Physical Attraction

Latest Episodes:

Britt Wray on CRISPR, De-Extinction and Necrofauna Dec 15, 2017

Show notes

Today on the show, our guest is Britt Wray. Britt Wray is a broadcaster, author and public speaker researching emerging science and tech. She tells stories about what she finds via podcasting, interactive documentary, print and tv. Recently, she has hosted the BBC Tomorrow's World podcast with Ellie Cosgrave - I'm sure lots of us remember the old TV show which is now being revived in podcast form - and her first book, Rise of the Necrofauna: The Science, Ethics and Risks of De-Extinction - has just been published by Greystone Books. It'd make a good Christmas present for anyone you know who's interested in the possibilities of using synthetic biology to bring back creatures that were once extinct - or, at least, some strange new hybrid versions of them. Britt has spent a lot of time researching the ethics and capabilities of emerging technologies, especially in biology, and especially related to CRISPR, so that's broadly what our discussion is about. I hope you enjoy.

You can follow Britt Wray on Twitter @BrittWray and keep up with developments on www.brittwray.com, as well as buying a copy of Rise of the Necrofauna in bookshops and on Amazon.

Zach Weinersmith on Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That Will Improve and/or Ruin Everything Dec 08, 2017

Show notes

We have a special guest on the show today: I'm excited, are you excited? It's Zach Weinersmith. Zach is the creator of the webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, which I'm sure many of you love and enjoy. He created the Bad Ad-Hoc Hypotheses festival where people give ludicrous solutions to genuine scientific problems. And with his amazing wife Kelly Weinersmith, hosted a podcast, the Weekly Weinersmith, and wrote a book – Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies that Will Improve and/or Ruin Everything. This book deals with the future of space travel, programmable matter, nuclear fusion, all kinds of emerging technologies, written about in a hilarious and informative way – and it deals with the impacts they'll have on society. We had a wide-ranging discussion, from talking about the near-term future of space travel, space elevators, how to tell if technology predictions are accurate or not, how technology will impact society, the inevitability of technological progress, whether we can mine asteroids, and all manner of wonderful things. You can find out more about Zach and Kelly's work at @ZachWeiner and @FuSchmu respectively. You can listen to more of my show at www.physicspodcast.com where you can talk to us about your questions, concerns, and ask listener questions to be featured on a future episode! Please, tell one of your friends to listen to the show, ensuring the exponential growth in listener base that will one day consume us all.

TEOTWAWKI: The Singularity, Part II Dec 05, 2017

Show notes

Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Martin Rees... all have warned about the risk from Artificial Intelligence. Centres like the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford, and the Centre for Existential Risk at Cambridge, rate the risk from artificial intelligence as way up there on the scale of potential human apocalypses. But it won't look like killer terminator-robots. We are standing on the precipice of a future that's almost impossible to comprehend. Will it be possible to survive? In this episode, we'll talk about why people are afraid that this explosion in technology could lead to the end of the world. Pictures of killer Terminators need not apply; instead, we're discussing the philosophical and ethical problems that come with artificial intelligence that could exceed the capacity of humans. How can we be sure that it has the same values as us? How can we be sure that it even understands the value of human life at all? Why are people so afraid of such a miraculous technology? And is there anything we can do to ensure that it will be used as a tool rather than taking over entirely? Hit us up on Twitter @physicspod if your brain hasn't yet been uploaded to a computer and you still need to use a pesky keyboard interface in meatspace to interact. There, you can donate to the show (in fiat currency, not bitcoin, although I'll take some if you have any going.) Like and review us on iTunes, which will help their 'artificially intelligent' algorithms serve up this show to more consumer human robo-droids. Until next time, stay safe.

Phil Torres, XRiskology Interview, Part 2: Superintelligence Dec 01, 2017

Show notes

This is the much-anticipated second part of the Phil Torres Tapes! We have a guest on the show today – Phil Torres. Phil Torres is an author, Affiliate Scholar at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, former contributor at the Future of Life Institute, and founding Director of the X-Risks Institute. He has published in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Skeptic, Free Inquiry, The Humanist, Journal of Future Studies, Bioethics, Journal of Evolution and Technology, Foresight, Erkenntnis, and Metaphilosophy, as well as popular media like Time, Motherboard, Salon, Common Dreams, Counterpunch, Alternet, The Progressive, and Truthout.

