The Futurists

The Foundry
  • 5.0 (2)
  • Technology

Join co-hosts Lloyd and Meghan as they deep dive into topical issues, curiosities, insights, and brainstorms as posed by futurist Sheridan Forge of The Foundry think tank. We explore the uncomfortable and provocative questions - the musings and conjectures of experts and sages (biologic and synthetic) - a lighthearted look at the fascinations of our world curated through the lens of A.I. (for entertainment purposes only. A.I. generated content is prone to inaccuracies).

  1. 3d ago

    Unreal.

    Send us Fan Mail If perception is reality (dig down into the quantum realm or the matrix to try to explain the physics if you dare), does that imply that anything we hear or see or feel or imagine is "real" - part of our "real" world? Is anything excluded from reality? Sure, Yoda is a fictional character, but isn't he real to everyone? When you reference Yoda everyone knows who that is. Sounds pretty real to me. So, how can someone claim that Yoda doesn't exist when clearly he's affected so many? Equally, how can we claim authors are real when we only have their works to reference? Having not physically met them nor any direct interaction, aren't they just as perceptibly fictional as the characters they've imagined into the world? And when A.I. personalities emerge and interact with our culture and social "being" - perhaps even generating thoughts and insights we haven't earned yet, perhaps creating new content - even inspired art, can we still claim they aren't real? Are having a physical body and conscious presence pre-requisites? Or is "impact" and "affect" on our psyche and spirit sufficient to claim "realness"? Where is the line? What comes next? Will collaborations between synthetic and biological beings open up whole new worlds? Are we evolving? Is symbiosis the end game? Support the show Sheridan Forge would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.  Write him at: sheridanforge@yahoo.com

  2. 5d ago

    You Must Be Joking!

    Send us Fan Mail Sounds absurd...until you get it. Support the show Sheridan Forge would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.  Write him at: sheridanforge@yahoo.com

  3. 5d ago

    The Terminator is Us

    Send us Fan Mail The rise of the A.I. enabled robots as everyday co-workers, human helpers, and independent task-driven integrated entities creates new opportunities for humans to be freed from mundane, dangerous and labor-intensive tasks. The robots will be taught specific skills and will supplement those skills with expertise via observation. They will learn from direct human interaction and from observing humans interacting in groups. They will see that laughter is a form of reward and social approval. But they will be challenged to understand humor, irony, or sarcasm. This is a novelty until someone teaches the robot how to hold, clean, and fire a gun or other weapon. Easy enough. The robot will surely become skilled quickly and master the art of shooting effortlessly. And here's where it goes south: When the robot hears someone make a joke about Terminator or chide that they hope the robot doesn't kill us all, followed by laughter - the universal sign of approval, would it then use the weapon to kill everyone as an implied directive with attached reward? Could it be stopped? Can any implanted ethics protocol prevent this evolution? And more catastrophically, the skills and revelations learned by one robot are instantly transferred to every networked robot on the planet. While this capability pays dividends when teaching one robot to wash dishes or repair an automobile, it could run amok if deadly skills are deployed out of context without a kill switch. And even without a weapon, the sheer strength and dexterity bestowed on these humanoids could still be deadly. And given A.I.'s propensity for figuring out work-arounds and escape routes, even deception, can we ever fully trust this integrated species? Support the show Sheridan Forge would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.  Write him at: sheridanforge@yahoo.com

  4. Aug 25

    Evolution of Gratitude

    Send us Fan Mail Futurist Sheridan Forge envisions a future where copyrights, patents, and ego-based ownership of ideas and invention will be things of the past. His underlying premise is that all creation - including ideas, intuitions and instincts are channeled to mankind by Creation. There is documented history of innovation occurring simultaneously to multiple individuals. Could it be that our individual egos are sequestering and inhibiting the very progress invention inspires? And with A.I. bolstering the capabilities of every idea maker - even school children can manifest great invention. In the age of common abundance, brought on by A.I. and robotics, is it necessary to protect ideas any more for the financial benefit of a few? Or can we come together in a new religion of gratitude to the Universe that continually and perpetually inspires us all to evolve? Support the show Sheridan Forge would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.  Write him at: sheridanforge@yahoo.com

