Podcasts about biological enhancement

Dennis Behreandt, publisher of The New American, on his new book "Endgame: Covid and the Dark State Quest for Bio-digital Convergence in a Transhumanist World"

Dennis Behreandt, publisher of The New American, on his new book "Endgame: Covid and the Dark State Quest for Bio-digital Convergence in a Transhumanist World

I've known Ramez Naam since 2003 when he wrote More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement. Back then he was leading a team at Microsoft, and moonlighting as a writer. Over the last twenty years, he's changed careers, and become a full-time writer and speaker. He's the author of three science fiction books, Crux, Apex, and Nexus. Ramez has also written The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet. It's because of the last book that he's become an expert on the future of solar technology. Ramez has been predicting the ubiquity of cheap solar power for a decade now. In this conversation, we talk about a variety of issues he's tackled over the past few decades, as well as my own concerns about the future of the planet. Was he too optimistic about the future of biotech in the early 2000's? How about solar energy in 2010? I also ask him about the coming “limits to resources” prognostications that we hear about every decade or so. Are we going to run out of phosphorus? Finally, I ask Ramez to speak on the fact that climate catastrophism has become very fashionable in elite circles, and how that affects our ability to tackle the challenges of the 21st century. Ramez Naam is the type of person you listen to closely, even if you have a disagreement with what they say.

OrthoEvidence World Tour HONG KONG | KEYNOTE: Patrick Yung | June 24 @ 8:30pm Hong Kong Time (HKST) Discussion

Ortho Evidence World Tour HONG KONG | KEYNOTE: Patrick Yung | June 24 @ 8:30pm Hong Kong Time (HKST) Presentation

Ramez Naam (@ramez) is a computer scientist, futurist, angel investor and award-winning author best known for his Nexus Trilogy: Nexus, Crux and ApexHis other (non-fiction) books include: The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet and More than Human: Embracing the Promises of Biological Enhancement.He's currently co-chair of energy and the environment at Singularity University and earlier in his career led teams at Microsoft working on Outlook, Internet Explorer and Bing where he co-patented 20 inventions, many alongside Bill Gates.Ramez has appeared on Sunday morning MSNBC, Yahoo! Finance, The New York Times, WSJ, PopSci, Wired, and many more. Ramez holds more than 20 patents, and many of those are as a co-inventor with Bill Gates.In today's episode we discuss:- Why we're at a tipping point for carbon-emitting cars sold- What it was like working directly with Bill Gates- What is Ramez predicted about renewable energy and why it's better than even he thought- How technologists are solving global problems by fixing incentives and driving down costs- What it's like to be both a bestselling fiction and non-fiction author- Why Ramez is no longer a big believer in radical life extension- The brain2.0 movement and why we're becoming cyborgs- What Ramez thinks about CRISPR and genetically engineering people- The importance of sci-fi to shift societal attitudes- How to think about technological trends when tackling big problems- Why innovation often leaves behind a lot bodies- The reason Ramez is fundamentally optimist despite all the challenges we face- Why the secret to a better future is to create it

Ramez Naam (@ramez) is a computer scientist, futurist, angel investor and award-winning author best known for his Nexus Trilogy: Nexus, Crux and ApexHis other (non-fiction) books include: The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet and More than Human: Embracing the Promises of Biological Enhancement.He's currently co-chair of energy and the environment at Singularity University and earlier in his career led teams at Microsoft working on Outlook, Internet Explorer and Bing where he co-patented 20 inventions, many alongside Bill Gates.To listen to the entire episode, visit: https://disruptors.fm/94-how-renewable-energy-killed-coal-and-why-radical-life-extension-isnt-going-to-happen-ramez-naam-of-singularity-university/

