Tag Archives: technology

Podcast #26 Redux: Future Driving Part 1, Interconnectivity and Self-Driving Cars with Alex Wyglinski

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This podcast was originally recorded and aired in November of 2018.

 “The Promise of Autonomous Vehicles is Great.”–Dan Lipinski

“My opinion is that it’s a bridge too far to go to fully autonomous vehicles.”–Elon Musk

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http://www.andertoons.com

There’s no shortage of opinions on the viability of self-driving cars.  Be you a bull or a bear, though, there is no denying that there is a plethora of big players banking on them with R&D spending.

The issues surrounding the technology are too many and complex to deal with all of them in a single podcast.  And while things like collision avoidance, navigation, regulation, liability and public acceptance take up much of the debate over the technology, one key element has not so often been discussed.  That would be connectivity.  To assure safety and efficiency, to any degree greater than currently exists with manually driven cars, they need to be able to talk to each other.

In episode #26 of Seeking Delphi™ host Mark Sackler talks with Alex Wyglinski, president of IEEE’s Vehicle Technology Society and co-chair of the Community Development Working Group for IEEE Future Networks,  on how wireless connectivity might enable the technology.

All Seeking Delphi™  podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, and  YouTube.  You can also follow us on Facebook and on twitter @MarkSackler

Alex Wyglinski. Click for bio.

Episode #26 Redux: Future Driving Part 1, Interconnectivity and Self-Driving Cars

YouTube slide show of episode #26

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 #23(redux): A Conversation With Joanne Pransky, Robot Psychiatrist

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This podcast originally ran in June of 2018. Seeking Delphi(tm)will return from hiatus with new material next month.

 “I can’t imagine a future without robots.”–Nolan Bushnell

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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.

 

 

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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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joanne Pransky bio

 

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

News of The Future This Week: August 21, 2019

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“I say something, and then it usually happens.  Maybe not on schedule, but it usually happens.”–Elon Musk

Who knew?  Elon Musk is actually capable of being realistic about his unrealistic timelines.  My projections for the two Elon pronouncements of the week?  Maybe sometime in the next 200 years for the first one.  Definitely sometime in the next 200 million years for the second one.

While you’re reading about all this week’s future-related  news, don’t forget that you can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on Apple Podcasts, PlayerFM, or YouTube (audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Hear Seeking Delphi™ host Mark Sackler’s views on the future, and how we should think about it, on Matt Ward’s podcast, The Disruptors, episode #131.

Elon is serious!

Elon Musk–‘Ol Elon is up to his old tricks.  He’s again advocating we teraform Mars by nuking its dry ice polar caps.  He must be serious because he even has a tee shirt to promote it.

While he’s advocating we ravish Mars, Elon is also warning that an asteroid will eventually get us here on Earth.  Really? That can’t happen, can it? Just ask a dinaso–oh, wait.

NASA/Space Exploration–NASA’s on-again, off-again mission to Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, appears to be back on.  The agency has confirmed a mission to launch a probe there sometime between 2023 and 2025.

AI/BCI–As demand for AI software and chips continues to escalate, it isn’t all a bed of roses.  IEEE says there is both opportunity and peril for makers of specialized A.I. chips.

–Elon Musk’s Neuralink–among others–is proposing to implant computer chips in the brain, initially to control neurological disorders.  But Susan Schneider, a prominent University of Connecticut cognitive scientist and techno-philosopher, is warning that adding artificial intelligence to BCI (brain-computer interface) may not be such a good idea.  You can hear Dr. Schneider, speaking on conscious machines at last years South by Southwest conference,  in the Seeking Delphi episode linked HERE.

Hold the anchovies, please

Robotics/autonomous vehicles–Unemployment is about to strike the ranks of pizza delivery drivers on U.S. college campuses. Starship technologies has raised $40 million to fuel the nationwide rollout of its army of autonomous delivery robots, starting with George Mason University and Northern Arizona University.

—China is accelerating its push to challenge U.S. technology in self-driving cars, and has dediated an isolated mountain highway for testing of the vehicles.  They hope to have at least 50% of all new car sales to include smart technology as soon as next year.

–Ever one of the most forward looking states on the planet, Singapore will begin testing driverless busses next week.  And of course, rides can be booked via an app.

Seeking Delphi™ podcasts are available on Apple Podcasts,, PlayerFM, or YouTube (audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook 

News of The Future This Week: August 6, 2019

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“I don’t want people in China to have deep pockets but shallow minds.”–Jack Ma

Image: Lightspring via Shutterstock

Even as demonstrators fill the streets of Hong Kong and a trade war rages with the U.S., a new report cites 7 Chinese companies poised to become global tech powerhouses.  And that’s not the only notable future-tech news this week out of the world’s most populous country.

While you’re reading about all this week’s future-related  news, don’t forget that you can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on Apple Podcasts, PlayerFM, or YouTube (audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Hear Seeking Delphi™ host Mark Sackler’s views on the future, and how we should think about it, on Matt Ward’s podcast, The Disruptors, episode #131.

