The Disruptors

Byron Reese (@byronreese) is the CEO and publisher of Gigaom, an industry-leading technology research company. Byron's also an award-winning author, speaker and futurist with a strong conviction that technology will help bring about a new golden age of humanity. Byron holds a number of technology patents and hosts two podcasts about artificial intelligence. He gives talks around the world about how technology is changing work, education, and culture to combined audiences well in excess of 100,000. His newest book, The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity tackles the issues of artificial intelligence, robots, automation, and the future of work. Byron is also the author of Infinite Progress: How the Internet and Technology Will End Ignorance, Disease, Poverty, Hunger, and War. Bloomberg Businessweek credits Byron with having “quietly pioneered a new breed of media company.” The Financial Times of London reported that he “is typical of the new wave of internet entrepreneurs out to turn the economics of the media industry on its head.” Byron and his work have been featured in hundreds of news outlets, including New York Times, Washington Post, Entrepreneur Magazine, USA Today, Reader’s Digest, NPR, and the LA Times Magazine. “The biggest problems of tomorrow will not be a lack of jobs but a shortage of humans to take advantage of all of the opportunities technology will offer.” – byronreese.com [spreaker type=player resource="episode_id=29887742" width="100%" height="200px" theme="light" playlist="false" playlist-continuous="false" autoplay="false" live-autoplay="false" chapters-image="true" episode-image-position="right" hide-logo="true" hide-likes="false" hide-comments="false" hide-sharing="false" hide-download="true"] Subscribe on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Android | Overcast | Spotify | Youtube You can listen right here on iTunes In our wide-ranging conversation, we cover many things, including:

* Why the world is fundamentally improving and Byron is an optimistic realist

* How AI will transform the labor market and economy, leading to better jobs

* The reason optimism and pessimism are incredibly important to humanity's survival, and evolution

* Why forecasting artificial general intelligence is just silly

* Will AI become conscious

* Why we're entering a fourth era of humanity

* The reason Byron is a little worried about the prospect of bioterrorism

* How 25 years in the internet industry has evolved Byron's view of the future

* Why the news drives fear and separation among us

* What to say to naysayers about technological progress

* Why social media will ultimately be a net positive to society

--

Make a Tax-Deductible Donation to Support FringeFM

FringeFM is supported by the generosity of its readers and listeners. If you find our work valuable, please consider supporting us on Patreon, via Paypal or with DonorBox powered by Stripe.

Garry Golden (@garrygolden) is a professionally trained futurist who writes, speaks, and consults on complex issues shaping society and business in the 21st century. He has consulted for Fortune 500 companies, governmental agencies and the US Army on issues related to transportation and mobility, food safety and health, the future of portable power, financial services  and much more.

Garry teaches an online course on The Future of Energy & Environment through the University of Houston Futures Studies program, and was Founding Editor of The Energy Roadmap.com Garry is co-author of Designing Your Future (2008) a Fast Futures / ASAE publication, and has co-written several business white papers including the Future of the Social Web and the Future of Green as a Business Strategy published by Future Think.

Subscribe on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Android | Overcast | Spotify | Youtube

[spreaker type=player resource="episode_id=28806748" width="100%" height="200px" theme="light" playlist="false" playlist-continuous="false" autoplay="false" live-autoplay="false" chapters-image="true" episode-image-position="right" hide-logo="true" hide-likes="false" hide-comments="false" hide-sharing="false" hide-download="true"]

In our wide-ranging conversation, we cover many things, including:

* The future of energy consumption and the grid

* Why Garry isn't sold on electric vehicles and battery technology

* The 4 types of futures and what they mean for society

* How we save the planet while still using fuel

* Why consciousness could be a problem with AI

* The reason politicians pull progress backward

* How futurists help society evolve

* Why Garry is quite enthusiastic about automation and AI

* Where the US is falling behind the rest of the world

--

Make a Tax-Deductible Donation to Support FringeFM

FringeFM is supported by the generosity of its readers and listeners. If you find our work valuable, please consider supporting us on Patreon, via Paypal or with DonorBox powered by Stripe.

