FM-2030: The Man Who Refuses to Die
Left or right? Up! He believed that when 2030 came, he would wake from the ice to celebrate his 100th birthday. He was convinced that by then we would have reached the heavens, settled other planets, put our petty squabbles behind us and, lifted on the wings of technology, marched onward in human evolution. Was FM-2030 right? Could the sharp-shooting basketball player still surprise us with a three-pointer of a prediction? If so, in just seven years we will be able to discuss the details with the man himself. If he really is revived, the forgotten creator of transhumanism, who picked a name like a radio station's, will surely have a lot to tell us… If not, he will become just another dreamer who overestimated humanity and ran ahead of his time.
02How Henry Kissinger Foresaw the Future
“There are two ways to make sense of the present situation. The first is by projecting from the familiar. Until now, the most transformative technologies created by humanity have served to refine or amplify our bodily capabilities. (…) Is AI simply one more extension of human capabilities? The second way of making sense of it assumes that this time the situation is different—that AI possesses unique qualities that cannot be reduced to an upgrade of human abilities. Within a few decades, through engineering, an analogue will be created of what evolution has been building over millennia—namely the human brain: the last organ left to be reproduced or reimagined inorganically.” We are not simply living in dynamic times in which we humans fail to keep up with technological progress. We have reached a moment when technology itself is making us start over. We have to redefine many of the concepts and systems that make up our lives—from democracy and capitalism to art and creativity. That's not me telling you this, but good old Henry Kissinger, who, on top of everything, is sending his messages about the future and artificial intelligence… from the beyond. The final work of one of the defining figures of the 20th century has recently come out in Bulgarian—the work of the man to whom we largely owe the fact that the Cold War stayed cold instead of turning into World War III. Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit gathers Kissinger's crucial views on the future we are already living in. Here are 14 of its highlights; may they finally spark the overdue public conversation about the future of humanity in the age of advanced technology and artificial intelligence.
03Free Will, or a Barcode in the Digital Concentration Camp?
Nedyalko Slavov's new novel, Habitat, is a book of enormous weight and force, steeped in the big questions of our day: surveillance, data and the freedom we give up without a fight. We talk about social networks as spy agencies, obedient literature and why it is the fingers gripping the tools of labor, not the keyboard, that made us human. “It all comes down to what you want to be tomorrow. Free will. Or a barcode in the digital concentration camp of a meaningless world.”
04“AI Is Testing What Kind of People We Really Are”
This is a conversation about words: about language and the new path it will take with the astonishing progress of artificial intelligence, progress that came through language itself. Nikolay Tellalov is a favorite guest of Digital Stories. Five years ago he and I did the site's very first experiment, an interview in short stories, and this time we talk about everything that has happened since, with technology, with words and with all of us.
05Do We Even Feel Like Dreaming Anymore?
Nikolay Tellalov offers some precious reflections in a slow interview about the stars and happiness, love and meaning, and the words someone has to say and write down. Have science fiction writers stopped dreaming, or has technology overtaken them? Is humanity still learning to walk, or has it hit a midlife crisis, and why don't today's young people rebel?