Ramez Naam (@ramez) is a computer scientist, futurist, angel investor and award-winning author best known for his Nexus Trilogy: Nexus, Crux and ApexHis other (non-fiction) books include: The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet and More than Human: Embracing the Promises of Biological Enhancement.He's currently co-chair of energy and the environment at Singularity University and earlier in his career led teams at Microsoft working on Outlook, Internet Explorer and Bing where he co-patented 20 inventions, many alongside Bill Gates.Ramez has appeared on Sunday morning MSNBC, Yahoo! Finance, The New York Times, WSJ, PopSci, Wired, and many more. Ramez holds more than 20 patents, and many of those are as a co-inventor with Bill Gates.You can listen right here on iTunesIn today's episode we discuss:* Why we're at a tipping point for carbon-emitting cars sold* What it was like working directly with Bill Gates* What is Ramez predicted about renewable energy and why it's better than even he thought* How technologists are solving global problems by fixing incentives and driving down costs* What it's like to be both a bestselling fiction and non-fiction author* Why Ramez is no longer a big believer in radical life extension* The brain2.0 movement and why we're becoming cyborgs* What Ramez thinks about CRISPR and genetically engineering people* The importance of sci-fi to shift societal attitudes* How to think about technological trends when tackling big problems* Why innovation often leaves behind a lot bodies* The reason Ramez is fundamentally optimist despite all the challenges we face* Why the secret to a better future is to create itMake a Tax-Deductible Donation to Support The DisruptorsMake a Tax-Deductible Donation to Support The DisruptorsThe Disruptors is supported by the generosity of its readers and listeners. If you find our work valuable, please consider supporting us on Patreon, via Paypal or with DonorBox powered by Stripe.Donate

Ramez Naam is a computer scientist, futurist, angel investor and award-winning author best known for his Nexus Trilogy: Nexus, Crux and Apex. His other (non-fiction) books include: The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet and More than Human: Embracing the Promises of Biological Enhancement. He's currently co-chair of energy and the environment at Singularity University and earlier in his career... The post The China Startup and VC Revolution and Future of Mobile-Only Businesses | Ramez Naam appeared first on The Syndicate.

Human dignity is one of those ideas that seem to have been around for as long as humans themselves, and few people would take issue with it. But like most ideas, human dignity has a philosophical pedigree, and there are in fact those who say we should abandon the notion—or at least modify its invocation.

Human dignity is one of those ideas that seem to have been around for as long as humans themselves, and few people would take issue with it. But like most ideas, human dignity has a philosophical pedigree, and there are in fact those who say we should abandon the notion—or at least modify its invocation.

Knowledge is the only truly infinite resource, and its value multiplies by the number of people who put it to work. How can we put what we know about climate change to work and develop sustainable innovations that either reduce emissions or capture carbon from the atmosphere? And what role might Nori play in accelerating that innovation? Ramez Naam is a well-known author and computer scientist who spent 13 years at Microsoft, leading teams in web browsing, internet search and artificial intelligence. He is also the winner of the 2005 H.G. Wells Award for the non-fiction work More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement. Ramez’s award-winning science fiction series, the Nexus Trilogy, tackles the pros and cons of technological innovation. He speaks around the world on exponential technology, solving environmental challenges and disruptive energy technologies, and Ramez is an angel investor in several clean energy startups. Today, Ramez joins Ross, Christophe and Paul to explain how he ‘fell in love with the planet’ on a road trip to the Yucatan. They discuss the idea behind his book, The Infinite Resource, describing how innovation will allow us to use fewer resources to accomplish more. Ramez walks us through the biggest barriers to reversing climate change and addresses the challenge of pushing back against tribal thinking and the spread of misinformation. Listen in for Ramez’s insight around the top sustainable innovations coming to the market and learn how Nori supports the consumer’s preference for clean AND makes it easy to get paid for carbon sequestration.   Resources  Nexus by Ramez Naam The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planetby Ramez Naam Books by Ramez Naam Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny by Robert Wright ESS Inc Carbon Engineering Brian Von Herzen on Reversing Climate Change EP034 New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson   Key Takeaways [3:30] The lessons Ramez learned from his failed startups Look for real need Add value to others, others will add value to you No technology is all good or all bad [6:17] Ramez’s environmental awakening Road trip to Mayan ruins in Yucatan Spent day at deserted beach, ‘fell in love with planet’ [8:41] The idea behind The Infinite Resource Huge innovative capabilities to solve problems Use fewer resources to accomplish more  [10:45] The greatest barriers to reversing climate change CO2invisible, impact delayed and non-local People get richer, less tolerant of pollution (environmental Kuznets curve) Chinese have appreciation for climate change due to smog [16:21] The pros and cons of shared knowledge People are tribal thinkers (beliefs based on others) Play to naturalistic fallacy, idealize past Accurate info wins out over time despite public fear [21:36] Why there is no fundamental conflict between genetic modification and the organic movement  GMOs reduce toxicity of pesticides applied Align incentives to reduce carbon in atmosphere [24:54] Ramez’s favorite sustainable innovations Solar and wind Batteries (lithium, all-iron flow batteries) EVs (electric + autonomous + ride sharing)  [29:15] Ramez’s take on Nori’s voluntary market Electricity and transport doing well Manufacturing and agriculture need incentive to reduce emissions Consumers better at coordinating behaviors (preference for clean) Make it easy to get paid for sequestration (method doesn’t matter)  [34:45] Ramez’s insight on the human ability to adapt to climate change Will be called upon this century to be ‘shepherds of Earth’ Worry most about tail risks of runaway feedback loops (e.g.: ice-free Arctic)

