Will unconventional computing lead to a general artificial intelligence? Will it aid humanity's quest to upload a human mind to a computer, essentially granting immortality? And what role do spiders, octopuses, and crabs play in this? Join us as we talk to award winning author Adrian Tchaikovsky (Children of Time, Shadows of the Apt, Cage of Souls) about how unconventional computing might (or might not) revolutionize the world.  We also talk about his upcoming book, Children of Memory, and the concept of uplifting animals to human intelligence.

You can email us at [email protected] or keep up to date with DataFest at https://datafest.global and on Twitter @datafest_

Your hosts are Gordon Johnstone - Head of DataFest at The Data Lab, Scotland's innovation centre for data and artificial intelligence hosted by the University of Edinburgh - and Lily Higham, Senior Automation Engineer at the BBC World Service.

Music provided by Post Coal Prom Queen.