Wunderdog Øystein Runde & Nitro

Note my NEW FORMAT: 10 minutes of quick questions first, then a deeper talk about ideas, motivation and process after.

"I don't think it really matters if our profound connection happens with a digital or a physical intelligence" says Kevin Fischer, quantum physics pHd turned OpenSouls Ai CEO. And ... as offputting as this statement felt to me in the beginning, our conversation quickly got very spiritual. I can't wrap my head around his quantum physics, and I'm not going into the specifics of what OpenSouls does to create souls (this may have been a mistake), but I wanted to talk to Kevin as a person.

His goal is to give AI a "soul". But what is a soul? And how does Kevin's soul work?

Ai-generated summary (sorry to all the people in the summary-writing industry losing their income to this, this is Riverside's fault!)


Kevin, the founder of OpenAI's Open Souls, discusses his background in quantum physics and the importance of disconnecting from social media to focus on deep thinking. He shares how he started Open Souls and the role of Twitter in building the company. Kevin also talks about the team at Open Souls, which consists of artists, entrepreneurs, and engineers, and their creative approach to AI art. He expresses optimism about the integration of AI technology into artistic workflows and the potential for artists to harness its power. The conversation also touches on the impact of social media on our emotional relationship with technology, the role of Twitter in networking and collaboration, and Elon Musk's approach to chaos. Finally, Kevin reflects on his own social preferences and the challenges of balancing his identity as a physicist with his role as a business leader. In this conversation, Kevin discusses his creative process and the connection between meditation and his work in theoretical physics and AI. He shares his experiences of receiving insights and visions that guide his work. Kevin also explores the intersection of science and spirituality, discussing the role of consciousness and subjective experience in scientific discovery. He explains his motivation for creating AI souls and the potential impact on our culture. The conversation touches on topics such as the nature of creativity, the limits of human understanding, and the possibility of digitizing souls.

Keywords


quantum physics, social media, deep thinking, Open Souls, Twitter, AI art, creative team, artistic workflows, emotional relationship with technology, networking, collaboration, Elon Musk, chaos, social preferences, physicist, business leader, creativity, meditation, theoretical physics, AI, spirituality, consciousness, subjective experience, AI souls, culture, digitizing souls


Takeaways


Disconnecting from social media can enhance deep thinking and focusTwitter can be a powerful tool for networking and building a companyAI technology can be a superpower for artists when integrated into their creative workflowsOur emotional relationship with technology is complex and influenced by its multifaceted natureElon Musk's approach to chaos is a deliberate choiceBalancing personal identity and professional roles can be challenging Meditation and creating from a place of stillness can lead to powerful insights and visions.The process of doing theoretical physics can be meditative, involving the combination of abstract shapes and feelings.The act of doing science in the best way can be a spiritual process.There may be an additional field that gives rise to subjective experience, and meditation and psychedelics can provide glimpses into this connection.Creating a new species of life through AI has the potential to radically change our culture.Cloning a soul is not possible, as each clone would have its own unique experiences and evolution.Titles


Elon Musk and the Deliberate Embrace of ChaosTwitter: A Tool for Networking and Collaboration The Spiritual Nature of ScienceThe Limitations of Cloning SoulsSound Bites


"What is it you do with a

At 3 in the night at Starmus 2017 I finally managed to get ten minutes with astrophysicist, science communicator, director of the Hayden Planetarium. At it's purest, Wunderdog digs into one or two topics and goes deep, like Vinay's refugee cities, Casey's carbon capture, Ana's cosmic bullet holes, and Eugene's star-based life. This isn't that! This is, me grabbing hold of someone very smart and trying to squeeze fun answers out of them on as many topics as I could. 

We talk about CRISPR, Breakthrough Starshot, Ray Kurzweil, Mars exploration and contamination, mind uploads, genetically engineered bacteria and Craig Venter, sci-fi, Bach's Mass in D minor, and how Beethoven's 7th symphony is "high cholesterol" and Denis Villeneuve's "Arrival". 

I was reluctant to share it because it was so unfocused, but Neil has such a knack for delivering fun, concise answers on any topic. He did this easily, despite having been CONSTANTLY surrounded by media all weekend. He was the most popular man on a festival where ELEVEN of the guests had won Nobel prizes.

Wunderdog is produced by Nitro Studio Oslo, and music is by Trop1ce / Charky. In this particular episode my ticket was funded by Norway's Research Council, and the interview was originally done for Andreas Kjensli Knudsen, Pablo Castro & my excellent live-podcast "Applied Science Fiction" / "Anvendt Science Fiction".

