In today’s episode we talk about brain-computer interfaces. We discuss the range of available invasive and non-invasive sensor options, the difficulties of processing brain signals, and the wide variety of ways computers might use realtime brain data.  While it’s clear that BCIs promise incredible benefits to people who are paralyzed, it’s less clear how extensively BCIs will benefit able-bodied humans. We explore what some of those benefits (and dangers) might be.

Relevant Links

• Muse
• Emotiv
• Mindball
• Homuncular Flexibility
• Using BCI to drink coffee
• Using BCI to drink beer
• Monkey remote controls robot
• Paraplegic in exoskeleton kicks off World Cup

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In today’s podcast, we discuss the future of movies. We begin by addressing virtual reality and asking what impacts it will have on traditional moviemaking. In recent times, the cost of making an independent film has gone way down, and we consider whether those costs can drop even further, possibly as a result of better virtual filmmaking and machinima tools. Next, we analyze the shift towards greater serialization in movies and the rising dominance of television. Finally, we speculate wildly about the length of future movies, the effect of accelerating change on storytelling settings, personalized algorithmic movie production, and more.

Relevant Links:

• Birdly the Virtual Reality Flight Simulator
• Source Filmmaker
• Moviestorm
• iClone
• Red vs. Blue
• ARTICLE: FX Networks Chief John Landgraf: There is Simply Too Much Television
• Existenz

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In today’s episode we are joined by basic income advocate Scott Santens. Scott explains his version of a basic income and how it might be paid for. Although future technological unemployment might increase the need for a basic income, there are actually many reasons besides concerns about automation to adopt such a policy. We discuss the various advantages of basic income over our current social programs and consider the Alaska model as one that might be exportable to the rest of the US. Lastly, we address the issue of feasibility: basic income sounds nice on paper, but could such a program ever actually get implemented?

Articles by Scott

• The potential savings of basic income
• The cost of basic income
• The many potential benefits of basic income
• The benefits to productivity of basic income
• Intrinsic motivation versus extrinsic motivation
• A closer look at TANF (welfare) 

• WIKIPEDIA: Robert Theobald
• VIDEO: Alan Watts on Socially Responsible Automation
• About the IT AI “Amelia”
• A closer look at housing assistance
• Alaska as a partial UBI in practice
• Applying the Alaska Model to Vermont
• About land value taxation
• Revenue potential and economic impact of a financial transaction tax
• VIDEO: Robert Reich describes carbon fees
• How to tell your representative in Congress to support the Healthy Climate and Family Security Act of 2015
• Scott Santens on Patreon
• Basic income subreddit

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In today’s episode, we discuss the future of advertising, which we define as the ‘sale of attention.’ People mostly hate ads, but why do they? Is it possible to make ads so well targeted that people actually enjoy the experience? We discuss the remarkably constant amount of advertising as a percent of GDP over a long stretch of history. We ponder the ways accelerating technologies might allow for better metrics and better ad designs in the future, and we wonder whether a large-scale consumer collapse might disrupt advertising’s steady growth. Speculating on the future, we imagine that nearly everything that remains scarce in the future might one day be ad-supported.

Relevant Links

• The mall scene in Minority Report
• Review the Future podcast Episode 10: What will Remain Scarce in the Future?
• John Wanamaker

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In today’s episode we give a comprehensive list of the sci-fi tropes that bother us the most. While not all science fiction has an obligation to be speculative, we would like to see more science fiction that avoids certain cliches when it comes to predicting the future. We discuss the following tropes:

• The Prometheus Problem
• The Boot-in-the-face Dystopia
• Societal Regression
• Super Now
• Isolated technological Advancement
• The Lone Inventor
• Human Specialness
• Primacy of the Real
• Unnecessary Anthropomorphism
• The Sofalarity

To find out what these terms mean, listen to the episode!