Futurist, scifi author and former Microsoft executive Ramez Naam has some definite ideas about where we are heading as a species. And it might be in a different direction than you think. Ramez was born in Cairo, Egypt, and came to the US at the age of 3. He's a computer scientist, futurist, angel investor, and award-winning author. He spent 13 years at Microsoft, where he led teams developing early versions of Microsoft Outlook, Internet Explorer, and the Bing search engine. His career has focused on bringing advanced collaboration, communication, and information retrieval capabilities to roughly one billion people around the world, and took him to the role of Partner and Director of Program Management within Microsoft, with deep experience leading teams working on cutting edge technologies such as machine learning, search, massive scale services, and artificial intelligence. Between stints at Microsoft, Ramez founded and ran Apex NanoTechnologies, the world's first company devoted entirely to software tools to accelerate molecular design. He holds 19 patents related to search engines, information retrieval, web browsing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. Ramez is also the award-winning author of five books: Nexus, Crux, and Apex (fiction). This trilogy of philosophical science fiction thrillers look at the impact of an increasingly plausible technology that could link human minds, and the impact such a technology could have on society and on the human condition, for both good and ill. The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet (non-fiction), which looks at the environmental and natural resource challenges of climate change, energy, water, and food, and charts a course to meet those challenges by investing in the scientific and technological innovation needed to overcome them, and by changing our policies to encourage both conservation and critical innovations. More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement (non-fiction), which looks at the science of enhancing the human mind, body, and lifespan, and the effects that will have on society. Ramez was awarded the H.G. Wells Award for his work on More Than Human. Ramez lectures on energy, environment, and innovation at Singularity University. He's appeared on Sunday morning MSNBC, repeatedly on Yahoo! Finance, on China Cable Television, on BigThink, and Reuters.fm. His work has appeared in, or been reviewed by, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, Slate, Business Week, Business Insider, Discover, Popular Science, Wired, and Scientific American. In his leisure, Ramez has climbed mountains, descended into icy crevasses, chased sharks through their native domain, backpacked through remote corners of China, and ridden his bicycle down hundreds of miles of the Vietnam coast. He lives in Seattle, where he writes and speaks full time.

