We Won't Eat Animals. We'll Talk to Them?!
Will the future really force us to give up meat? Or will we simply eat meat that… was made without killing an animal? Will technology soon let us understand more about how our best animal friends see the world? Will it let us talk to them… Our relationships with the other species on the planet have always been more layered than we realize. The most fascinating remain our ties with our closest “relatives”—the mammals and the other links that have climbed high up the food chain. We give them souls and make them part of our daily lives… while the vast majority of the planet's inhabitants rarely pass up a chance to snack on them. Our relationships with the other species on Earth are yet another field where technology promises striking news, and in the foreseeable future at that.
22“Game Over.” Is Humanlike AI on the Way?
“The Game is Over,” Nando de Freitas declared in May 2022, announcing big news in the field of artificial intelligence. Scientists were still arguing over whether artificial general intelligence, an algorithm able to solve all kinds of tasks the way the human brain does, could exist at all. And while they argued, it turned out that… the argument had perhaps already been settled? That terse tweet announced the arrival of Gato AI, the first contender for the title of “artificial general intelligence,” a step expected to be at least a decade away and one many thought outright impossible.
23Technology Can Already Read Minds. Is This the End of Freedom?
Technology can already “translate” brain signals into readable data, and the first breakthroughs are here. Swept up in the progress of artificial intelligence and the notorious GPT, we may miss a huge leap when it comes to the natural kind. Prof. Nita Farahany, a scientist and legal scholar with vast experience, is drawing attention to it. “Today there are already companies capable of decoding brainwaves,” she told the world forum in Davos at the start of the year. Are we ready for the moment when someone reads our thoughts? Will it lead to total control, or make our lives more comfortable and meaningful?
24“Within 10 Years, We’ll Be Transplanting Printed Hearts and Kidneys”
How far off is the 3D printing of more complex human organs? Will we one day manage to replicate the structure and functions of the brain? What comes after that? Is technology changing us as a species, and what do the next steps in evolution look like? Dr. Vanyo Vezirov’s story is as colorful as the man himself. Driven by curiosity since childhood, he graduated from a mathematics high school and, for unusual reasons, turned to medicine. Before he had even finished his second year, he and a friend founded a startup focused on bioprinting—the three-dimensional printing of living structures. A young entrepreneur, a doctor, a science communicator, a man with a broad worldview and an unexpected take on the world: we meet Dr. Vezirov to talk about the big questions of medicine and the big answers each of us is looking for today. About fear, and about the decisions we should make not with our brains, but with our hearts…
25Facebook → Instagram → TikTok… What Comes Next?
Social networks keep evolving as technology advances, generations change and countless other forces come into play. So what comes next? What will the social networks that rule after today's giants fade look like, what kind of content will they offer, and how will they win us over? Social networks have become the greatest technological and social phenomenon of our time, and they still promise more than a few surprises…
26Ai-Da and the Lords: Is a Robot That Passes for Human on Its Way?
Is the time coming when we'll pass robots indistinguishable from ourselves? Is it even possible, what are the biggest obstacles, and are there dangers ahead if we succeed? The news that the innocently smiling Ai-Da dropped in for a chat with the British lords caught everyone's eye, though her colleague Sophia has long been a star of the genre, having even been granted citizenship. How far has technology come in creating the perfect humanoid robot, and is Ai-Da really so different that she can talk as an equal with the members of an almost thousand-year-old institution?
27“Dreams Have to Be Ambitious!”
The story of two brothers and a black swan is a fairy tale, only from the digital age. It begins with a conversation about how to send a tin of cheese abroad… and today Dronamics may be the most promising and original Bulgarian startup, with the potential to change the entire transport industry. The two brothers are years ahead of rivals like Amazon and DHL: before the end of 2022 their prototype drone, the Black Swan, will take off on its first commercial flight, carrying 350 kilograms over 2,500 kilometers at almost 200 km/h on less than 7 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers—a “flying banicharka,” as Svilen Rangelov calls it. We meet him to hear the colorful story so far: how a project started in Bulgaria leads Amazon by several years, what the transport industry’s incredible future might look like if the Black Swan completes the last steps of its long road to success, and why the two brothers haven’t shaved for eight years—and why we should all keep our fingers crossed to finally see them without beards.