Related Links:

• Cory Doctorow on how science fiction reflects the present more than the future
• Julia Galef’s Straw Vulcan talk
• New Yorker article by Tim Wu that coined the term “sofalarity”

Full List of Referenced Science Fiction Works, Authors, Characters:

• Frankenstein
• Terminator
• Ex Machina
• Surrogates
• Super Sad True Love Story
• Nineteen Eighty-Four
• Brave New World
• Hunger Games
• Elysium
• Counting Heads
• Cloud Atlas
• Waterworld
• Mad Max
• The Jetsons
• Kurt Vonnegut
• WALL-E
• Minority Report
• Her
• Robot and Frank
• Total Recall (2012)
• WWW Trilogy
• Data from Star Trek
• Dark Matter (TV Series)
• Interstellar
• Ready Player One
• Philip K. Dick
• Idiocracy

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In today’s podcast we are joined by Nikola Danaylov, host of the popular Singularity 1 on 1 podcast, and a man who has interviewed 170 experts about singularity related topics. After establishing the meaning of the term singularity, we discuss the wide range of opinions held by thinkers in the field. We learn that although there is no single consensus. there are some clusterings of opinion, a few of which fall upon disciplinary lines. Nikola reveals that after doing his show for five years, he is less convinced the singularity will happen then he used to be. After walking through the various routes that could get us to a singularity, we discuss the validity of accelerating returns and the need for diversity in the future. Finally, we conclude by considering the current state of the futurist community.

Relevant Links:

• Singularity weblog
• Singularity 1 on 1 podcast
• Article: 17 Definitions of the Technological Singularity
• Nikola’s Interview with MIguel Nocolelis and Ronald Cicurel, Brain Simulation Skeptics
• The Law of Accelerating Returns
• The Hedonistic Imperative

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In today’s podcast we are joined by Steve Anderson PhD, an associate professor of cinematic arts at USC. We discuss the depiction of computers and surveillance in Hollywood films and the many factors, such as the need to tell a visual story and the convenience of certain props, that contribute to Hollywood’s often skewed portrayals. We also identify ways in which Hollywood both over and underestimates the power of technology and examine the inability of most films to make strong systemic critiques or imagine anything other than a human-centric future. Lastly, we look at Hollywood caricatures of both gamers and television viewers and ask if economic incentives might be partially to blame. Along the way, we mine the archive of old films and learn about some of the more fun and bizarre examples of super computers that have shown up in the history of cinema.

Projects by Steve Anderson

• SHORT FILM: Screening Surveillance
• Technologies of Cinema
• Critical Commons
• Bad Object 2.0: Games and Gamers

Movies and TV

• Colossus: The Forbin Project
• Demon Seed
• Rollerball
• Sex Kittens Go to College
• Desk Set
• Existenz
• Red Hollywood
• Halt and Catch Fire
• CLIP: Mark Wahlberg uses gestural interfaces in Date Night
• CLIP: OJ Simpson uses a supercomputer in Towering Inferno
• CLIP: Chimps playing Pong in Parallax View

Also Mentioned

• Nasa/Trek: Popular Science and Sex in America
• Starring the Computer
• The Subservient President
• CLIP: Tony Blair, George W Bush, and Margaret Thatcher play a Rolling Stones cover

End of Show Plugs

• Review the Future presents Let Go, an indie sci fi comic book
• Scout: Near term science fiction and investigative reporting

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In this week’s episode, we consider the rapid progress and recent impressive demos in the realm of speech recognition technology. We consider the difference between transcribing and understanding language, and work out a thought experiment of what might change when full transcription is widely and cheaply available. We talk about the challenges facing current generation technologies and speculate which are likely to be improved soon and which are sticky. We wonder whether even machine-readable transcription might be enough to help search engines do things like jump you directly to a movie quote’s location in a film, or to help YouTube and Facebook mine your private videos for marketing purposes. We also cover the effects on lifelogging, surveillance, interface design — and of course, jobs. At the end of the episode, we debut a new listener mailbag feature and respond to your comments.

