Summary: These are the videos of my presentation at the 2014 Podcamp Toronto. This year I decided that it is best not to speak about podcasting but rather focus on issues familiar to readers of Singularity Weblog - artificial intelligence, transhumanism and the technological singularity. The session was intended to provide a brief introduction of the issues and to engage a broader audience of people who are generally not familiar with the topic. You can listen to and/or download the complete audio file above, or see my 33 min presentation, followed by a 50min Question and Answer session. (If you want to help me produce more high-quality episodes like this one please make a donation!) As always, feel free to provide your comments and constructive criticism. Thanks again to everyone who used social media to vote for, support and spread the word for it! Peering into Our Future’s Black Hole: AI, Transhumanism and the End of Humanity: Q&A Session: Peering into Our Future’s Black Hole: AI, Transhumanism and the End of Humanity (full text) One of my favorite proverbs is a Chinese one, and it goes like this: "Seek not to know the answers but to understand the questions!" And so, when we are confronted with an issue, one of the best things that we can start with is ask ourselves: "What is the question I should be asking?!" Because the type and quality of the question we begin with, will ultimately determine the type and quality of the answer we are going to get. And so today I will speak to you about the importance of asking questions. There are many questions that I will bring to your attention today but perhaps the most important one that we will have to face both as a civilization and as individuals is one of the oldest questions that has been around for thousands of years and we have still failed to find an answer that satisfies the majority of us. The question is this - "What is human?" And so, this presentation will not be about podcasting. Last year my presentation was about the 15 most fundamental tips that I could give you for starting and eventually becoming a successful podcaster. I shared how I passed over 500k views and got to live for 10 weeks in NASA's Ames Campus in Mountain View, California. How I got to meet many amazing people such as Ray Kurzweil, Peter Diamandis, astronaut Dan Barry, and visit cutting edge companies such as Google, Facebook and Tesla. This year I could have told you how my Singularity 1 on 1 podcast passed 1 million downloads. But the principles that I used and continue to use to this day are the same. So going from half a million in 3 or 4 years and then doubling to over 1 million in 12 months required nothing more than some momentum, that I have gathered the years before, and the application of the very same fundamentals. So, let me say this again, this presentation will not be about podcasting. If you do want to find my tips and hear my personal podcasting story you can go to SingularityWeblog.com and search for Podcamp Toronto. Then you will find the video, the audio and the text of last year's presentation. As you can see - my friend Josh from JoshGloverPhotography.com, is recording today's session so you don't need to take notes but just sit down, relax and enjoy. Give me a week or so and I will publish both the full text and the video on SingularityWeblog.com. Finally, feel free to also come up with questions because I will leave time for a brief Q&A at the end. You see, I believe that asking good questions is one of the most important and most fundamental skills that any intelligent being can acquire. And so, while I did say that this will not be about podcasting, let me give you a couple of tips on the questions you should be asking when reading session descriptions at Podcamp Toronto. Q1: How qualified is the person holding the session? You see, Podcamp Toronto is a fantastic open unconference.