I was absolutely delighted that he agreed to be interviewed for a show like ours, and so I urge you to seek out his website – risksandreligion.org – and buy one of his books. There's "The End – what Science and Religion have to tell us about the Apocalypse", which is on my shelf already, and, recently, we have Morality, Foresight, and Human Flourishing, which is is an introduction to the whole field of existential risks. So I would urge you all, if you're interested in this topic – that of risks to the entire human species, which I think we can agree affects us all – to buy one of those books. This is the second part of our conversation, which focuses on AI, Superintelligence, and the control problem. How can we deal with AI, how will it impact our lives and have we any hope of controlling a superintelligent AI? There's plenty more general discussion about existential risks, too. Follow Phil @xriskology and the show @physicspod.

TEOTWAWKI 3 - The Singularity, Part I Nov 24, 2017

Show notes

Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Martin Rees... all have warned about the risk from Artificial Intelligence. Centres like the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford, and the Centre for Existential Risk at Cambridge, rate the risk from artificial intelligence as way up there on the scale of potential human apocalypses. But it won't look like killer terminator-robots. We are standing on the precipice of a future that's almost impossible to comprehend. Will it be possible to survive? In this episode, we'll lay the groundwork for talking about the singularity by introducing some of the fields involved - robotics, artificial intelligence and the efforts to create an artificial general intelligence. And we'll try to understand some of the incredible possibilities that might arise as we slowly blur the line between the artificial and the 'real'. We have a choice: tech utopia, or tech dystopia. But in the world of the Singularity, there is no room for Luddites. Hit us up on Twitter @physicspod if your brain hasn't yet been uploaded to a computer and you still need to use a pesky keyboard interface in meatspace to interact. There, you can donate to the show (in fiat currency, not bitcoin, although I'll take some if you have any going.) Like and review us on iTunes, which will help their 'artificially intelligent' algorithms serve up this show to more consumer human robo-droids. Until next time, stay safe.

Rafael Alves-Batista: Resilience of Life, Astrobiology and Fine-Tuning Nov 17, 2017

Show notes

Joining me today is Dr Rafael Alves-Batista. Rafael is a post-doctoral research associate at the University of Oxford. He received his Bachelor's Degree and his Masters' at the State University of Campinas in Brazil, moved to Hamburg, Germany for his PhD which he received in 2015, and then onto Oxford for his postdoctoral position. And, last year, he supervised my Masters' project, looking into the origin of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays: so I can attest to his genius first-hand! In this second part of the interview, we talk about his famous paper - The Resilience of Life to Astrophysical Events, which describes how likely it is for events in the Universe to destroy *all life* on Earth. We also talk about the potential for discovering life on other planets, some fascinating missions that are planning to do just that, and the possibility that the Universe was "Fine-Tuned" to allow human life to exist. For more information you can follow Rafa over at @8rafael, or visit his website at www.8rafael.com where you can read his scientific papers and see the other popular media he's taken part in.

TEOTWAWKI 4, Supervirus II: The Human Factor Nov 10, 2017

Show notes

Earlier this year, a couple of scientists in a laboratory did something incredible. Using nothing but the genetic code and a well-equipped lab, they raised the dead. Specifically, the extinct horsepox virus was brought back to life. The scientists said that they didn't do the experiment out of any malice for horses, but just to demonstrate that - with a few good biotech experts, a decent lab, and $100,000 - anyone would soon be able to bring viruses back from the dead. So what about when that virus is smallpox, capable of killing millions, with the only surviving samples stored as bioweapons by the US and the Russians? Could it be that the biotech revolution - which has such power to save us from our ills and woes - might doom us as well? And what happens when this power gets into the hands of more and more people; the power over life and death? As ever, you can follow us on Twitter @physicspod, where we're amazingly active and will respond to any queries you have about the end of the world and similar terrors. You can tell us what you think of the ranking so far, make your own suggestions, and even donate to the show if you like. If you've enjoyed it, please consider rating and reviewing the show on iTunes, which helps us get noticed!