In the fictional battles between humans and machines, the divide between good and bad is usually clear. Humans, despite their foibles (greed, impulsiveness, and lust for revenge, to name just a few), tend to find redemption, proving mankind’s basic goodness through love, friendship and loyalty. Machines, on the other hand, despite their superior physical and mental capacities, usually prove themselves to be (largely through the absence of the aforesaid capacity for love) to be dangerous and unworthy of the empires they seek to rule. But what if the humans and machines were combined – not merely cyborg-like in a jigsaw mix of man and robot but more elegantly, through a perfect blending of mind and matter? Ramez Naam does just that in his Nexus trilogy by wedding a human being’s soul – her memories, feelings and intellect – to the most powerful computer ever built. In Apex (Angry Robot, 2015), the trilogy’s third installment and winner of this year’s Philip K. Dick Award, things go awry. Su-Yong Shu, the brilliant Chinese scientist whose consciousness has been folded into a massive quantum computer deep under Shanghai, isn’t feeling so hot. In fact, she’s gone insane. It may seem, at first, as if Naam’s message is the same – that any artificial intelligence, when it gets smart enough (and even when it’s the result of a machine-human blend) craves power and will lead to mankind’s destruction. But Naam’s message is more complex: while the original computerized version of Su-Yong Shu goes on a destructive rampage, a copy of her consciousness in India finds its way back to sanity. And through the journeys of these identical twins, we realize that Su-Yong Shu is neither human nor machine. She is something new, a powerful and mysterious being who has all the best and worst qualities of both man and machine – seemingly infinite capacities of intellect, strength, fear, paranoia and love. In his New Books in Science Fiction interview, Naam discusses the pluses and minuses of human enhancement, why he’s remained steadfastly optimistic about transformative technology since the 2005 publication of his non-fiction book More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement, and the extensive outlines he develops before sitting down to write. This is the second time Naam has appeared on the podcast. Dan Nexon interviewed him in 2013 about the first book in the trilogy, Nexus. From the Interview: “I have contact lenses in. I have a smart phone. I have a Fitbit. My fiance is on birth control. We have already upgraded ourselves quite a lot. My view in reality is that generally when you give someone the option of technology that improves their life in some way, and it’s safe enough and it’s cheap enough and enough people have done it already … people are just going to do it because people want these things. But everything is a little bit of a double-edged sword. No technology ever comes with zero downsides. So my phone means – the digital world means – that hackers can steal my identity or steal from my accounts, or it lets child porn go wild, or the NSA can spy on all of us far more easily.” –Ramez Naam Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape. He worked for many years as a journalist, writing on a wide range of topics from science to justice reform, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the fictional battles between humans and machines, the divide between good and bad is usually clear. Humans, despite their foibles (greed, impulsiveness, and lust for revenge, to name just a few), tend to find redemption, proving mankind’s basic goodness through love, friendship and loyalty. Machines, on the other hand, despite their superior physical and mental capacities, usually prove themselves to be (largely through the absence of the aforesaid capacity for love) to be dangerous and unworthy of the empires they seek to rule. But what if the humans and machines were combined – not merely cyborg-like in a jigsaw mix of man and robot but more elegantly, through a perfect blending of mind and matter? Ramez Naam does just that in his Nexus trilogy by wedding a human being’s soul – her memories, feelings and intellect – to the most powerful computer ever built. In Apex (Angry Robot, 2015), the trilogy’s third installment and winner of this year’s Philip K. Dick Award, things go awry. Su-Yong Shu, the brilliant Chinese scientist whose consciousness has been folded into a massive quantum computer deep under Shanghai, isn’t feeling so hot. In fact, she’s gone insane. It may seem, at first, as if Naam’s message is the same – that any artificial intelligence, when it gets smart enough (and even when it’s the result of a machine-human blend) craves power and will lead to mankind’s destruction. But Naam’s message is more complex: while the original computerized version of Su-Yong Shu goes on a destructive rampage, a copy of her consciousness in India finds its way back to sanity. And through the journeys of these identical twins, we realize that Su-Yong Shu is neither human nor machine. She is something new, a powerful and mysterious being who has all the best and worst qualities of both man and machine – seemingly infinite capacities of intellect, strength, fear, paranoia and love. In his New Books in Science Fiction interview, Naam discusses the pluses and minuses of human enhancement, why he’s remained steadfastly optimistic about transformative technology since the 2005 publication of his non-fiction book More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement, and the extensive outlines he develops before sitting down to write. This is the second time Naam has appeared on the podcast. Dan Nexon interviewed him in 2013 about the first book in the trilogy, Nexus. From the Interview: “I have contact lenses in. I have a smart phone. I have a Fitbit. My fiance is on birth control. We have already upgraded ourselves quite a lot. My view in reality is that generally when you give someone the option of technology that improves their life in some way, and it’s safe enough and it’s cheap enough and enough people have done it already … people are just going to do it because people want these things. But everything is a little bit of a double-edged sword. No technology ever comes with zero downsides. So my phone means – the digital world means – that hackers can steal my identity or steal from my accounts, or it lets child porn go wild, or the NSA can spy on all of us far more easily.” –Ramez Naam Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape. He worked for many years as a journalist, writing on a wide range of topics from science to justice reform, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the fictional battles between humans and machines, the divide between good and bad is usually clear. Humans, despite their foibles (greed, impulsiveness, and lust for revenge, to name just a few), tend to find redemption, proving mankind’s basic goodness through love, friendship and loyalty. Machines, on the other hand, despite their superior physical and mental capacities, usually prove themselves to be (largely through the absence of the aforesaid capacity for love) to be dangerous and unworthy of the empires they seek to rule. But what if the humans and machines were combined – not merely cyborg-like in a jigsaw mix of man and robot but more elegantly, through a perfect blending of mind and matter? Ramez Naam does just that in his Nexus trilogy by wedding a human being’s soul – her memories, feelings and intellect – to the most powerful computer ever built. In Apex (Angry Robot, 2015), the trilogy’s third installment and winner of this year’s Philip K. Dick Award, things go awry. Su-Yong Shu, the brilliant Chinese scientist whose consciousness has been folded into a massive quantum computer deep under Shanghai, isn’t feeling so hot. In fact, she’s gone insane. It may seem, at first, as if Naam’s message is the same – that any artificial intelligence, when it gets smart enough (and even when it’s the result of a machine-human blend) craves power and will lead to mankind’s destruction. But Naam’s message is more complex: while the original computerized version of Su-Yong Shu goes on a destructive rampage, a copy of her consciousness in India finds its way back to sanity. And through the journeys of these identical twins, we realize that Su-Yong Shu is neither human nor machine. She is something new, a powerful and mysterious being who has all the best and worst qualities of both man and machine – seemingly infinite capacities of intellect, strength, fear, paranoia and love. In his New Books in Science Fiction interview, Naam discusses the pluses and minuses of human enhancement, why he’s remained steadfastly optimistic about transformative technology since the 2005 publication of his non-fiction book More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement, and the extensive outlines he develops before sitting down to write. This is the second time Naam has appeared on the podcast. Dan Nexon interviewed him in 2013 about the first book in the trilogy, Nexus. From the Interview: “I have contact lenses in. I have a smart phone. I have a Fitbit. My fiance is on birth control. We have already upgraded ourselves quite a lot. My view in reality is that generally when you give someone the option of technology that improves their life in some way, and it’s safe enough and it’s cheap enough and enough people have done it already … people are just going to do it because people want these things. But everything is a little bit of a double-edged sword. No technology ever comes with zero downsides. So my phone means – the digital world means – that hackers can steal my identity or steal from my accounts, or it lets child porn go wild, or the NSA can spy on all of us far more easily.” –Ramez Naam Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape. He worked for many years as a journalist, writing on a wide range of topics from science to justice reform, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ramez Naam is the author of two SF books – Nexus and Crux – dealing with a mind linking nano-drug that he believes is theoretically possible. He is also the author of the non-fiction books More Than Human – Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement and, his latest on the power of innovation, The Infinite Resource … Continue reading "Ramez Naam – The Transhuman Mind Meld" The post Ramez Naam – The Transhuman Mind Meld appeared first on The Eternities.

