Ramez Naam: The Future Isn’t Set In Stone!

This is the first out of a series of 3 sci fi round-table interviews with Ramez Naam, William Hertling and Greg Bear that I did last November in Seattle. It was produced by Richard and Tatyana Sundvall and generously hosted by Greg and Astrid Bear. After two previous low tech interviews, it was about time to give Ramez Naam the proper video quality that his work deserves. Ramez is a public speaker, futurist and an author of some of my most favorite science fiction action-thrillers. During our 1 hour conversation we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: fiction vs non-fiction; the deeper impact he wants to achieve with his work; the meaning and function of science fiction; the Nexus, Crux and (upcoming) Apex trilogy; More Than Human and Transhumanism; AI and the technological singularity; whole-brain simulation, IBM’s SyNAPSE and The Human Brain Project; the likelihood of war between humans and post-humans; Big Brother and technological unemployment… My favorite quote that I will take away from this interview with Ramez Naam is: “The future isn’t set in stone! The shape that it takes depends quite a lot on the choices that we make as individuals and as a society. […] The future can be even better if we can make the right choices together!”