Relevant Links

• Review the Future 033: What’ll be the Impacts of Self Driving Cars?
• Review the Future 041: What are the Reasons to Protect Privacy?
• Strange Days on IMDb
• Transcriberly transcription service – machine and human

Other Recent Content by Review the Future

• LET GO: an indie sci fi graphic novel
• Guest Spot: Robot Overlordz podcast, episode 138
• Guest Spot: Futurology podcast episode 19

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In today’s podcast, we talk with Martin Ford about his new book Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future. We discuss which job sectors are most vulnerable to automation in the near future and to what degree technology might be the driving force behind troubling economic trends. Martin describes his version of a basic income, which features built-in tiers and incentives. He also responds to some of the skepticism leveled at his writing by reviewers such as Robin Hanson. All in all, we found it to be a fascinating discussion.

Relevant Links

• Book: Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future?
• Article: Burger flipping robot
• Review: Robin Hanson’s critique of Ford
• Wikipedia: The Peltzman Effect
• Wikipedia: Simon-Ehrlich Wager
• Article: Republicans introducing basic income?
• Article: Google’s self driving car sharing plan
• Article: Rising house prices are main cause of inequality?

Other Recent Content by Review the Future

• LET GO: an indie sci fi graphic novel
• Guest Spot: Robot Overlordz podcast, episode 138
• Guest Spot: Futurology podcast episode 19

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In today’s podcast, we review the new science fiction thriller Ex Machina. We talk about how this is one of the better movies we’ve seen about AI, and how in general movies seem to be getting better at handling these topics. However, we question whether the movie’s use of the phrase “Turing Test” really makes sense, and whether the notion of a lone genius unilaterally creating a humanoid robot is very believable. Around the twenty minute mark we give a brief spoiler warning before discussing the plausibility of the movie’s ending. While we find numerous things to nitpick about, in the end we highly recommend this movie as a film all science fiction and film fans should see.

Relevant Links

• Turing’s famous paper
• Our review of Her
• Ex Machina official site

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There are many reasons to reduce or eliminate meat production, and in this week’s episode we cover them and ask the question: are we soon going to be eating synthetic meat? From resources to ethics, there is tremendous pressure to bring down the costs associated with meat. We discuss the challenges tissue engineers face in creating meat that is delicious and affordable, and discuss the limitations of recent successes like the famous $300,000 synthetic burger. We also discuss some of the most promising companies and approaches in the synthetic meat space. Finally we consider other future alternatives to livestock farming such as insect protein, soylent, and the eventual decoupling of our nutritional needs from the pleasure of eating.

Relevant Links

• PETA ‘In Vitro’ Chicken Contest
• Modern Meadow
• Modern Agriculture Foundation
• Oxford Study: Environmental Impacts of Cultured Meat Production
• The $300,000 Burger
• Bitelabs
• The Road to Wellville
• Article: Deep-fried locust, anyone?

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In today’s podcast, we review our experiences at the VRLA Expo, a Los Angeles based event that showcases the latest in virtual reality entertainment.  We describe our experiences with a wide variety of Oculus and Gear VR applications and ask the question: what are the most exciting uses for this new medium? Is this just the next generation of 3D gaming? Or are we witnessing the birth of an all new artistic medium with its own yet-to-be-hashed-out strengths and weaknesses? We also recount our impressions of various interface and feedback solutions from companies like Leap Motion, Sub Pac, and Stompz.

Relevant Links

• Stompz VR Kickstarter
• Inner Space VR
• Eclipse
• Leap Motion
• Jaunt VR
• Sub Pac
• Ether Drift
• Impressions Pi Kickstarter
• Adrift Trailer Video
• RTF Episode 044: Jason Ganz on “What is the Future of Virtual Reality?”
• Our photos on G+ and Facebook

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Intelligence is the most powerful force in the world, and humans are increasingly losing out to computers in various intellectual pursuits. Can you take a pill that will make you smarter? If you could, would you? We would, and so would our guest Jesse Lawler, the host of the excellent podcast Smart Drug Smarts. We cover the gamut of currently available substances that are claimed to have the effect of enhancing intelligence. We discuss how current drugs and supplements on the market are not exactly silver bullet ‘smart’ pills but rather push us in one direction or another, with trade-offs. We also discuss some of the more speculative technology coming down the pike, and what might be the next big thing in nootropics.

