Practical Science Fiction = Magic
As you read, why not listen to Yebba announce her presence to the world at Sofar Sounds?
Or get a small dose of Soda, every Sunday morning
because a long time ago in 1973, Arthur C Clarke, wrote his 3rd law that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. There’s no doubt that nearly 45 years later with smartphones in the hands of over 3bn people, we generally accept we are living every day with practical science fiction - or in the best cases, with magic.
We have lived with magic and witch hunts for thousands of years. They both always seem to come out the strongest at times of political, social and economic upheavals. Basically the whole time.
As we go into 2018, here are a few things which have come across my path in 2017 and give me pause going in to the next few years. So…
AI & Robotics
Enough’s been written about all the sunshine, the signs and wonders, but as we speed towards a world of 50bn or more connected devices we also really need to have a much wider discussion on the chances of bad weather and become more engaged with….
- AI Safety – listen to the brilliant Portsmouth born AI researcher, Stuart Russell
- Superintelligence: Science Fiction or Fact? – listen to some of the smartest AI brains on the planet including Elon Musk (Tesla), Ray Kurzweil (Singularity, Google), Demis Hassabis (DeepMind) and Jaan Tallinn (Skype) discuss the future of AI
- Unintended Consequences – remorse from Sean Parker?
Listen to Jorga Smith at her BRITs 2018 Critic’s Choice session
Get DataScan and go to school on the strange world of data every Sunday morning
Blockchain & Tokens
Ok, not sure I can really add anything to the madness, magic, fact and fiction here, rather check out some of these sages…
- Naval Ravikant and Nick Tomaino at Token Summit on cryptocurrency, money and the future
- Hear from Vitalik Buterin, an actual insider on the technology, security and privacy challenges of blockchains
- Not forgetting we still don’t know who or what is behind Satoshi and the 4.8% ($12bn)of Bitcoin market cap under “his” control
Watch Stressed Out from Columbus, Ohio’s Twenty One Pilots and add another view to the 1.2bn on YouTube
Get Token Economy and go to school on crypto-land every Sunday morning
Investing in the Future
This is what we try do everyday at LocalGlobe, find magic to invest in — these are two of the smart minds in the business, telling it like it is in 2017. Well worth a listen.
- Chamath Palihapitiya, unloads at Stanford Graduate School of Business on Money as an Instrument of Change
- Ben Evans brings another Brit’s eye to the Valley and lays out Ten Year Futures (vs What’s Happening Now)
See how Mr Eazi is bringing a new African sound to the heart of America
Skim read our guest edition of the Exponential View and subscribe every Sunday
Looking forward to much more practical science fiction in 2018 and beyond, but meanwhile here are some playlists from 2017….
Spotify — Hello 2017
YouTube — Hello 2017
Where are your public playlists Netflix & Amazon Video?