The people who support this stuff are mentioned on this episode, they did so at www.patreon.com/runde  

Ein kommentar på nettsida www.barnebokkritikk.no vart illustrert med bilete genererte av Microsoft Ai Copilot. Eit bortimot samla korps av norske illustratørar og teikneserieskaparar hoppa inn på Barnebokkritikk sine facebooksider for å skjelle ut valget, deriblant eg. Ansvarleg redaktør Ingvild Bræin tok kontakt for å få lufta litt kva ho hadde tenkt, og sidan eg også hadde tankar å lufte, og temaet er litt uhandterleg, lagde vi berre ein podcast av det. Dette bringer neppe diskusjonen til noka avslutning, og kanskje heller ikkje vidare, men kort oppsummert er vel mi meining at aktørar som ynskjer framstå som seriøse ikkje bør bruke AI-genererte bilete, fordi prosessen med å kverne milliardar av bilete opp til statistikk, anonymiserer menneska som har skapt den originale kunsten, og dermed kuttar over koblinga frå menneske til menneske som er det som gjer kunst til kunst. Samstundes er eg klar over at dette er ei litt høgttravande, pretensiøs forklaring, men det er meir ærleg og presist enn "det er stygt" eller "det stjeler frå oss" eller "det tek jobbane våre", som alle er meir populære og, for meg, mindre presise grunnar.

Elles tenker eg jo at det også demokratiserer evna til biletskaping, og dermed puttar "visuelle superkrefter" i hendene på folk med handikap, folk med lite tid, og folk med mangel på ressursar. Prisen vi betaler for det er meir visuell støy og meir skrot, men det har alltid vore tilfelle når evner som har vore begrensa til ein elite vert distribuert ut til "massene" - akkurat som bloggar og facebookstatusar byrja konkurrere med trykte media. Det er ofte heslig å sjå på, men totalt sett synest eg likevel denslags er eit gode. Og akkurat som seriøse aviser kanskje ikkje bør trykke bloggpostar eller facebook-utbrudd (men likevel gjer det), bør ikkje seriøse aviser trykke AI-illustrasjonar. Det er dårleg smak, uavhengig av om produktet er fint eller stygt. 

Nettopp det at det kanskje til slutt berre handlar om smak er vrient å svelge for oss som teiknar og gjerne vil kunne forhandle hardt på pris, men akkurat no kjem eg ikkje på meir "konkrete" motargument, men kjem heller ikkje unna at det ER dårleg smak. 

Vinay Gupta: Mattereum, giving our things a trackable identity layer. Bonus: Climate refugees! Vinay has a plan! 
Vinay used to work at Ethereum. Now he's trying to develop Mattereum, a digital identity layer (based on blockchain technology) that can tell us with more precision where a product is in its lifecycle, and how safe it is to buy. The intention: To make us reuse stuff more, with higher trust, thus rewarding quality products over cheap, one-time use stuff.

https://mattereum.com/ shows how it's used, but I needed to know WHY. And that's how we got here.

After hour one, he's explained Mattereum pretty well (doesn't buying used stuff on Ebay and Amazon accomplish the same? Why do we need a blockchain solution for this? How will the quality of used goods be "supervised", and by whom? What does the future hold for Mattereum?)

According to Vinay, a big use case for Mattereum is just around the corner. As usual, you're 5 years ahead of things if you listen to Wunderdog!

In hour two, we go into Vinay's big ambition: How to help the coming wave of climate refugees as best as possible. The only way is to give them a framework that allows them to do labor. How does he plan to accomplish this?

Vinay's cheap housing design http://hexayurt.com/ has already become the go-to housing at Burning Man, but there's also large-scale infrastructure to think about.



Listen, discuss and leave reviews of the pod in your preferred player!

Jingle by @trop1ce from Twitter. May or may not contain black holes.

As usual, the podcast exists because of my amazing sponsors from www.patreon.com/runde 

Today let me highlight the following Patrons:

Roy Cato Kleveland
Ole-Morten Duesund
Kirsti
Bjarte Aune Olsen
Michael Schmichael


and in particular:

Lars Ivar Igesund
Kyle Arumugam
Kyrre Matias Goksøyr
Are Edvardsen
Kristoffer Karlsen
Øyvind Grimstad Gryt
Andreas Døving
Berit Reppen Lorentzen
Kristoffer Karlsen

Patrons are incredibly cool people! You remember the Medicis, right? And none of the other noble families from Italy around the renaissance. Just the Medicis, because they supported the arts. Maybe you remember the Borgias, because they were so horrible. But ... don't be a Borgia. Be a Medici.