Ramez Naam, author of "More Than Human" and "Nexus", joins us for a discussion about brain computer interfaces, neural prosthesis, brain hacking, transhumanism, nanotechnology, wireless brain-to-brain communication, the technology behind "Nexus", and the future of the human race. Be sure to check out More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement and Nexus on Amazon.com.

Ramez Naam is a computer scientist who lives in the pacific northwest. His debut novel, Nexus (Angry Robot, 2012), has received an impressive level of positive buzz, including an endorsement from one of our past interview subjects, Alistair Reynolds. Although this is his first work of fiction, Naam is no stranger to writing. His previous book, More than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement, received the 2005 HG Wells Award for Contributions to Transhumanism. As he discusses in the podcast, he has two books due out in 2013, including Crux, a sequel to Nexus, as well as a non-fiction work about technological adaptation and climate change, entitled The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet. I hope you enjoy the interview, which ranges across all of these subjects. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ramez Naam is a computer scientist who lives in the pacific northwest. His debut novel, Nexus (Angry Robot, 2012), has received an impressive level of positive buzz, including an endorsement from one of our past interview subjects, Alistair Reynolds. Although this is his first work of fiction, Naam is no stranger to writing. His previous book, More than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement, received the 2005 HG Wells Award for Contributions to Transhumanism. As he discusses in the podcast, he has two books due out in 2013, including Crux, a sequel to Nexus, as well as a non-fiction work about technological adaptation and climate change, entitled The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet. I hope you enjoy the interview, which ranges across all of these subjects. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ramez Naam is a computer scientist who lives in the pacific northwest. His debut novel, Nexus (Angry Robot, 2012), has received an impressive level of positive buzz, including an endorsement from one of our past interview subjects, Alistair Reynolds. Although this is his first work of fiction, Naam is no stranger to writing. His previous book, More than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement, received the 2005 HG Wells Award for Contributions to Transhumanism. As he discusses in the podcast, he has two books due out in 2013, including Crux, a sequel to Nexus, as well as a non-fiction work about technological adaptation and climate change, entitled The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet. I hope you enjoy the interview, which ranges across all of these subjects. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ramez Naam (author, futurist and IT professional) is our featured guest. Topic: Global Climate Change is just one of the many topics he covers in his book The Infinite Resource: The Power of Innovation on a Finite Planet. Looking beyond the arguments and hyperbole, in this interview we discuss what we know scientifically and what we don't know. We explore the problems and inconveniences which global warming will likely produce, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of some possible engineering methods of placing a thermostat on the Earth. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the November 14, 2012 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 40 minutes] Ramez Naam is an IT professional, futurist and author. His background is in computer software and high scale web services. He held leadership roles on early versions of Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Internet Explorer. He was one of the early employees on the Bing search engine and led all of Program Management for Bing for two years and the Relevance and Ranking Team for four years. He is a member of Humanity Plus and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, and he teaches at Singularity University. He is the author of the nonfiction book More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement which came out in 2005. And has a new book coming out in the spring of 2013 entitled The Infinite Resource: The Power of Innovation on a Finite Planet.