28“Within Five Years, AI Will Change Every Area of Our Lives”
Will AI-driven technologies really reach every area of human life within just five years, and are we already too late with ethical rules for them? Assoc. Prof. Mariana Todorova, a futurologist at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, makes predictions bolder than most science fiction. “Within just five years, technologies based on artificial intelligence will enter every field. They will be around us from our birth to our death.”
29“The Wheel Has Turned. The Future of Mobility Is Electric”
“The startup world is a roller coaster,” says our guest today. He has spent 15 years working with software startups, and his latest venture has achieved impressive success in just three years. Orlin Radev is the CEO of AMPECO, a company that has proven itself on a global scale in building the software that owners and operators of electric vehicle charging stations need. How do you build such a large venture so quickly? Will electric cars soon go mainstream? What unconventional decisions do startups make in order to succeed?
30The Incubator Baby
Could the moment be approaching when babies are born from artificial wombs? More and more research teams promise a breakthrough in a field that may turn out to be the answer to low birth rates in the Western world. But are we ready for a time when parents can watch together as their baby grows in a high-tech incubator? Not just technologically, but emotionally…
31Five Technologies We Expect Big Things From in 2022
Here it comes, just days away! We expect so much from 2022! Not only for it to finally rid us of the pandemic, but also to bring back normal. And we also expect some purely technological solutions from it, each of which certainly has the power to change the life of every single one of us. Still: which are the technological fields where we hope the coming 2022 will be especially hot?
32Singularity: When Computers Become “Smarter” Than Us
Computers keep getting faster and more sophisticated, and at some point they will move beyond our ability to judge them. That point is called the “technological singularity,” and according to Ray Kurzweil, the researcher who popularized it, it will arrive in 2045. Some consider him a brilliant forecaster, others a charlatan. Either way, it is worth asking whether, at such a moment, artificial intelligence will help us solve humanity’s eternal problems—or enslave us…
33Car, Take the Wheel!
Autonomous cars have been a recurring topic for years. We were supposed to be done with driving by now, and that step still seems close… But is it really? Why is this innovation so important and so eagerly awaited? Here is a brief snapshot of the subject and the challenges ahead.
34“Without Science, We Are Lost!”
Will science soon let us live much longer? Is immortality possible? Could computers be the next step in evolution? And how do we win back trust in science? Assoc. Prof. Milena Georgieva is a molecular biologist at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. She is not only a proven expert in her field but also something far rarer and more precious: a scientist who can present scientific subjects vividly, engagingly, accessibly and, at the same time, competently.
35Facebook Is Now Meta. What Does the Metaverse It Wants to Send Us To Look Like?
Suddenly… a brand we all mention every day is no longer the same. Facebook is becoming Meta to draw attention to its hyper-ambitious metaverse project. But what does this future, which will merge the real and virtual worlds into one indistinguishable environment, look like? When should we expect to find ourselves in the metaverse? And what risks does such a vast project carry?
36The Regenerative City: When Buildings Come Alive
Let's close our eyes and drift into an unreal future. Sofia has dealt with its basic problems and become a regenerative city. Its urban planning respects the history and needs of every resident, and of nature, too… Sadly, the dream looks distant, but let's talk about regenerative cities anyway, as a sensible and logical concept.
37What If One Day We Defeat Death?
Do you think machines and artificial intelligence could make us… immortal? What price might we end up paying? What awaits us afterward? Where is the line between the possible, even the near future, and fantasy? Each of you has your own answers. And yet there are plenty of projects and ideas on the subject that give us reason to think about it more seriously.
38A Swarm of Robot Frogs That Could… Stop Aging?
They are futuristic, self-healing, miniature biological units made from frog stem cells. They are called xenobots. They can move in different directions carrying a payload, they learn collective behavior and easily turn into a swarm. Robots…, but not quite. Living creatures…, but not exactly. They are built from living cells, yet designed on the same principles normally used to make robots.
39Robots in Power
“There’s no one to vote for”—we say it and hear it so often. Clearly the Western model of democracy, and our own feeble variety of it, is in crisis… Could the moment have come for artificial intelligence to change things? Is it time to start a revolution with the new Bulgarian Robot Workers’ Party?
40NFTs: Paying Millions for… Nothing
$69,346,250… for a file containing 5,000 images. More than $2 million to buy a tweet… Has the world gone mad, or are we witnessing a fundamentally new technology that lets us buy and sell unique assets?
