Top 15 Episodes



As the Review the Future podcast ends and our new podcasting experiment begins, we’d like to share our favorite fifteen episodes, presented here in chronological order.

099: Review of Review the Future



After nearly 100 episodes, we’ve decided to dramatically change the format of the podcast: this episode will be the last traditional Review the Future episode! We are taking this opportunity to reflect back on six years of podcasting and review ourselves. Which predictions seem more or less correct given the passage of time? When were we right and when were we horribly wrong? In a wide ranging discussion, we return to all of our favorite topics, from privacy to technological unemployment to the rate of technological progress.

So what’s next for the podcast? Upcoming episodes will focus on the writing and development of our next graphic novel, a sci fi tale we are extremely excited about. The title will change but we’ll be using this same feed to broadcast, so we hope you will remain subscribed and stick with us on this new journey.

Episodes Referenced (in order):

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098: Review of WALKAWAY



Cory Doctorow’s novel WALKAWAY is the subject of this episode. Ted and Jon discuss the novel’s plot (and this one is full of spoilers, so if you haven’t read it yet beware!) and the wild sci fi ideas inside: emulated brains, matter printers, post-capitalist visions of society, and a growing rift between ‘default’-dwellers who live in a version of the world today and the walkaway movement, that embraces abundance by largely eschewing personal property. It’s a fascinating world if not always a compelling read from a literary perspective.

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097: Review of I AM MOTHER



Jon and Ted review I AM MOTHER, a Netflix movie directed by Grant Sputore and written by Michael Lloyd Green. The story is about a robot that raises a human child. We cover the more and less believable aspects of the story, and consider whether the chain of events dramatized seems realistic. This one is full of spoilers, so watch the movie first if you’d rather not have the twists revealed.

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096: Review of BLACK MIRROR Season 5, Part 3



This episode is about Smithereens, the second episode in season 5 of Black Mirror. The episode features a hostage situation caused in part by social media addiction. Jon and Ted use this episode to discuss the increasingly governmental role played by social media and other large tech companies, and speculate about the future of devolving government duties to private actors. This concludes our coverage of Black Mirror season 5. (We covered the other two episodes, out of order, in the previous two podcasts.)

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095: Review of BLACK MIRROR Season 5, Part 2



This episode is about Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too, the third episode in season 5 of Black Mirror. Sure, it’s another story with emulated brain technology where it’s only applied in one narrow way, but its fun fairytale tone helps forgive that and there are a few genuinely interesting speculations, including about how musical creativity works, extracting artistic concepts from either AIs or comatose brains, and what can be done with an artist’s brand without their consent. In the end it’s a little muddled what is being said, but it’s an interestingly complex episode.

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094: Review of BLACK MIRROR Season 5, Part 1



If you were waiting for an episode in which Jon says “shooting orgasmic fireballs,” today’s your lucky day. This episode we look at the STRIKING VIPERS episode of Black Mirror season 5. In it, two friends who are straight men in real life fall in love while playing avatars of differing gender (and race) in an immersive video game. We discuss the plausibility of such technology and the ways the episode depicts the wider world, and interrogate some of the interesting things that come up around sex and embodiment.

Also: this is our first ever video podcast! Subscribe to our Youtube channel if you like.

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093: Review of EXHALATION, Part 2



In this episode we review the story The Lifecycle of Software Objects from the collection Exhalation by Ted Chiang. The story is about a pair of startup employees who train and bond with software beings created by the company they work for. It’s a metaphor for parenting, but being a longer story with several breaks in time, it also contains a richly detailed speculative world. We use it as a jumping off point to discuss ovafusion, uploaded mammals, paths to AI, and more.

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092: Review of EXHALATION, Part 1



In this episode we review the story The Truth of Feeling, The Truth of Fact from the collection Exhalation by Ted Chiang. The story is both a philosophical inquisition into memory and technology, and a carefully envisioned speculative take on an advanced video memory replacement software that surfaces memories using AI. We’ll be back in the next episode to review another story in this book, The Lifecycle of Software Objects.

