“Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.”–Dylan Thomas
Cosmic Quote #102
October 29, 2018 by Leave a Comment
Cosmic Quote #101
September 14, 2018 by 3 Comments
“What will kill us first, artificial intelligence or natural stupidity?’–Habib Haddad
I’m not sure if it matters whether we give a damn. Time will tell. No further comment necessary.
Seeking Delphi™–Podcast #24: The State of The Future with Jerome Glenn
August 22, 2018 by 4 Comments
“The future ain’t what it used to be.”–Yogi Berra
“We’re doing a lot better than people think.”–Jerome Glenn, on The State of The Future.
Ah, you have to love Yogi. He had no idea what he was talking about. But–surprise, surprise–the blind squirrel does occasionally find a nut. Because the future and all of its possibilities–its challenges and opportunities–is constantly changing. Just ask Jerome Glenn and his colleagues in Millennium Project, who have issued 19 editions of The State of The Future over the past 20-plus years. I did; that is the basis for Seeking Delphi™ podcast #24: The State of The Future with Jerome Glenn.
All Seeking Delphi™ podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, and YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook and on twitter @MarkSackler
Jerome Glenn: click for bio
Seeking Delphi™ Episode #24: The State of The Future with Jerome Glenn
YouTube slide show, Episode #24
The State of The Future on Amazon.com
Global Futures Intelligence System
A reminder that this and all Seeking Delphi ™podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, and YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook and on twitter @MarkSackler
Cosmic Quote #100
July 23, 2018 by Leave a Comment
“When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.”–Thomas Jefferson
“If you live to one hundred, you’ve got it made. Very few people die past that age.”–George Burns
Wow. It only took me six years and two months to count to 100. Just think, in dog years, this blog is middle-aged.
Seeking Delphi–Podcast #23, A Conversation with Joanne Pransky, Robot Psychiatrist.
July 23, 2018 by Leave a Comment
“I can’t imagine a future without robots.”–Nolan Bushnell
™
In the popular HBO series Westworld, robotic hosts are depicted as being placed into a kind of psychiatric analysis by their creators. Could this actually happen one day? Joanne Pransky thinks it will. She bills herself as the World’s First Robotic Psychiatrist® (yes, she even registered that title!). She was dubbed the real life Susan Calvin by Isaac Asimov, after the robot psychologist he created in his classic 1950 short story anthology, I, Robot. In this episode of the Seeking Delphi™ podcast, host Mark Sackler talks to her about this and other significant issues in the man/machine relationships to come.
All Seeking Delphi™ podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, and YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook and on twitter @MarkSackler
Asimov with Pransky c.1989
Pransky and friend.
[
Podcast #23 A Conversation With Joanne Pransky, Robot Psychiatrist
YouTube slide show of podcast #23 with Joanne Pransky
Cover of a 1950’s edition of Asimov’s I, Robot
Sofia
SXSW 2018 Minicast #2 Redux: Can We Create Consciousness In A Machine?
A reminder that this and all Seeking Delphi ™podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, and YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook and on twitter @MarkSackler
Cosmic Quote #42A–Towel Day (redux)
May 25, 2018 by 6 Comments
“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”–Douglas Adams
One deadline you absolutely can’t miss is Towel Day. Keep your towel handy and don’t panic.
Cosmic Quote #99
April 18, 2018 by Leave a Comment
“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”–Hunter S. Thompson
And when their names get weird–or funny–they go in the first round of the NFL draft. Just ask Barkevious Mingo, Jadeveon Clowney, and Ha-Ha Clinton Dix. They were all first rounders, and all top performers in the annual poll of funniest names in the NFL draft. Oh, yeah. Don’t forget: the 6th annual edition of that venerated tradition will appear on Monday of next week. Same time, same channel.
Seeking Delphi(tm)–Podcast #21: The Future of Privacy In The Digital Age
April 18, 2018 by 2 Comments
Reblogged from Seeking Delphi.™ Originally posted April 10, 2018
“We are losing privacy at an alarming rate–we have none left.”–John McAfee
“Privacy is becoming irrelevant.”–Gray Scott
Is privacy dead? The answer may be more indifferent than you suspect. Gray Scott says it’s becoming irrelevant. People and politicians may squawk, but if you look at their behavior, it looks as if they just don’t really care. It seems we’d rather have free content–even at the cost of privacy–than pay even nominal amounts to access online materials. In this wide ranging interview, conducted just hours before Mark Zuckerberg’s senate testimony in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data breach, Gray provides us with his nuanced view of the state of privacy, both present and future.
A reminder that this and all Seeking Delphi™ podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, and YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook and on twitter @MarkSackler
Podcast episode #21: The Future of Privacy In The Digital Age, with Gray Scott
YouTube slide show of Podcast #21: The Future of Privacy with Gray Scott
A reminder that this and all Seeking Delphi ™podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, and YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook and on twitter @MarkSackler
Cosmic Quote #98: R.I.P. Stephen Hawking
March 18, 2018 by 2 Comments
“Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.”–Stephen Hawking
Hawking–his sense of humor was his secret to survival
Boy, can I ever relate to that philosophy. It’s what underlies this blog. It’s what keeps me going. It has kept my marriage alive for 40 years–so far. Forget all his cosmic stuff–that quote is the best part of his legacy.
Seeking Delphi: SXSW minicast #2, Can We Create Consciousness in a Machine?
March 14, 2018 by 4 Comments
My first foray into the SXSW mega festival and conference has been a memorable one. In covering the Intelligent future track for Seeking Delphi™ and Age of Robots magazine I’ve been able to meet and mingle with some of the smartest thinkers on the planet. The post below is re-blogged, containing links to two podcasts recorded and produced on site in Austin. I also had the amazing experience of gaining a personal interview with tech guru whurley (William Hurley). That will be posted in the next couple of days and will be expanded into a feature in Age of Robots.
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”–Albert Einstein
For anyone who has watched the HBO series Westworld, the questions about creating machine consciousness run much deeper than “can we.” These include, should we? How will we treat it? How will it feel about its station as artificial life? Will we be able to control it, and is that ethical? And most profoundly, how will that change what it means to be human? The questions go beyond ethical to existential, and they were all addressed in the SXSW Intelligent Future track in a panel titled Can We Create Consciousness In A Machine? Not surprisingly, there were two techno-philosophers on the panel to explore these issues. They are David Chalmers, with NYU’s Center for Brain an Mind Consciousness, and Susan Schneider, with the Department of Cognitive Sciences at the University of Connecticut. This session was part of the IEEE Tech for Humanity series at SXSW. My thanks to Interprose and IEEE for helping to arrange the interviews.
In this Seeking Delphi™ minicast, I speak with both of them about some of these issues. The third panelist mentioned in the podcast is Allen Institute physicist, Kristoff Koch.
A reminder that this and all Seeking Delphi ™podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, and YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook and on twitter @MarkSackler
David Chalmers
Susan Schneider
Special Edition SXSW 2018 mini-cast #2.
YouTube slide show of Seeking Delphi™ SXSW 2018 minicast #2
In case you missed it, the YouTube slide show link for SXSW 2018 minicast #1, on covering sessions on quantum computing and self-driving car safety, is below.
A reminder that this and all Seeking Delphi ™podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, and YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook and on twitter @MarkSackler
The Millennium Conjectures™ 