Apr 2025
Amy Zhang, "Circular Ecologies: Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China" (Stanford UP, 2024)
After four decades of reform and development, China is confronting a domestic waste crisis. As the world's largest waste-generating nation, the World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, the volume of household waste in China will be double that of the United States. Starting in ... Show More
1h 7m
Yesterday
Hanna Garth, "Food Justice Undone: Lessons for Building a Better Movement" (U California Press, 2026)
Food justice activists have worked to increase access to healthy food in low-income communities of color across the United States. Yet despite their best intentions, they often perpetuate food access inequalities and racial stereotypes. Hanna Garth shows how the movement has been ... Show More
46m 4s
Feb 13
Javiera Barandiaran, "Living Minerals: Nature, Trade, and Power in the Race for Lithium" (MIT Press, 2026)
A sobering investigation of the rush for lithium for electric vehicles, the problematic history of lithium mining, and the consequences for sustainability. Consumers today are buying electric vehicles with lithium-ion batteries motivated by the belief that they are doing good and ... Show More
54m 21s
May 2025
Season 4, Episode 9: Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Nearer: When We Merge with AI
Send us a textJoin Professor Jeffrey Sachs and futurist Ray Kurzweil for a compelling conversation on the accelerating pace of technological change and its profound implications for the future of humanity. In his new book, The Singularity Is Nearer, Kurzweil revisits and updates ... Show More
49m 11s
Oct 2024
The Future of Humanity? How CRISPR Could Change Life Forever
The Future of Humanity? How CRISPR Could Change Life Forever" - In this episode, we explore the groundbreaking world of CRISPR and genetic engineering, technologies that promise to reshape our future. Discover how CRISPR's precision editing could eliminate genetic diseases, enhan ... Show More
15m 44s
Sep 2024
The Road to Singularity: Ben Goertzel on AGI and The Fate of Humanity
<p>Dr. Ben Goertzel is a multidisciplinary scientist, entrepreneur, and author, originally from Brazil. He currently resides on an island near Seattle after living in Hong Kong. He leads prominent AI organizations like the SingularityNET Foundation, OpenCog Foundation, and the AG ... Show More
2h 25m
Jun 2025
Neil Lawrence on taking down the 'digital oligarchy' and why we shouldn't fear AI
When you think of Artificial Intelligence, does it inspire confidence, or concern?Although it's now generally accepted that this technology will play a major role in our future, a lot of conversations around AI and machine learning come back to the argument over us losing control ... Show More
28m 35s
May 2023
The AI Will See You Now: Exploring Biomedical AI and Google’s Med-PaLM2 With Karan Singhal
What if AI could revolutionize healthcare with advanced language learning models? Sarah and Elad welcome Karan Singhal, Staff Software Engineer at Google Research, who specializes in medical AI and the development of MedPaLM2. On this episode, Karan emphasizes the importance of s ... Show More
42m 48s
Jul 2025
The Future of Humans, AI and Intelligent Technologies
Dr. Ja-Naé Duane talks about her book, coauthored with futurist Steve Fisher, SuperShifts: Transforming How We Live, Learn, and Work in the Age of Intelligence. Ja-Naé is a leading behavioral scientist, an MIT research fellow, and an innovation strategist with deep expertise in e ... Show More
28m 2s
Nov 13
How AI Will Accelerate Breakthroughs in Biotechnology with Benchling CEO Sajith Wickramasekara
Bringing new drugs to market is a costly, time-consuming endeavor. On top of that, most medicines fail at some point in the research and development phase. Sarah Guo is joined by Sajith Wickramasekara, co-founder and CEO of Benchling, a company that has not only become the centra ... Show More
48m 13s
The concept of transhumanism emerged in the middle of the 20th century, and has influenced discussions around AI, brain–computer interfaces, genetic technologies and life extension. Despite its enduring influence in the public imagination, a fully developed philosophy of transhumanism has not yet been presented.
In We Have Always Been Cyborgs: Digital Data, ... Show More
<p>Is technology holding us back?</p><p>Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here: <a href="https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes</a></p><p>From work to entertainment, communication to trav ... Show More
