Azeem Azhar's Exponential View

Latest Episodes:

Code as the Key Driver of Human Development May 09, 2017

Show notes

For the tech community, code has an almost exclusively uniform meaning: a set of instructions, until recently written only by humans, that specify any action a computer should execute.

In his most recent book, The Code Economy: A Forty-Thousand-Year History, Philip Auerswald talks about “code” in a broader meaning of the word — it is the “how” of human productivity, the manner in which we create, refine, and implement the infrastructure that forms a human society. The advancements of code, from the Neolithic era to the modern times, have driven identity and work reinvention. Philip argues that we are at one of those crucial stages now, and his book offers a guide to the future.

Auerswald is an associate professor of public policy at the George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government and a coeditor of Innovations, a quarterly journal about entrepreneurial solutions to global challenges. He currently leads the Global Entrepreneurship Research Network, an initiative of the Kauffman Foundation.

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Universal Basic Income May 05, 2017

Show notes

Scott Santens is a writer and an advocate for universal basic income. His articles have been featured in TechCrunch, the Boston Globe, and Politico, among other places. Scott has coauthored two books: What Do We Do About Inequality? and Surviving the Machine Age: Intelligent Technology and the Transformation of Human Work. He also moderates the sub-Reddit /r/BasicIncome.

Scott talks about why he believes “citizen’s salary” is a necessary measure for our societies to deal with tech unemployment by providing an independent income floor. He finds it paradoxical that we keep on developing technology to help us do more, while also being afraid of tech taking over our jobs. In these circumstances, he notes, a new model of ownership needs to be implemented, with everyone starting from the same point.

For further reading on Scott’s work and UBI, visit:

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How Music Could Take the Place of Drugs Apr 29, 2017

Show notes

Marko Ahtisaari is the CEO and cofounder of The Sync Project, a collaborative venture of scientists, musicians, technologists, and patients, working toward developing functional music that responds to each individual body and serves as precision medicine.

Marko is also a director’s fellow at the MIT Media Lab, working on the Open Music Initiative to develop a new distributed ledger system to identify and compensate music rights holders and creators. He was the executive vice president of design at Nokia and worked on award-winning N9 and Lumia products. His startup Dopplr was acquired by Nokia.

Marko presents ideas and undergoing projects born out of the vision that in the near future people will use non-drug modalities to heal, enhance well-being, and assist in therapy. He guides us through the recent experiment Unwind.ai, which uses your heart rate to select the tracks that will bring you peace of mind — at least for 5 minutes.

For further reading on the Sync Project and music in medicine, please see:

Understanding Music as Precision Medicine
Sync Music Bot (cutting-edge music recommendation technology)
UNWIND.AI (using biometric data to generate music for sleep)
Studies in neuroscience reveal music’s effect on the reward system
Using music to manage pain
Using music to support physical activity and sports training
More on music recommendation/analysis technology in general

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AI, Automation, and the Economy Mar 04, 2017

Show notes

A discussion with Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs. Jeff is one of the world’s foremost thinkers on economic development; he advises the UN and a host of governments.

In a wide-ranging podcast, he and Azeem Azhar talk about how technology has improved the lives of countless humans. They explore how automated systems will increasingly replace both routine and high-skill jobs. How will our societies cope with those changes? What will we do with the inequalities that will be increasingly produced by the technology revolution? What is the role of basic income? They even have some time to talk about Aristotle.

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Intimacy with Robots Feb 25, 2017

Show notes

Kate Devlin, computer scientist and robot-sex expert, on robot intimacy and a new age of sex, relationships, and social life.

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Homo Deus Feb 17, 2017

Show notes

A conversation between Hebrew University of Jerusalem professor Yuval Harari and Azeem Azhar.

They cover the compelling insights in his new book, Homo Deus. Where are we, as a species, going now that we have conquered much of what ailed preceding generations?

How will the twin advances of genetic engineering and artificial intelligence come together to transform humans and human society?

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The Future of Longevity Dec 08, 2016

Show notes

Philosopher and investor Dr. Shamil Chandaria investigates how we might live much longer lives and how we can make them more meaningful.

He dives into the emerging medicine and science of life extension in a deep but accessible way. He explains how we should consider super-longevity and super-well-being in tandem. And in discussion with an audience we explore the motivations for — and ramifications of — much longer lives.

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A Survey of Technology Nov 20, 2016

Show notes

A wide-ranging conversation on technology with Jason Pontin, editor-in-chief of MIT Technology Review.

He touches on gene editing, Moore’s Law, artificial intelligence, Facebook and fake news, and what ties all these disparate strands together.

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The Wealth of Humans Nov 15, 2016

Show notes

A powerfully prophetic discussion about the meaning of work in the 21st century as technology transforms all areas of the global economy.

Ryan Avent, economics columnist at The Economist, and Azeem Azhar, curator of Exponential View, explore issues around how digital technologies will continue to exponentially change the relationship between capital and labor.

They discuss what new social contracts will ensue and how we will see the reshaping of social and cultural capital in a dramatically reordered world. What role will humans play in this altered landscape? How will they find meaning and purpose in redefined and irrevocably renegotiated relationships to productivity and the market?

This conversation was recorded as a fireside chat in front of a live audience at a private Exponential View event in London.

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