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091: Review of Philip K Dick’s ELECTRIC DREAMS



Crazy Diamond, the fourth episode of Amazon’s anthology of Philip K Dick adaptations, is the subject of this week’s episode. We discuss the primary technical supposition in the story, chimeric genetically engineered pig-people, and use that as a window to discuss human genetic engineering and enhancement more generally. We also discuss the elusive tone of Dick and how close this show gets to representing it.

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090: Review of AUTONOMOUS



We discuss Annalee Neuwitz’s novel Autonomous, a sci fi story set in a world of biotech and aggressive patent enforcement. The book is a two hander about a drug pirate named Jack Chen and a robot named Paladin who awakens and finds love. It’s thematically about the meaning of autonomy, both in terms of political and personal freedom. We use it as a jumping off point to discuss speculation of human and robot indenture, the future of intellectual property enforcement, and more.

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089: Discussion of Ray Kurzweil’s 2019 Predictions



We’re back! In this return episode we’re looking back at the prediction made for this year, 2019, twenty years ago in Ray Kurzweil’s 1999 book The Age of Spiritual Machines. This list was impressively specific and bold, and as we show not all of the predictions panned out. But is Kurzweil just a bit optimistic, maybe by ten years or so, or is he fundamentally wrong? We take a pretty unscientific look at how each of his predictions fared, then give our own gut assessments of how the future’s coming along.

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088: Discussion of Hypocralypse and the Future of Punishment



In this week’s discussion Ted and Jon talk about the new Robin Hanson article positing a future ‘hypocralypse’ in which useful hypocrisies become impossible to pull off because of technology. How will people and culture react? What might happen to laws and norms that are very influenced by symbolic concerns? Also they discuss the four main purposes of punishment and ways that various technical advances might better serve those purposes, and what that might look like.

PS: Our graphic novel LET GO is now available digitally through ComiXology!

 

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087: What is the Future of Sex Robots?



In today’s episode, we discuss the future of sex robots. Inspired by the book Robot Sex: Social and Ethical Implications, we consider various benefits and harms that sex robots might have on users, society, and even the robots themselves. Will sex robots be on balance a good thing or a bad thing? Will they provide a safe outlet for bad behavior or possibly just embolden it? And what will be the impact of sex robots on marriage?

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086: Discussion of Malicious Uses of AI



A team of 26 authors just published a fascinating new report on the malicious uses of AI. Inspired by the structure and content of this report, we decided to do a podcast overview of the various ways AI might be misused in the near future. Many discussions of AI tend to focus on either unintended consequences or on speculative concerns about a super intelligent takeover. In contrast, the issues brought up by this paper feel refreshingly grounded. Throughout this episode, we explore the concrete question: what is the intersection of criminality and artificial intelligence over the next five to ten years? Only time will tell, but we attempt to at least paint a picture of the possibilities.

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085: Grab Bag of Short Topics



In today’s episode we tried an experiment. Lacking topics that we felt were big enough for a whole episode, we instead discussed a lot of little topics including self driving cars, the philosophy of David Deutsch, cryptocurrency in the Marshall Islands, a new paper on AI dangers, durable goods increasingly becoming services, Walmart scanning robots, and the dynamics of status in the internet age. We hope you enjoy!

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084: Discussion of Conversational AI and Digital Currency



In today’s episode, we discuss Google’s new conversational AI, known as Duplex. Although impressive as a tech demo, this new technology has not received the warmest of receptions. We discuss the various ethical and possibly criminal implications of robots that can convincingly fool humans over the phone. Next, we discuss a possible shift to a fully digital currency. Though cryptocurrency is a hot topic at the moment, we do not expect that a real digital currency is likely to resemble today’s cryptocurrency. A likely digital currency would probably be centralized under government control and have resulting advantages and risks.

