up or down to meet the demands of your service.

Car APIs - cars are becoming more about software than hardware. Will we see APIs to allow external developers to integrate their services with self-driving grocery delivery?

📖 R E S O U R C

Technology improves human productivity. As technology continues to double in power, we will see an end to ALL technical problems. We will solve hunger, poverty, and disease.

In an age of increased leisure time, humans will desire work which allows us to:

1) Express ourselves

2) Engage with each other

3) Help each other

4) Be creative

5) Have an impact

6) Know the truth

How are humans different from other animals? If we build a conscious computer, how would we be different from it? Our brains can be used to control prosthetic limbs. Could we take this a step further to implant a computer in our brain? Leaders such as Elon Musk & Yuval Noah Harari believe it is possible. First we need 3 breakthroughs to occur:

1) Computers can read human thought

2) Computers can write a thought back to the brain

3) we can do 1 & 2 substantially faster than what we are used to

This thought experiment grows more interesting if a 4th breakthrough happens: we are able to build a conscious computer AND implant it in our brains.

Humanity used to be defined as our ability to use tools, once we discovered chimps use tools too we had to modify the definition of what it means to be human. Once conscious computers can do all that we definitely to be uniquely human, will we redefine humanity again? Or welcome computers into the "human" family?

📖 R E S O U R C E S 📖

The Fourth

Can computers become conscious? Consciousness is the feeling of subjective experience, of all your first-person sensations. While we don't know whether or now computers can become conscious, we explore 8 theories for whether machines can become conscious and whether we could upload our consciousness to them:

1) Weak Emergence

2) Strong Emergence

3) Physical Property of Matter

4) Quantum Phenomenon

5) Consciousness is Fundamental

6) Consciousness is Universal

7) A Trick of the Brain

8) Something Spiritual

R E S O U R C E S:

The Fourth Age: https://www.amazon.com/Fourth-Age-Conscious-Computers-Humanity/dp/1501158562

Alex Ogorek is a developer and repeat guest who reads more books than 95% of the world. Today we answer the question:

Can conscious computers be built? Or are those who try just members of a technological 'cargo cult'

VR, AR, and AI have been tried in the past. Exponential growth is hard for humans to visualize. Are these technologies about to hit their exponential turning point?

📚 R E SO U R C E S 📚

THE Fourth Age: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1501158562/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_IY1BBbBH31APX

Alexa Auto SDK allows ANY car manufacturer to bring Amazon Alexa to their customers.

Previously only select car manufacturers could integrate Alexa to their automobiles: Ford, BMW, Lexus, Toyota

Today ANY car can get a driving voice assistant by adding the Alexa Auto SDK to their products.

Alexa Auto SDK ( GitHub ): https://github.com/alexa/aac-sdk/tree/master/builder

Amazon Press Release: https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/b62cbff0-9674-4166-b476-9ad4cf74e9bf/announcing-the-alexa-auto-software-development-kit-sdk

What should kids study today to make sure they are employable in the future? Here are some tools to use to find out if your job is in jeopardy, and to proactively avoid job automation.

Long-term stable groups of work:

1) Jobs robots can do but probably never will.

2) Jobs we won't want robots to do.

3) Unpredictable jobs.

4) Jobs that need a high social IQ.

5) Jobs done on-site.

6) Jobs that require creativity and abstract thinking.

7) Jobs no one has thought of yet.

Quiz - Can a Robot do your job?: http://www.byronreese.com/jobs

🤖 Will robots take all, some, or none of our jobs? There are assumptions behind each of these options. Today we dive into the assumptions we make when discussing the job replacement possible by artificial intelligence and robotics. Humans are extrodinary creatures with amazing abilities to solve complex problems, including the creation of new work previously unimaginable ✨

📚 R E S O U R C E S 📚

The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity - Byron Reese

Guest Rob Krzyzanowski knows how to EFFECTIVELY give back. You want to leave a positive legacy during your lifetime. It can be difficult to find institutions with real positive impact. Rob discusses how to be effectively altruistic, and gives some of his favorite tools (below).

Resources:

Give Well: https://www.givewell.org

Giving What We Can: https://givingwhatwecan.org

80,000 Hours Project: https://80000hours.org