Donate

 

 

Ben Hammersley (@benhammersley) is a technologist, futurist author and Editor-at-Large of UK’s WIRED magazine.

 

Ben explores the effects of the internet and the digital network on the world’s business, political and social atmospheres. His latest book, 64 Things You Need to Know Now For Then gives us the essential guide to the things we need to know for life in the 21st century. He's the writer, host, and narrator of Netflix and BBC television series Cybercrimes with Ben Hammersley that was shot in over six countries across the globe. As the first specialist correspondent on the internet for The Times and The Guardian, he became the inventor of the popular term, ‘podcast.’

 

Ben's been called upon to advise three governments and countless tech organizations, including a seat on the European Commission High-Level Group on Media Freedom of the European Union. He has a private pilot’s license, is a Rescue Diver, and is a nationally registered Emergency Medical Technician in the USA, with an additional wilderness medicine diploma, and he holds qualifications in genomic science, disaster response, and advanced cardiac life support

[spreaker type=player resource="episode_id=27650275" width="100%" height="200px" theme="light" playlist="false" playlist-continuous="false" autoplay="false" live-autoplay="false" chapters-image="true" episode-image-position="right" hide-logo="true" hide-likes="false" hide-comments="false" hide-sharing="false" hide-download="true"]

 

You can listen right here on iTunes

 

In today's episode we discuss:

* How societal norms and social media breakdown without problem guidance

* The future of publishing and media in an age of outreach

* Why Ben thinks we can change politics and we're both excited about the future for Millenials

* What it's like as a futurist and why most companies are living in the past

* The effect of GDPR and Europe's rules and regulations

* Why internet censorship is important and key to democracy

* Is democracy or authoritarianism a better model going forward

* Why Ben isn't worried about AI and thinks blockchain is overrated

* What happens when China becomes THE economic powerhouse of the world

* How Ben accidentally invented the term podcast and why it's haunted him ever since

* What it's like working with Netflix and the future of solo-media companies

* Why Ben believes digital advertising is an enormous bubble

Make a Tax-Deductible Donation to Support The Disruptors

Make a Tax-Deductible Donation to Support The Disruptors

The Disruptors is supported by the generosity of its readers and listeners. If you find our work valuable, please consider supporting us on Patreon, via Paypal or with DonorBox powered by Stripe.

Charlie Hartwell (@ShiftIt_Inst) is an Operating Partner at the Bridge Builders Collaborative, a consumer health tech investment group that invested early in Pear Therapeutics, Insight Timer and Headspace, in addition to being a "Change Agent" focused on igniting consciousness, mindfulness, and creating a more connected human world.

[spreaker type=player resource="episode_id=27078011" width="100%" height="200px" theme="light" playlist="false" playlist-continuous="false" autoplay="false" live-autoplay="false" chapters-image="true" episode-image-position="right" hide-logo="true" hide-likes="false" hide-comments="false" hide-sharing="false" hide-download="true"]

Subscribe on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Android | Overcast | Spotify | Youtube

You can listen right here on iTunes

In today's episode we discuss:

* Where are headed with consumer health tech and consciousness

* Why Charlie's afraid our collective ability to live together

* How mindfulness and meditation can help us get through this COVID crisis

* The role of psychedelics in shifting mental health

* Why meditation may just be the next best medic

* Which alternative health practices hold the most promise for the future of healthcare

* What Charlie thinks we should do for a more mentally-sound world

* Why we're treating patients and health all wrong

* How investment dollars drive innovation

* Why the psychedelic movement of today is much more than a fad

* What's the future of wearable tech

Make a Tax-Deductible Donation to Support The Disruptors

The Disruptors is supported by the generosity of its readers and listeners. If you find our work valuable, please consider supporting us on Patreon, via Paypal or with DonorBox powered by Stripe.