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083: Discussion of Moore’s Law and Optimism vs. Pessimism



We discuss Moore’s law and how it undergirds most futurist predictions, and what that means now that it appears to be coming to an end. We cover the benefits of predictable gains for software developers versus the low hanging opportunities to optimize. We then cover the abstract idea of optimism vs. pessimism in argumentation and posit that a desire to inspire or negatively motivate to prevent leads to insincere argumentation.

 

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082: Discussion of Subvocal Recognition and Domestic Robots



In today’s episode we dive into the implications of two recent news stories.  The first involves an exciting new tech demo that came out of the MIT Media Lab for a device called the AlterEgo. The AlterEgo combines subvocal recognition with bone conduction tech to create the external appearance of computer-aided telepathy. Does this technology have a future, and if so, what form will it take? The second news story involves the announcement by Amazon of plans to enter the domestic robotics space. With very few actual details to go over, we indulge in our typical wild speculation about the kinds of home robotics that might see use in the near future, and whether the concept of ephemeralization can be meaningfully applied to home appliances. We close out the episode by registering our predictions (hint: Alexa-roomba) of what we expect to see from Amazon’s eventual product.

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081: Discussion of Facebook and Privacy



In today’s episode we wade into the ongoing societal conversation around social media and privacy that has been taking place in the wake of the recent Facebook scandal. But before getting started we do some follow up on previous discussion topics: existential risk and self driving cars. Next, after a quick rehash of the Cambridge Analytica data breach, we discuss ways to think about privacy and data and consider some of the pros and cons of government regulation in this area.

Links Relevant to Privacy and Facebook

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Links That Benefit Us Personally

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080: Discussion of Self Driving Cars and Body Scanning



For the first time ever, today’s episode was recorded and uploaded on the same day, with no editing. As part of our push to get more content out quicker, we are taking steps towards a live radio format. On this podcast, we discuss coverage of the recent Uber self driving car accident. What does the tone of the coverage suggest about peoples fears and willingness to adopt this new technology? Later, we discuss the imminent rise of full body scans, and their potential usefulness as clothing models, fitness trackers, VR avatars, and even fodder for bizarre art.

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079: Discussion of AI Risk



We discuss AI risk argument through two recent articles, one written by sci fi author Ted Chiang and one by Steven Pinker, both of which dismiss the strongest version of the arguments as put forth by Nick Bostrom and others, in this episode. Is insight the same as morality, as Chiang seems to think? Does Steven Pinker even understand the basics of Bostrom’s claims? Does the foom argument need to be true to worry about AI risk? And at the end, a bit of fun (before we’re all turned into paperclips).

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078: Discussion of Black Mirror and Altered Carbon



As part of our new casual discussion series, we do two mini reviews of recent science fiction TV shows. Jon shares his critiques of the the first episode of the new season of Black Mirror, while Ted offers his impressions of the new show Altered Carbon. Although we found some things to appreciate, in general we are not fans of these shows. We suggest reading Crystal Nights or The Peripheral instead. Or maybe watching Rick and Morty.

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077: Robin Hanson on The Elephant in the Brain



Today we are rejoined by professor and friend of the podcast Robin Hanson. Robin has just co-authored a fascinating new book called The Elephant in the Brain. This book examines our hidden motives, and while it has nothing directly to do with the future, it does have significant implications for policy and institutional design. Robin is also an accomplished futurist (as exemplified by his other excellent book Age of Em) and so were able to press him on the possible future implications of his thesis and come up with some interesting answers.

You can learn more about his book here.

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076: What Happens When We Design Babies?



In this episode we discuss the prospect of designer babies. As genetic engineering and reproductive technologies continue to advance, parents are likely to gain unprecedented control over their offspring. We discuss some of the recent progress in germ line engineering and speculate about the degree of manipulation that might be possible in the near term. But perhaps more importantly, we discuss some of the ethical and policy implications of such advances. Will designer babies pave the way for a healthier and happier society or are we in for a more dystopian outcome?

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