Singularity.FM

Steve Omohundro is a scientist, professor, author, and entrepreneur with a Ph.D. in physics who has spent decades studying intelligent systems and artificial intelligence. His research into the basic “AI Drives” was featured in James Barrat’s recent book Our Final Invention and has been generating international interest. So, I was very happy to have Dr. Omohundro […]

This is the first out of a series of 3 sci-fi round-table interviews with Ramez Naam, William Hertling, and Greg Bear that I did last November in Seattle. It was produced by Richard and Tatyana Sundvall and generously hosted by Greg and Astrid Bear. [Special thanks to our cinematographer Ian Sun for both recording and […]

Brad Feld is an entrepreneur and a popular blogger. He is also the author of The Startup Series of books such as Startup Life. But Brad is best known for being a unique type of technology Venture Capitalist who has invested in more than 200 different companies throughout his career. And so I was very […]

Today I just want to take a minute and say “Thank You!” Thank you, because without you there will be no Singularity Weblog. Thank you, because without you there will be no Singularity 1on1. Thank you, because without you I can call myself neither a blogger nor a podcaster. Thank you, because, without your support, […]

Last October I traveled to Vermont to visit the Terasem Movement Foundation and speak to its managing director Bruce Duncan. I first met Bruce at the Idea City conference in Toronto where he shared the stage together with Bina 48. Needless to say, I was impressed by both of them and thus I couldn’t refuse […]

Godfrey Reggio is an inventor of a film style that creates poetic images of extraordinary emotional impact for audiences worldwide. Reggio is prominent in the film world for his Qatsi trilogy – Koyaanisqatsi: Live Out of Ballance, Powaqqatsi: Life in Transformation, and Naqoyqatsi: Life as War, essays of visual images and sound that chronicle the destructive impact […]

Dr. Frank J. Tipler is a physicist and cosmologist perhaps best known for concepts such as the Omega Point or The Cosmological Singularity. He is a professor of mathematical physics at Tulane University and the author of books such as The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, The Physics of Immortality, and The Physics of Christianity. During our […]

Dave Asprey is founder of The Bulletproof Executive as well as a Silicon Valley investor and technology entrepreneur who spent 15 years and over $300,000 to hack his own biology. He lost 100 pounds without counting calories or excessive exercise, upgraded his brain by more than 20 IQ points, and lowered his biological age while […]

David Pearce is a British utilitarian philosopher who promotes what he calls The Hedonistic Imperative. David is also a co-founder of the World Transhumanist Association and a vegan who argues that we (or our future posthuman descendants) have a responsibility not only to avoid cruelty to animals within human society but also to alleviate the […]

Dr. Noam Chomsky is a famed linguist, political activist, prolific author and recognized public speaker, who has spent the last 60 years living a double life – one as a political activist and another as a linguist. His activism allegedly made him the US government’s public enemy number one. As a linguist he is often […]

For 20 years James Barrat has created documentary films for National Geographic, the BBC, Discovery Channel, History Channel, and public television. In 2000, during the course of his career as a filmmaker, James interviewed Ray Kurzweil and Arthur C. Clarke. The latter interview transformed entirely Barrat’s views on artificial intelligence and made him write a book […]

Dr. Stuart Hameroff is a Professor of Anesthesiology and Psychology and Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona. Together with British quantum physicist Sir Roger Penrose, Hameroff is the co-author of the controversial Orch OR model of consciousness. I first met Dr. Hameroff at the recent GF2045 conference where the […]

It has been almost two months since I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Dr. Natasha Vita-More at her family house in Scottsdale, Arizona. Vita-More has been at the forefront for several decades and her projects such as Primo Post Human have lead the NY Times to call her “the first female philosopher of transhumanism.” Thus I was very […]

Robert Scoble is a Liaison officer for Rack Space, social media phenomenon, a technology pundit with a huge following, a journalist who has done thousands of interviews, and a man who “always tries to have the front row seat on technology.” Needless to say, I was very happy to have Scoble on Singularity 1 on […]

Stelarc is a world-renowned body-installation visual artist who has pushed the boundaries with his performances for more than four decades. His art has extruded the body beyond its physical limitations and created strong reactions around the world. Though strictly speaking he doesn’t consider himself to be a transhumanist, he also doesn’t mind being labeled a […]

Dr. Geordie Rose is a founder and Chief Technology Officer at D-Wave Computers. I met Geordie at the IdeaCity conference in Toronto where he made an impassioned presentation about D-Wave and quantum computing. Needless to say, as soon as Dr. Rose stopped speaking I rushed to ask him for an interview. As it turns out Geordie is […]