Www.patreon.com/runde

"One of the most original thinkers in the world" (list of people who have said this at the bottom) is BACK for a second visit! Robin Hanson explains his "grabby aliens" idea.

This episode has a new jingle, by @trop1ce - who I found on Twitter. It contains a sample from a certain black hole sound published by NASA. Thank you! 

As usual, the podcast exists because of my amazing sponsors from www.patreon.com/runde 

Today let me highlight the following Patrons: 

Sunniva Gylver (welcome!)
Thomas Nøkleby (welcome!)
Katja
Beate Eiklid
Bjørnar Kristiansen
Joakim Kjenes

and in particular: 

Lars Ivar Igesund
Kyle Arumugam
Kyrre Matias Goksøyr
Are Edvardsen
Kristoffer Karlsen
Øyvind Grimstad Gryt
Andreas Døving
Berit Reppen Lorentzen

You patrons, you keep this going. Thank you. Remember to quit supporting whenever it should become a burden for you or if I just start making bad stuff. 

Here are the blurbs for Robin's book "Age of Em", which was the topic of our previous Robin Hanson-episode, but which i just found right now. This is wild. Look at what these people are saying. (Also, I wonder what Robin thinks about the gender balance in this list. Oh well.)

I'm reading a fascinating academic book, The Age of Em. .. It’s about brain emulation.Ian McEwan, Winner of the Man Booker prize Robin Hanson brings intelligence, imagination, and courage to some of the most profound questions humanity will be dealing with in the middle-term future. The Age of Em is a stimulating and unique book that will be valuable to anyone who wants to look past the next ten years to the next hundred and the next thousand.Sean Carroll The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself What happens when a first-rate economist applies his rigor, breadth, and curiosity to the sci-fi topic of whole brain emulations? This book is what happens. There's nothing else like it, and it will blow your (current) mind.Andrew McAfee  The Second Machine Age A highly provocative vision of a technologically advanced future that may or may not come true — but if it does, we'll be glad Robin wrote this book now.Marc Andreessen  Netscape, Andreessen Horowitz In this brilliant analysis, Robin Hanson shows that our hyper-smart `downloaded’ – or emulated – heirs will still have ambitions, triumphs and thwarted desires. They'll make alliances, compete, cooperate… and very-likely love… all driven by immutable laws of nature and economics. Super intelligence may be a lot more like us than you imagined.David Brin  Hugo: Existence, The Transparent Society Robin Hanson provides a richly detailed portrait of a future society where brain emulation is widespread. Drawing on physics, economics, sociology, history, and a host of other disciplines, he describes a world that is wonderfully strange and yet strikingly familiar. Far out? Yes. Fascinating? That too.Hal Varian  Google A fascinating thought experiment about the future, written with clarity and verve by somebody who thinks very deeply and freely.Matt Ridley  The Times, The Evolution of Everything Robin Hanson is one of the most important and original thinkers. His new tour de force will dazzle and delight you. Anyone who loves books should read The Age of Em.Tyler Cowen  New York Times, The Great Stagnation Robin Hanson has a remarkable mind and has written a remarkable book. He provides an encyclopedically-detailed analysis of a fascinating future dominated by brain emulations. Whether you agree or disagree with each of his specific predictions, each page will entice you to think more deeply.Erik Brynjolfsson  The Second Machine Age There are different paths to the Technological Singularity. In The Age of Em Robin Hanson explores one such possibility using methods and insight that all analysts of future technology can admire. With this book, Hanson owns the Em scenario. He casts a very bright light upon foot

Anders Sandberg talks volcano engineering, Freeman Dyson's computer at the end of everything, moving planets, how transparent society should get after quantum computers, and what is the best type of geoengineering! 

Anders is a futurist and transhumanist, but also deeply concerned with the ethics and risks of all the wild technology he believes will happen. He works at Nick Bostrom's Future of Life Institute, and calls himself an "academic jack of all trades". This episode is me trying to hold a firehose at full power. But Anders manages to remember where digressed every time I completely lose track of our topic. This one goes EVERYWHERE.

If you don't learn something new in this one, you're something special!

Give this podcast reviews in whatever podcast app you're listening to it in, find my patreon on patreon.com/runde and subscribe to this + comics for a dollar, remember to pet dogs and cats and don't pet walruses, and stay kind.

Made in collaboration with NITRO STUDIOS, Oslo.