China—Forbes magazine has unveiled its China 500 list.  Near the top are 7 firms that South China News says are poised to become global technology leaders.

–China has been touting its aim to be the global leader in artificial intelligence by 2030.  MIT Technology Review reports that it has already started employing A.I. in education–with some encouraging results.

Boring in China

–While Trump’s trade war may have the effect of shutting down much of the commerce between the two largest economies in the world, it doesn’t seem to be bothering Elon Musk. His transit tunnel-digging venture, The Boring Company, is set to open operations in China this month.

Automation/Robotics–Worried about being replaced at work by a robot?  A new study out of Germany suggests that most people, if they had to lose their jobs, actually prefer losing it to a robot then to another human worker.

–Amazon has possibly moved a step closer to initiating drone delivery service.  Drone flights outside the line-of-site of the operator are not legal in the U.S., but a recent successful test might nudge the F.A.A. in the direction of approval.

–In podcast episode #25, Seeking Delphi presented futurist Alexandra Whittington and her views on the potential gender-specific effects of artificial intelligence on women (see below).  Now, McKinsey and Company have issued a report on how automation may effect the future of women in the workforce in Asia.

 

 

Death-From death at the hands of a murderous sex robot to massive asteroid apocalypse, New Scientists chronicles seven unique, though some rather unlikely, ways you might meet your demise in the future.

Space/Moon–NASA plans to team up with SpaceX, Blue Origin, and other commercial ventures to aid in the return to the moon.  Time suggests this strategy might be risky.

–Despite the high cost of going to the moon, the head of NASA says a lunar landing by 2024 is still possible without siphoning funds from the International Space Station or science projects.

Seeking Delphi™ podcasts are available on Apple Podcasts,, PlayerFM, or YouTube (audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook 

Podcast #33: The Disruptors with Matt Ward

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“This is the age of disruption.”–Sebastian Thrun

“Innovations can only be disruptive in relation to something else.”–Clayton M. Christensen

 

Disruption.  It’s a term that’s frequently on the lips of just about anyone interested in technology.   Is it the technology, though, that’s disruptive? Or is it the individuals that are driving the technology?  Maybe all of us who latch on to the technologies are the disruptors.

I think it’s all three.  In the latest Seeking Delphi™ podcast, I speak with fellow podcaster, Matt Ward.  He’s an entrepreneur, angel investor, and host of The Disruptors.  In a kind of dueling podcasts, we interviewed each other for our respective programs.

You can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ on Apple podcasts , PlayerFM,  or YouTube

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Episode #33: The Disruptors with Matt Ward

 

 

YouTube slide show for podcast episode #33

 

The Disruptors

Matt Ward bio

The Disruptors: Douglas Rushkoff episode

Book Review of Max Tegmark’s Life 3.0

Seeking Delphi episore #6 with Olle Hägstroömm

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News of The Future This Week: March 12, 2019

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“I never questioned the integrity of an umpire. Their eyesight, yes.”–Leo Durocher

Is nothing sacred?  A year after World Team Tennis went to all-automated line calls, Major League Baseball is upping the robotic ante with a potential move to eliminate the human factor in calling balls and strikes.  The human factor of a Billy Martin or Leo Durocher kicking dirt on an umpire was largely eliminated with the advent of replay reviews.  Who knows where this will lead?

While you’re reading about all this week’s future-related  news, don’t forget that you can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube (audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Argue this!

Robotics/automation–The independent Atlantic League will serve as MLB’s testing ground for robotic umpires.  We’ll leave the other proposed rule changes they are testing to the sports blogs.

–If accurate ball and strike calls is a sublime use of automation, an opera singing robot might just be ridiculous. (see YouTube video below.)

–If a singing robot doesn’t make you scratch your head, how about a holographic virtual singer–who just happened to pack them in at a concert hall in China

–Cancer patients have been getting robotic surgery.  The New York Times reports the results may be less than stellar.

–Artificial intelligence may be better at diagnosis, though.  Science Daily reports that robots can detect breast cancer as well as radiologists. But I bet the robots get paid less.

Climate change–There’s something refreshing about a politician who actually has a long-term view of our future–one that goes well beyond the next election.  You and I may not agree with everything that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez advocates, but as  futurist, I have to admire her use of scenarios to envision a better, more sustainable world in 2050.

Space Commerce–Elon Musk continues to push for a permanently manned moon base.  But Discover says we need to learn how to mine there, first.

Electric Vehicles–For electric cars to become pervasive, they are going to have to become profitable for manufacturers.  A new McKinsey report suggests a path to that end.

Seeking Delphi™ podcast/coming attractions: In the weeks ahead. look for David Wood on his newest book, Sustainable superabundance, Verne Wheelright on personal futures, and highlights from the 2019 Undoing Aging Conference (Berlin, Germany, March 28-30).

Seeking Delphi™ podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube (audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook