Accelerating Tech

Accelerating Medicine

Phil and Stephen review some interesting developments in the world of medicine: Fast and Easy Cancer Diagnoses Spare Body Parts vis 3-D Printers Curing Cancer with Our Own Immune Systems Is technology opening up a new […]

Exploring Possibilities

Humanity’s Next Steps: the Path to Obselescence

Phil and Stephen explore the increasingly complex relationship between humanity and our machines. We know that machines are performing very complex and difficult tasks for us such as exploring space. They’re also beginning to take on more […]

Exploring Possibilities

Humanity’s Next Steps: The Evolutionary Path

Phil  and Stephen discuss the process of do-it-yourself evolution, including: Genetically modified babies Curing aging with stem cells Learning to learn faster What are the forces that are driving evolution forward;  what are the forces […]

Exploring Possibilities

The Final Frontiers

Compare these very different news stories Billionaire investors looking beyond earth vs. Game designers building computers inside games Phil and Stephen ask the question: which way is the future taking us? Is it our destiny […]

Exploring Possibilities

Missed Opportunities

What if the future we’re planning for never arrives because we don’t take advantage of the opportunities that would get us there? For example, did we miss the boat in not capitalizing on our progress […]

Exploring Possibilities

Misplaced Priorities

Getting the future right may be harder than we think. There are numerous initiatives in place to address problems with health care, the environment, employment and other challenges — but what if in each of […]

Exploring Possibilities

Human Downgrades

A recent news story that has recieved quite a bit of attention tells us about a woman who claims she wants to become a living Barbie doll. To achieve that goal she is working on modifying her […]

Exploring Possibilities

The Idea Machine

Picking up where last Friday’s show left off, Phil and Stephen discuss the changes that are reshaping our world — most of which started out as good ideas. A few examples: Human lung produced in a […]

Accelerating Tech

Singularity When?

Phil and Stephen discuss the timing of the Technological Singularity: …a hypothetical moment in time when artificial intelligence will have progressed to the point of a greater-than-human intelligence, radically changing civilization, and perhaps human nature.Since the […]

Accelerating Tech

The $3.5 Million iPhone

Last Week Business Insider ran a story calculating what an iPhone would have cost if one had been assembled in 1991. Once you add up the 1991 prices for the processing power, memory, and communication speed […]

Exploring Possibilities

A Matter of Days

Phil Bowermaster demonstrates how quick and easy it can be to write a chapter for the book version of The World Transformed by composing his in real time on the show. Phil’s chapter is called “A […]

Exploring Possibilities

Quantum Consciousness

Phil and Stephen  explore the relationship between consciousness and the physical world. Can our thoughts determine physical outcomes? Is consciousness itself a quantum phenomenon? What can a physiscist tell us about the relationship between mind and matter? Audio […]

Entertainment

From Here to “Her”

Phil and Stephen  discuss the possibility that we will soon be interacting with intelligent agents like Tony Stark’s digital assistant Jarvis in the Iron Man movies or Joaquin Phoenix’s crush Samantha in Her. Our current interactions with […]

Exploring Possibilities

Humanity Revised

Phil and Stephen  review two breakthrough biotech developments that promise to enable powerful human modification capabilities: Simplified editing of DNA Simplified production of Stem cells Human modification will have a tremendous impact on everything from […]

Exploring Possibilities

The Art of Prediction

Predicting the future is a daunting task. One area where would-be knowers of the future are making signficant progress is in predicting human behavior. Not to put to fine a point on it, they’re getting […]

Exploring Possibilities

Building the Future

What is the future made of? Hopes, fears, dreams, possibilities. But also…stuff. Phil and Stephen explore an emerging network, a collection of energy technologies, and an ambitious engineering project which combine to provide a glimpse of how tomorrow might […]

Entertainment

The Nine Billion Names of God

Taking  a cue from George Dvorsky’s The 7 Most Intriguing Philosophical Arguments for the Existence of God, hosts Phil and Stephen discuss the relationship between convergence, accelerating change, transcendence, and the divine. How do traditional (and […]

Podcasts

The Age of Wearable Computers

It isn’t enough that we have computers in our phones, our cars, our refrigerators, our coffee makers. Now we have them attached to our faces — or elsewhere on our bodies. How and why is this […]

Exploring Possibilities

Step Forward, Step Back

Phil and Stephen discuss a number of developments that may be moving us closer to the future we’re hoping for, as well as some which seem to be making that future more remote. Topics include: […]

Best of

Responding to Radical Change

Phil and Stephen  apply the  four basic strategies for / responses to transformation to some of Thomas Frey’s  33  dramatic predictions for the year 2030. Let’s review the four basic strategies towards radical transformation: Soylent Green […]

Podcasts

Being There (In Person or Via Robot)

Why actually travel anywhere when you can beam yourself into a robot that’s already there? Phil and Stephen discuss the emergence of the telepresence robot phenomenon. How important will this capability be for business in […]

Entertainment

Spike Jonze’ Her: What Is Real?

More pointedly, how much of what we experience day to day is sufficiently clear of biases, subjective filters, and preconceptions that we can say with confidence that it is what is “really” happening? And what […]

Entertainment

Spike Jonze’ Her: Love and the Machine

Phil and Stephen discuss the movie Her and what it may be telling us about the future relationship between human beings and technology. Is this a love story? Have humans and their machines been engaging […]

Best of

A User’s Guide to the Future

Phil and Stephen kick off a new year explaining why thinking about the future is important, and why taking action is even more important. If the future is defined not by how much time passes but […]