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 transhumanist wager


Zoltan Istvan on AI, Transhumanism, Politics and Ethics

#artificialintelligence

Zoltan Istvan is a former journalist, political candidate, entrepreneur, bestselling author, and founder of the US Transhumanist Party. He has been on this podcast twice before when we discussed Istvan's presidential campaign and his bestselling novel The Transhumanist Wager. During this 1-hour conversation with Zoltan Istvan, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as the challenge of doing graduate school at Oxford, Quantum Archaeology; Trump, transhumanism, politics, and conflict; the Immortality or Bust documentary; microchipping refugees and selling off public lands; the ethics of doing damage now in the hope of fixing it later; technosolutionism and why Technology is Not Enough; longevity, entrepreneurship, and healthcare; the distinction between a body with a brain vs a brain with a body; the timeline to AGI, mind-uploading and indefinite life extension. As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation, or become a patron on Patreon.


What my household robot is teaching my kids about cyborgs

#artificialintelligence

I have a four-foot-tall robot in my house that plays with my kids. Both my daughters, aged 5 and 9, are so enamored with Jethro that they have each asked to marry it. For fun, my wife and I put on mock weddings. Despite the robot being mainly for entertainment, its very basic artificial intelligence can perform thousands of functions, including dance and teach karate, which my kids love. The most important thing Jethro has taught my kids is that it's totally normal to have a walking, talking machine around the house that you can hang out with whenever you want to.