Roman V. Yampolskiy is an Assistant Professor at the School of Engineering and Director at the Cybersecurity Lab of the University of Louisville. He is also an alumnus of Singularity University (GSP2012) and a visiting fellow of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI). Dr. Yampolskiy is a well known researcher with a more holistic point of view, […]

Joseph Carvalko is a lawyer with many decades of experience who bravely sued the Secretary of Defense and the President of the United States for deserting a POW in Korea. Carvalko is also an engineer and inventor with 10 patents in fields spanning bio-medicine, electronics and the financial services. Joseph is the author of an […]

Last month I had the privilege of visiting Max More at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. Alcor is a non-profit organization founded in 1972 and located in Scottsdale, Arizona. It is the world leader in cryonics, cryonics research, and cryonics technology. [Cryonics is the science of using ultra-cold temperature to preserve human life with the […]

Peter Joseph is a musician, filmmaker, and social activist best known as the man behind the Zeitgeist film trilogy and the founder of the Zeitgeist movement. Peter’s films have become a counter-culture phenomenon on the internet and have had millions of views. He has not shied away from controversy and has dared to push a […]

This Wednesday I was very privileged to interview Dr. Ann Cavoukian. Dr. Cavoukian is the information and privacy commissioner of the province of Ontario (Canada) as well as the creator and foremost global champion of the privacy by design philosophy. She has been one of the most vocal proponents of privacy and the fact that […]

Nigel Ackland claims he is an ordinary man. But, after seeing the emotional impact he had on the audience at GF2045, I have to disagree with him. His speech titled Ordinary… Extraordinary. Life with a Bionic Arm was in my view by far the most moving of all the conference presentations. And so, I knew […]

A few weeks ago I got interviewed on the Futurology Podcast. During my one hour conversation with show host Jason Peffley we discuss a number of topics such as: how I got to do blogging and podcasting; my time and take on Singularity University in particular and education in general; the wait-and-see vs the proactive […]

Marvin Minsky is often called the Father of Artificial Intelligence and I have been looking for an opportunity to interview him for years. I was hoping that I will finally get my chance at the GF2045 conference in NY City. Unfortunately, Prof. Minsky had bronchitis and consequently had to speak via video. A week later, […]

Thad Starner is a wearable computing pioneer who coined the term “augmented reality” and a Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is also a technical lead on Google Glass – a self-contained wearable computer. And so I was very excited to interview Prof. Starner for my Singularity 1 on 1 podcast. During our conversation with Thad […]

Daryl Oster is an inventor and engineer who wants to bring space travel to Earth. The idea is called ET3 – Evacuated Tube Transport Technologies. Oster is the CEO of ET3 and his company “uses an open consortium business model to share information resulting in co-operative benefits.” The goal is nothing less but building a radically new […]

Chris Lewicki is the president and Chief Asteroid Miner at Planetary Resources – the first company that plans to locate and mine asteroids for water and precious metals. The company is backed by a number of billionaires and space enthusiasts such as director James Cameron, Google’s Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt, X Prize founder Peter Diamandis and billionaire Ross […]

Prof. Chris Hables Gray is someone whose work on both war and the cyborg is a must-read for anyone interested in those topics. I have followed Gray’s work for over 10 years and have read at least 3 of his books. So when I discovered that Chris will be one of the speakers for the […]

Ori Inbar developed a passion for augmented reality (AR) ever since he realized that it will change every aspect of life and work we can think of. This realization has motivated him to become an industry start-up entrepreneur, a founder of a not-for-profit organization, an event organizer and a recognized speaker on topics related to […]

Jacque Fresco is a futurist, inventor, social engineer, visionary, and technician, best known for the Venus Project. In his Future By Design documentary about Fresco’s life and ideas, Emmy-winning filmmaker William Gazecki called the 97-year-old Jacque “a modern-day Da Vinci.” Others have called him “a new Buckminster Fuller.” Now, I have to admit that I really like […]

Amon Kalkin is a cognitive scientist, electronic artist, and founder of Zero State. He is 40 years old, born in New Zealand, and living in the UK, where he spends his time raising a young family and gardening when he isn’t working to create a sphere of influence for positive futurist values. During my interview with […]

While I personally loved the first half of The Transhumanist Wager and disliked much of the second, I am convinced that the novel is a must-read for anyone interested in the future of our civilization. In my view, the novel is full of interesting and controversial contradictions. For example, on the one hand, Zoltan Istvan […]

Transhumanism is both misunderstood and feared. Ignorant people with an ideological agenda have gone as far as labeling it “the most dangerous idea.” Thus a comprehensive book – a Transhumanist Reader, documenting both the origins and the current state of transhumanist thought has been long needed. So, when I discovered that a new book aimed […]