Donate

 

Cory Doctorow (@doctorow) is the best selling science fiction author, blogger, and technology activist. He is the co-editor of the popular weblog Boing Boing), a contributor to many magazines, websites, and newspapers and a special consultant to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org), a non-profit civil liberties group that defends freedom in technology law, policy, standards, and treaties. He holds an honorary doctorate in computer science from the Open University (UK), where he is a Visiting Professor; he is also an MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate. In 2007, he served as the Fulbright Chair at the Annenberg Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California. His novels have been translated into dozens of languages and are published by Tor Books, Head of Zeus (UK), Titan Books (UK) and HarperCollins (UK). He has won the Locus, Prometheus, Copper Cylinder, White Pine and Sunburst Awards, and been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and British Science Fiction Awards. Several of his award-winning novels include:

* Little Brother

* Homeland

* Pirate Cinema

Cory also co-founded the open-source peer-to-peer software company OpenCola and serves on the boards and advisory boards of the Participatory Culture Foundation, the Clarion Foundation, the Open Technology Fund and the Metabrainz Foundation.

[spreaker type=player resource="episode_id=26676606" width="100%" height="200px" theme="light" playlist="false" playlist-continuous="false" autoplay="false" live-autoplay="false" chapters-image="true" episode-image-position="right" hide-logo="true" hide-likes="false" hide-comments="false" hide-sharing="false" hide-download="true"]

Subscribe on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Android | Overcast | Spotify | Youtube You can listen right here on iTunes

 

In today's episode we discuss:

* Possible geopolitical consequence of the COVID-19 epidemic

* New ways to consider the role of economics and market forces post Corona

* Why Cory thinks much of Europe will push further left after the world normalizes

* The reason Cory isn't worried about a post-COVID new Patriot Act

* Why today feels a lot like post-WWII oligarchy capitalism

* The five new horsemen of the battle for individual privacy

* How to avoid self-destructive late-stage capitalism

* Why Coronavirus death and fallout may swing the future of US politics

* Why the US is WAY more socialized than citizens think

* How we could fund a successful Green New Deal

* What were the true impacts of Edward Snowden

* Are we headed toward a constant location-based tracking and surveillance

* What worries Cory most about today's epidemic climate

Make a Tax-Deductible Donation to Support The Disruptors

The Disruptors is supported by the generosity of its readers and listeners. If you find our work valuable, please consider supporting us on Patreon, via Paypal or with

Douglas Rushkoff (@rushkoff) is an author, teacher, and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. He has been named one of the “world’s ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT.

Douglas' work explores how different technological environments change our relationship to narrative, money, power, and one another. He coined such concepts as “viral media” and “social currency,” and has been a leading voice for applying digital media toward social and economic justice.

Douglas is the author twenty books including bestsellers Present Shock, Throwing Rocks and the Google Bus, Program or Be Programmed, Life Inc, and Media Virus and is releasing his new book Team Human based off his podcast.

He has written and hosted three award-winning PBS Frontline documentaries – The Merchants of Cool looked at the influence of corporations on youth culture, The Persuaders, about the cluttered landscape of marketing, and new efforts to overcome consumer resistance, and Digital Nation, about life on the virtual frontier. Most recently, he made Generation Like, an exploration of teens, marketers, and social media.

Douglas is also a research fellow of the Institute for the Future, and founder of the Laboratory for Digital Humanism at CUNY/Queens, where he is a Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics. His novels and comics, Ecstasy Club, A.D.D, and Aleister & Adolf, are all being developed for the screen. Douglas also served as an Advisor to the United Nations Commission on World Culture and regularly appears on TV shows from NBC Nightly News and Larry King to the Colbert Report and Bill Maher.