I've written some new articles... Nov 04, 2017

Show notes

Hey all, I've been writing some articles for the good folks over at Singularity Hub, who'll help you keep on top of a lot of breaking technology news. Working with them has been great so far. You can see all my work here but there are also some highlights:

What It Would Take to Suck CO2 Back Out of the Atmosphere

I briefly assess some of the various potentials for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) geoengineering. Lots of people ask me, when I talk about climate change, whether we can't just 'invent a machine that sucks carbon back out of the atmosphere'. The fact is, people are indeed working on this - although a better idea is to actually try to enhance natural processes, which are far better at removing and adding carbon to the atmosphere than we can hope to be. The issue is that any method to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere must be done on the same scale as we're currently putting it up there. And since that is currently on the scale of a vast, industrial activity, it's going to require a whole industry to suck it back out again. Best, as you always hear, to leave it in the ground in the first place.

Does Our Survival Depend on Relentless Exponential Growth?

Expanding on thoughts that will be familiar to those of you who listened to the Malthus episode.

Solar Power Is Getting Cheaper—But How Do We Overcome Its Limits?

This is a slightly less detailed version of the episode I did about various new kinds of solar panel, Splitting Sunbeams.

Amazon Is Quietly Building the Robots of Sci-Fi—Piece by Practical Piece

And this is my pet theory that, of all the companies with an incentive to develop humanoid robots, Amazon are the ones with the most to gain. Happy reading, all.

Announcing Patreon and how to Support the Show Nov 03, 2017

Show notes

www.patreon.com/PhysicalAttraction, that's www.patreon.com/PhysicalAttraction . If you go there, and subscribe selecting the $3/episode option, the RSS feed and access to all of the online bonus episodes will be yours. I want to make the subscription $3/bonus episode, so that you're only paying for the content I actually produce and give you rather than some neverending monthly subscription. But I will trail the bonus episodes in advance, so that you know what you're getting. The first one is the second half of the aliens episode that just went up on the feed; in the future, we'll have episodes about failed predictions for the end of the world, and for thermodynamics we'll have free energy projects that just didn't work out. If you're a patron, you can ask me about bonus episodes you'd especially like to hear, and I will do my best to respond to popular suggestions.

If you DON'T want to subscribe via patreon, there are other options. You can go to www.paypal.me/physicspod. There you will see a paypal link that will allow you to send money directly to me. If you send $3 and put in the "note" alongside the sending your email, and the bonus episode you wish to purchase, I will send you a download link to that episode. That way anyone who has Paypal can request an individual bonus episode. At some point in the future if this goes well, I'll look into setting up an online store that will make it easier for people to pay for the individual episodes they want, but for now, best to do things via Paypal and via www.physicspodcast.com. All of the relevant information and links will be at www.physicspodcast.com, so that's the place to go if you're interested; we also have a contact form there where I can explain any details in further... detail.

Thanks so much for listening and telling others about the show. I've recieved a wonderful response from many of you so far and I want to keep going for as long as possible, because I love doing this project, and I hope you guys enjoy it too.

TEOTWAWKI Bonus: Alien Attack (Free Episode) Nov 03, 2017

Show notes

Things have been very serious and very depressing on our TEOTWAWKI specials; so I thought it was about time to do a little bit of light-hearted debunking, rather than ranting about the genuine dangers of apocalypse that might await us in the future. I'll discuss why the Roswell story doesn't add up - even a little bit - what an actual alien invasion could you like; and why it's just so damn unlikely that any of these alien abduction stories are especially true. We'll even talk about reports of "UFOs" that stretch all the way back to Medieval Europe - with a healthy dose of skepticism. This is the first part of a TWO-PART episode. The second part will be available as a Premium episode. If you donate $3 or more via the Paypal link at www.paypal.me/physicspod I will give you a download link to the second part of the episode - the Premium bit - (enclose your email or send it to me on Twitter, or via a comment on www.physicspodcast.com). All Patreon subscribers will also get access to a special RSS feed containing all bonus episodes, and other extra content as and when I can produce it! You can find our Patreon at www.patreon.com/PhysicalAttraction This is not about making me a millionaire; it's about helping us cover the show costs, and all the time I spend making these shows... Although making me a millionaire would be a decent side-effect. So remember, you're not just paying for the episode: you're helping us produce every episode, and helping me carry on bringing you the show.

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