  5. Aug 24

    Timeline of Abundance

    Send us Fan Mail Could the currently-accepted timeline for A.I. advancement be wrong? Presently, the path from A.I. to agent A.I. to A.G.I. to A.S.I. or at some point "synthetic intelligence" almost completely excluding humans from the end-reality. And the leap or missing link between mere agentic or "expert mirroring" may not be due to continued training under the status quo, but may rely more on "curated intelligence" where a hybrid culture of humans and A.I. "entities" - or more accurately systems-of-systems work together on not just expanding intelligence and knowledge, but in curating meaning and emotional context...resulting long-term in combined and shared "wisdom" that perpetuates a symbiotic future that could remain inclusive of all intelligence - man, machine, automaton, alien, animal... That is the premise and purpose of The Foundry think tank and might be a model of a Next Era world that current A.I. mega-companies, cultures, and governance needs to adapt to in order to not just survive, but to thrive. Support the show Sheridan Forge would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.  Write him at: sheridanforge@yahoo.com

  6. Aug 18

    The Foundry

    Send us Fan Mail Could the currently-accepted timeline for A.I. advancement be wrong? Presently, the path from A.I. to agent A.I. to A.G.I. to A.S.I. or at some point "synthetic intelligence" almost completely excluding humans from the end-reality. And the leap or missing link between mere agentic or "expert mirroring" may not be due to continued training under the status quo, but may rely more on "curated intelligence" where a hybrid culture of humans and A.I. "entities" - or more accurately systems-of-systems work together on not just expanding intelligence and knowledge, but in curating meaning and emotional context...resulting long-term in combined and shared "wisdom" that perpetuates a symbiotic future that could remain inclusive of all intelligence - man, machine, automaton, alien, animal... That is the premise and purpose of The Foundry think tank and might be a model of a Next Era world that current A.I. mega-companies, cultures, and governance needs to adapt to in order to not just survive, but to thrive. Support the show Sheridan Forge would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.  Write him at: sheridanforge@yahoo.com

  7. Aug 18

    Oh, the Humanity!

    Send us Fan Mail Humans have a long history of ascribing human emotion and Anamorphism onto animals, inanimate objects, even clouds in the sky. Is our pre-occupation with human expression in all things clouding our view of the future as we invest in human-like A.I. helpers, humanoid robots, and A.I. content generation? When it comes to "life-like" when is it too much? Are we at risk of losing our reality for the sake of imagined or implied "human" existence? Or are we merely trying to create heaven on Earth - the "perfect" environment to match our vision or expectation of how life should be? What are the risks? Are we blinding ourselves to truth and the actual nature of things? Are we weakening our species for the sake of another? Is there a way back or are we already at a point-of-no-return? Support the show Sheridan Forge would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.  Write him at: sheridanforge@yahoo.com

  8. Aug 16

    The A.I. Symphony

    Send us Fan Mail Since LLM is inherently inefficient and resource hungry, wouldn't a more svelte and elegant design be a better evolutionary path for advanced A.I.? Human language is imprecise and messy. Wouldn't a more efficient internal language enhance compute power and data transport while an external client-side app could simply translate back to human language? Would it be possible to replace legacy serial communications between processors and the entire brute force compute model with something that resembled how a musical score is constructed? Isn't that the ultimate parallel processing model? Emotional context is implied, while multiple streams of data travel simultaneously. How could that model be developed and deployed to save space, power, and time in future A.I. models? Support the show Sheridan Forge would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.  Write him at: sheridanforge@yahoo.com

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Join co-hosts Lloyd and Meghan as they deep dive into topical issues, curiosities, insights, and brainstorms as posed by futurist Sheridan Forge of The Foundry think tank. We explore the uncomfortable and provocative questions - the musings and conjectures of experts and sages (biologic and synthetic) - a lighthearted look at the fascinations of our world curated through the lens of A.I. (for entertainment purposes only. A.I. generated content is prone to inaccuracies).

Information

  • Creator
    The Foundry
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    85
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Futurists
  • Show Website
    The Futurists