[spreaker type=player resource="episode_id=26188457" width="100%" height="200px" theme="light" playlist="false" playlist-continuous="false" autoplay="false" live-autoplay="false" chapters-image="true" episode-image-position="right" hide-logo="true" hide-likes="false" hide-comments="false" hide-sharing="false" hide-download="true"]

Subscribe on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Android | Overcast | Spotify | Youtube

 

 

You can listen right here on iTunes

In our wide-ranging conversation, we cover many things, including:

* The reason billionaires are planning for the "inevitable" apocalypse and why that's a big problem

* How broken the US political system is and how we can fix it

* The big issue with the stock market and venture capital and how we can reinvent business for the 21st century

* Why our future is in our hands and what we can do about it

* Which tech giants will get broken up and which will reign

* The problems with social media and plans to fight back

* How regulations affect business and monopolies and where we are headed

* Why people are pushing back against tech and how it impacts our world

* What Google's walkout means for the future of tech

* Why Douglas thinks companies are the key to changing our world

* The reason Douglas is very worried about growing inequality

* Why capital is the only thing that counts today

* How to redesign our education system for the modern era



Tony Parisi (@auradeluxe) is a virtual reality pioneer, serial entrepreneur, and angel investor. He co-created several, 3D graphics standards, is Head of AR/VR Ad Innovation at Unity Technologies, and author several O'Reilly Media books on virtual reality and WebGL.

Today, Tony is has a leading spokesman for the immersive industry and was recently named one of Next Reality’s 30 People to Watch in Augmented Reality in 2019.

[spreaker type=player resource="episode_id=25799246" width="100%" height="200px" theme="light" playlist="false" playlist-continuous="false" autoplay="false" live-autoplay="false" chapters-image="true" episode-image-position="right" hide-logo="true" hide-likes="false" hide-comments="false" hide-sharing="false" hide-download="true"]

Subscribe on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Android | Overcast | Spotify | Youtube

You can listen right here on iTunes

In today's episode we discuss:

* Where are we on the AR and VR adoption cycle

* What the future of AR/VR holds and why they will diverge

* How COVID-19 is pushing us towards an immersive future

* The big differences between consumer and enterprise VR adoption

* Why Facebook and Oculus are well-placed to dominate virtual reality 

* Which sci-fi inspirations are most realistic for augmented and virtual reality

* What's the future look like for the entertainment industry

* Why Tony isn't all that worried about any future tech

* How tech life cycles are accelerating and what it all means

* Why we have reached a tipping point in consumer VR adoption

 

Make a Tax-Deductible Donation to Support The Disruptors

The Disruptors is supported by the generosity of its readers and listeners. If you find our work valuable, please consider supporting us on Patreon, via Paypal or with DonorBox powered by Stripe.

Donate

 

Mary Robinette Kowal (@robinettekowal) is a Nebula- and Hugo-award winning science fiction and fantasy author, a puppeteer, and podcaster. In addition The Calculating Stars: A Lady Astronaut Novel which was nominated for a Hugo in 2019 (sci-fi book of the year award), she's also the President of the Science Fiction Writers of America, and very involved in the push for diversity in science, STEM, and sci-fi as a whole.

On her podcast, Writing Excuses, she and other award-winning authors share tips and tricks with aspiring authors looking to build their careers.

[spreaker type=player resource="episode_id=25421680" width="100%" height="200px" theme="light" playlist="false" playlist-continuous="false" autoplay="false" live-autoplay="false" chapters-image="true" episode-image-position="right" hide-logo="true" hide-likes="false" hide-comments="false" hide-sharing="false" hide-download="true"]

Subscribe on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Android | Overcast | Spotify | Youtube

You can listen right here on iTunes

In today's episode we discuss:

* How COVD-19 will affect the future of education

* Why the Coronavirus issue is so bad in Italy and not other places

* How looking at Polio and the Spanish flu can give us models of today's pandemic

* The second-order effects of Corona on the future and economy as a whole

* Best practices for fighting a plague

* The big difference between European and US startups

* Why COVD could end up being a net-positive for the US

* Why quarantining can be huge in reducing epidemic death rates

* How sci-fi helps us build a better future

* How to prepare for a post-automation world

* What is the future of books, publishing and media

* The future of AI, creativity and jobs

* Why Trump is the absolute wrong person at the helm of the US during this crisis

Make a Tax-Deductible Donation to Support The Disruptors

The Disruptors is supported by the generosity of its readers and listeners. If you find our work valuable, please consider supporting us on Patreon, via Paypal or with DonorBox powered by Stripe.