Relevant Links

• Smart Drugs Smarts podcast

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On today’s podcast, Trinity University computer science professor Mark Lewis joins us to talk about his concept that we’ve reached ‘Peak Education.’ He argues that we cannot educate our way out of technological unemployment. If, in order to have a job, you have to be able to program, what does that mean for those of us who are never going to be great programmers? Humans are slow learners, and we already spend a quarter of our lives in school. Can we ever hope to duplicate the tremendous gains in education we achieved during the industrial revolution? What will it take? Enhanced brains, smart drugs, or just better pedagogy?

Relevant Links

• Wikipedia article: The Flynn Effect
• Wikipedia article: Educational attainment in the United States
• Census tables on Educational Attainment

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Is life a sacred gift or a burden? In this episode, we welcome Sarah Perry, author of Every Cradle is a Grave, to discuss the right to control one’s consciousness. Paramount among consciousness rights is the right to die; we discuss the state of suicidal legality and the cultural and technological impediments to suicide. We also discuss the connection between radical life extension and suicide. Then we move into the control of states of consciousness, from drug use to mood enhancement, and discuss whether the right to commit suicide exists in a world where suffering has been abolished. Finally we discuss the ethics of simulated consciousness, and wonder where the authority might lie to, for example, delete an emulated mind.

Relevant Links

• Every Cradle is a Grave: Rethinking the Ethics of Birth and Suicide
• The View from Hell
• Ribbonfarm
• Carcinisation
• @TheViewFromHell on Twitter
• Article: Silk Road closure reportedly cuts off supply of drug for assisted suicides

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In this episode, philosopher, author and cofounder of H+ David Pearce joins us to discuss his concept of the hedonistic imperative, which is the argument that we have a moral obligation to end the suffering of not just all humanity but all sentient life. We discuss his terms “Hedonic Set Point” and “Hedonic Treadmill” and how these phenomena combine to keep most people at about the same amount of happiness, even if they win the lottery or lose the use of their legs. We discuss the feasibility of using prenatal screening to raise our children’s hedonic set points, and the farther-off possibility of using in-vivo genetic modification or future drug therapies to raise our own. It’s a fun and wide-ranging conversation that we think you’re going to really like. Check it out!

Relevant Links

• The Hedonistic Imperative
• H+
• Modern Meadow
• CRISPR Technology
• Wikipedia article: The Hedonic Treadmill
• Video of extremely happy Anders Sandberg

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In this episode, we talk with Trinity College professor and Institute for Ethics in Emerging Technology (IEET) founder Dr. James Hughes about the political term Technoprogressive and the recent Technoprogressive Declaration he helped develop (and we here at RTF have signed). Hughes contextualizes the movement as a new, techno-optimistic wing of the traditional Enlightenment liberal project, and portrays Technoprogressivism as the left wing counterpart to the noisy Libertarian wing of the futurist movement. We talk about the position of the technoprogressive movement on a host of issues, including universal basic income, longevity enhancement, and how to promote a techno-optimistic viewpoint specifically within the American Left, which has developed a sometimes-justified suspicion of technological solutions to problems.

Relevant Links

• Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse
• Groundhog Day
• Ben Goertzel
• Singularity University
• Less Wrong
• Technoprogressive Declaration
• IEET.org
• Pirate Party International
• Zoltan Istvan’s The Transhumanist Wager
• The Transhumanist Party Wants You! by Amon Twyman
• Zero State
• Citizen Cyborg by James Hughes
• Cyborg Buddha page on IEET

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