Calum Chace on Pandora’s Brain: AI is Coming and It Could Be the Best or the Worst Thing

Pandora’s Brain is one of the most philosophical science fiction novels I have read recently. And since Calum Chace has been a valuable contributor to Singularity Weblog, as well as a great blogger with an interesting and diverse experience in his own right, I thought that he would make a great guest for my Singularity 1on1 podcast. And so I invited him for an interview which turned out to be a very enjoyable conversation indeed. During our 70 min discussion with Calum Chace we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: his intellectual background, business experience and foray into writing science fiction; why science fiction is philosophy in fancy dress; how his mind exploded after reading Ray Kurzweil’s The Age of Spiritual Machines; the importance of planning for the singularity and investing resources in friendly AI; the story behind Pandora’s Brain and the associated Greek mythology; AI, the singularity and our chances of surviving; soft vs hard take-off scenarios; technological unemployment. My favorite quote that I will take away from this interview is: “AI is coming and it could be the best or the worst thing that has ever happened to us. It can’t be stopped. So we have to try to influence it to be the best thing…” See the full video of the interview here: https://www.singularityweblog.com/calum-chace-on-pandoras-brain/