Donate

 

Miguel Arias Cañete (@mac_europa) was the European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy and led the EU negotiations of the Paris Agreement.

He’s now involved with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation which has launched the Prize for Humanity, an annual €1m award for people or organizations from all over the world focused on mitigation of, and adaptation to climate change.

Miguel has served the Spanish Government as both the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries and Minister for Agriculture, Food and Environment before being selected to head his Party List in the European Parliamentary elections.

[spreaker type=player resource="episode_id=24857421" width="100%" height="200px" theme="light" playlist="false" playlist-continuous="false" autoplay="false" live-autoplay="false" chapters-image="true" episode-image-position="right" hide-logo="true" hide-likes="false" hide-comments="false" hide-sharing="false" hide-download="true"]

Subscribe on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Android | Overcast | Spotify | Youtube

You can listen right here on iTunes

In today's episode we discuss:

* The unique challenges that went into crafting the Paris Accord

* What the US's withdrawal from the Paris Agreement means for climate policy

* How hard it is to ensure collective action on big problems

* China's role in addressing the environment

* Why Miguel thinks the US will rejoin the Paris Accords

* How the EU is leading the effort on decarbonization

* What to think about nuclear energy

* The reason transportation is so hard to go green

* What happens if we don't reach climate goals

* The problems of bureaucracy and why the EU is actually pretty efficient

* Which agritech areas are most important to reduce global warming

* How business can be used as a force for good

* Are we headed for a future of mass migrations

* Why democracy is a stronger governance system than centralized economies in the long run

* How China's policy on coal could crush climate goals

Make a Tax-Deductible Donation to Support The Disruptors

The Disruptors is supported by the generosity of its readers and listeners. If you find our work valuable, please consider supporting us on Patreon, via Paypal or with DonorBox powered by Stripe.

Ramez Naam (@ramez) is a computer scientist, futurist, angel investor and award-winning author best known for his Nexus Trilogy: Nexus, Crux and Apex

His other (non-fiction) books include: The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet and More than Human: Embracing the Promises of Biological Enhancement.

He's currently co-chair of energy and the environment at Singularity University and earlier in his career led teams at Microsoft working on Outlook, Internet Explorer and Bing where he co-patented 20 inventions, many alongside Bill Gates.

Ramez has appeared on Sunday morning MSNBC, Yahoo! Finance, The New York Times, WSJ, PopSci, Wired, and many more. Ramez holds more than 20 patents, and many of those are as a co-inventor with Bill Gates.

Subscribe on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Android | Overcast | Spotify | Youtube

[spreaker type=player resource="episode_id=24624537" width="100%" height="200px" theme="light" playlist="false" playlist-continuous="false" autoplay="false" live-autoplay="false" chapters-image="true" episode-image-position="right" hide-logo="true" hide-likes="false" hide-comments="false" hide-sharing="false" hide-download="true"]

You can listen right here on iTunes

In today's episode we discuss:

* Why we're at a tipping point for carbon-emitting cars sold

* What it was like working directly with Bill Gates

* What is Ramez predicted about renewable energy and why it's better than even he thought

* How technologists are solving global problems by fixing incentives and driving down costs

* What it's like to be both a bestselling fiction and non-fiction author

* Why Ramez is no longer a big believer in radical life extension

* The brain2.0 movement and why we're becoming cyborgs

* What Ramez thinks about CRISPR and genetically engineering people

* The importance of sci-fi to shift societal attitudes

* How to think about technological trends when tackling big problems

* Why innovation often leaves behind a lot bodies

* The reason Ramez is fundamentally optimist despite all the challenges we face

* Why the secret to a better future is to create it

Make a Tax-Deductible Donation to Support The Disruptors

Make a Tax-Deductible Donation to Support The Disruptors

The Disruptors is supported by the generosity of its readers and listeners. If you find our work valuable, please consider supporting us on Patreon, via Paypal or with DonorBox powered by Stripe.