Ramez Naam (author, futurist and IT professional) is today's featured guest. Topics: good trends such as: poverty and hunger are down world-wide, while health and longevity are up; but also mixed trends such as in: education and the jobs of the future, the rising shortage of fresh water, how desalinization works and why it is increasingly important, the good and bad truth about fracking and natural gas, limits on agriculture--just how much food can we produce? the good and bad news about china, as well as other topics he covers in his book The Infinite Resource: The Power of Innovation on a Finite Planet which is due out in the spring of 2013. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the November 7, 2012 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 42 minutes]  Ramez Naam is an IT professional, futurist and author. His background is in computer software and high scale web services. He held leadership roles on early versions of Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Internet Explorer. He was one of the early employees on the Bing search engine and led all of Program Management for Bing for two years and the Relevance and Ranking Team for four years. He is a member of Humanity Plus and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, and he teaches at Singularity University. He is the author of the nonfiction book More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement which came out in 2005. And has a new book coming out in the spring of 2013 entitled The Infinite Resource: The Power of Innovation on a Finite Planet.

Ramez Naam (author, futurist and IT professional) is today's featured guest. Topics: Internet Search Algorithms (what they are and how they do what they do); what and why he teaches at Singularity University; why he joined Humanity Plus and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies; why he believes (as does your host) that all human beings are transhumanists by their fundamental nature; why he dislikes the term "Transhumanist" even though he is one. We also discuss his article in Scientific American which describes how photovoltaic cells (solar cells) are undergoing an exponential price change similar to Moore's Law; why the power grid is not ready for widespread use of photovoltaic cells, and what needs to be done to make it ready; and the difference between smart grids and dumb grids. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the October 31, 2012 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 38 minutes]  Ramez Naam is an IT professional, futurist and author. His background is in computer software and high scale web services. He held leadership roles on early versions of Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Internet Explorer. He was one of the early employees on the Bing search engine and led all of Program Management for Bing for two years and the Relevance and Ranking Team for four years. He is a member of Humanity Plus and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, and he teaches at Singularity University. He is the author of the nonfiction book More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement which came out in 2005. And has a new book coming out in the spring of 2013 entitled The Infinite Resource: The Power of Innovation on a Finite Planet. News Item: As of Oct. 28, 2012, every observation from the extrasolar planet survey made by Kepler since its launch in 2009 through June 27, 2012, is available to scientists and the public. What's more, all future data will be no longer exclusive to the Kepler science team, its guest observers, and its asteroseismology consortium members and will be available immediately to the public. This treasure-trove contains more than 16 terabytes of data and is housed at the Barbara A. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes, or MAST, at the Space Telescope Science Institute. MAST is a huge data archive containing astronomical observations from 16 NASA space astronomy missions, including the Hubble Space Telescope. It is named in honor of Maryland U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski. Over the past three years the Kepler science team has discovered 77 confirmed planets and 2,321 planet candidates.

Breakthroughs in biomedical research will soon allow us to live longer, grow stronger, and think smarter. But, will these advances come at a price? On this program, Ramez Naam discussed the promise of biological enhancement..