Will Crockett is a photo innovator and web TV personality. He has more than 30 years as a commercial photographer with clients like Pfizer, Boeing, Hewlett Packard, Cadbury, United Airlines, TIME magazine, and the US Pentagon. Crocket is also the man behind DiscoverMirrorless.com and ShootSmarter.com as well as a prototype test shooter for many camera […]

Matthew Putman is the most eclectic guest I have had on Singularity 1 on 1. Matthew is a PhD in applied mathematics and engineering, Professor at Columbia University, a Thiel fellowship mentor, entrepreneur, poet, jazz pianist, inventor holding patents in nano-imaging, film and theater producer, and a cancer survivor. After spending over an hour talking […]

James D. Miller is a professor of economics and, most recently, the author of Singularity Rising: Surviving and Thriving in a Smarter, Richer, and More Dangerous World. James is the second economist on Singularity 1 on 1 and he respects and agrees with much of Robin Hanson‘s conclusions. In my view, however, Miller’s book Singularity […]

Yesterday I went to speak to a class of grade 12 students from the Newtonbrook Secondary School in Toronto. I have been looking forward to this opportunity to challenge and be challenged by the next generation of bright young minds, and was not going to be prevented from going there, be it by a Canadian […]

Yesterday I spoke at this year’s edition of the annual Podcamp Toronto at Ryerson University. Since people often ask me for tips on podcasting, I decided to record my presentation so that it is always available to anyone interested in knowing how I started or what in my view are the most important elements for […]

Ayesha Khanna is the co-founder of the Hybrid Reality Institute and co-author of Hybrid Reality book for Kindle. During my Singularity 1 on 1 interview with Ayesha Khanna we discuss a variety of topics such as women and technology; whether men are from Mars and women from Venus; her book Hybrid Reality and what she calls […]

My second interview with economist Robin Hanson was by far the most vigorous debate ever on Singularity 1 on 1. I have to say that I have rarely disagreed more with any of my podcast guests before. So, why do I get so fired up about Robin’s ideas you may ask?! Well, here is just […]

Christine Peterson is not only the co-founder and past president of the Foresight Institute for Nanotechnology but also the person credited with coining the term open-source software. More recently her interests have evolved to include longevity and life extension technologies and she is currently the CEO of Health Activator. During my Singularity 1 on 1 interview with Christine […]

Dr. “George Church is one of the most brilliant scientists in the world,” says Steven Pinker on the front cover of Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves. Regenesis is the recent book that Church wrote together with Ed Regis, where the authors “imagine a future in which human beings have become immune […]

Today my guest is Doug Wolens. Doug is the lawyer-turned-documentarian whose most recent film is The Singularity. I have to say that neither Doug nor his film is what I expected. To paraphrase and add to one of the other iTunes film reviewers – what I was expecting was “Wohooo! Singularity!” But what I got instead […]

Robin Hanson is not just a well known economist with seminal work in prediction markets. He is also a physicist, philosopher and AI researcher. Besides being a polyglot he is also an extremely likable fellow and both of those make him very hard to argue against. Add up the fact that it’s been over a decade […]

I know how hard it is start a podcast. So when budding podcasters ask me for an interview, I am always looking for reasons to say “Yes.” This is a re-post of my month-old interview for the Wow Signal Podcast recently started by Paul Carr. Since this is only the 3rd episode ever, the recording is still a bit […]

Bob McDonald is the national science correspondent and popular host of CBC’s radio show Quirks and Quarks. If you are Canadian it is virtually impossible that you have not seen or heard him on TV or radio for the past 30+ years. If you are not, then, you will be treated to some of his […]

Prof. Chris Eliasmith is currently the director of the Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience at the University of Waterloo and the team leader behind SPAUN – the brain simulation project that recently made news around the world. So, when I discovered that Eliasmith’s lab is just over an hour worth of driving from my place, I decided […]

Ken Hayworth is the president of the Brain Preservation Foundation and a strong proponent of chemical brain preservation. During my Singularity 1 on 1 interview with Ken, we talk about a variety of topics such as his background in electron-microscopy and how he got interested in it; the motivation behind his work; his skepticism towards […]

Jack Andraka is the miracle whiz kid that came up with a totally unique pancreatic cancer detection test that takes 5 minutes to administer, costs 3 cents, is non-invasive, has been 100% accurate in blind trials, is 168 times faster, and 26,000 times cheaper than the current gold standard. During my Singularity 1 on 1 […]

This is the second time that I interview Ramez Naam for my Singularity 1 on 1 podcast. Last time we talked about Naam’s interesting background, professional experience, and award-winning book More Than Human. During our second conversation with Ramez, we talk mainly about his novel Nexus: Mankind Gets an Upgrade. We also cover a variety of […]