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The Escaped Sapiens Podcast attempts to give an authentic and unedited voice to the researchers and explorers extending the boundaries of what is humanly possible.
Episodes
Saturday Jan 20, 2024
Saturday Jan 20, 2024
In this episode of the podcast I speak with David Shapiro about some of the threats associated with AI development. We discuss the impact that generative AI will have on truth, trust in evidence, and divisive narratives. Who will pay for AI, and how will that determine the path of its development? Will artificial relationships and generated adult content lead to new forms of sexual addiction and social isolation? What impact will AI have on cyber security, and what will weaponized AI look like? How will AI eventually escape our control? We close with a brief discussion of UBI, and why humans matter.
►Watch on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/pCtbdYQm16s
►Visit David's Youtube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@DavidShapiroAutomator
►Join David's Discord:
https://discord.com/invite/32kNMc2Pqt
►Support David's work on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/daveshap
These conversations are supported by the Andrea von Braun foundation (http://www.avbstiftung.de/), as an exploration of the rich, exciting, connected, scientifically literate, and (most importantly) sustainable future of humanity. The views expressed in these episodes are my own and those of my guests.
Thursday Dec 21, 2023
Thursday Dec 21, 2023
What is narcissism, and why do so many successful people seem to be narcissists? In this conversation I speak with Professor Mitja Back from the university of Muenster, who is one of the worlds leading experts on the topic of Narcissism. We discuss narcissism as a personality trait, how narcissistic traits develop (nature vs nurture), relationship breakdown, narcissism on social media, and the link between narcissism and success.
►Watch On YouTube:
►For more information about Mitja's work see:
https://www.uni-muenster.de/PsyIFP/AEBack/members/mitja-back.html
https://www.mitjaback.de/buecher/
https://www.instagram.com/dr.mitjaback/
https://www.youtube.com/@MitjaBack
These conversations are supported by the Andrea von Braun Foundation (http://www.avbstiftung.de/), as an exploration of the rich, exciting, connected, scientifically literate, and (most importantly) sustainable future of humanity. The views expressed in these episodes are my own and/or those of my guests.
Tuesday Dec 12, 2023
Tuesday Dec 12, 2023
In this conversation I speak with Professor Kerstin Göpfrich, who works at Heidelberg University at the Center for Molecular Biology (ZMBH), and who is also leading the Max Planck Research Group for the Biophysical Engineering of Life. Kerstin is attempting to construct living cells from scratch, piece by piece from non-living materials. So far she has created cell membranes, cytoskeletons, linkers for connecting cytoskeletons to the cell membrane, a mechanism for cell division, microscopic channels for ion transport in and out of cell membranes, an artificial 'mitochondria' analog, and more. The goal is eventually to put together all of these elements into a self replicating, and autonomous model 'cell'. We discuss her progress, and what it teaches us about the origins of life on earth. We also touch on the ethics of bringing an entirely new branch of life into existence.
►Watch on YouTube:
►For more information about Kerstin's work see: https://goepfrichgroup.de/kerstin-gopfrich/
https://www.mr.mpg.de/person/53539/14181493
These conversations are supported by the Andrea von Braun Foundation (http://www.avbstiftung.de/), as an exploration of the rich, exciting, connected, scientifically literate, and (most importantly) sustainable future of humanity. The views expressed in these episodes are my own and those of my guests.
Tuesday Nov 28, 2023
Tuesday Nov 28, 2023
This conversation is about the history of life and earth. I speak with evolutionary biologist and author Olivia Judson, who is best known for her book 'Dr. Tatiana's sex advice to all creation''. Oliva thinks of the history of life on earth in terms of 5 energy epochs, in which life has worked out how to make use of different kinds of energy. These epochs are geochemistry, light, oxygen, flesh, and fire. Olivia explains her fascination with the transformation of life over time, and with what it means to be alive 4.5 billion years into earth's history. Olivia is currently in the final stages of authoring her next popular science book on just this topic.
►Watch Conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/NgN5M4UWOMY
►For more information about Olivias work see: https://aeon.co/essays/the-insight-of-darwins-work-on-corals-worms-and-co-evolution
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0138
At 1:14:38 Olivia accidently says cyanobacteria instead of Coccolithophores.
At 1:57:12 Olivia accidently says 20,000 base pairs instead of 20,000 genes. Genes are sequences of base pairs. The typical Bacteria have between 2000 and 5000 genes, corresponding to several million base pairs.
These conversations are supported by the Andrea von Braun Foundation (http://www.avbstiftung.de/), as an exploration of the rich, exciting, connected, scientifically literate, and (most importantly) sustainable future of humanity. The views expressed in these episodes are my own and those of my guests.
Friday Nov 17, 2023
Friday Nov 17, 2023
NOTE: From 0:01:07-0:02:36 the sound quality is lower than the rest of the episode as you are hearing the backup recording.
This conversation is about democracy and scientific literacy. In 2023 Germany shut down the last of its nuclear plants, and is now bringing back several mothballed coal plants to keep the lights on over winter. Was this a smart decision given the scientific consensus that we need to cut carbon emissions? Similar questions can be asked about the banning of GMO crops, or government handling of Covid. More and more, the decisions being made in western democracies have a scientific basis. Can our democracies thrive (or even survive) without a well informed, engaged, and scientifically literate population? In this conversation I speak with Johannes Vogel, who is the Director General of the Natural Science Museum in Berlin, and a Professor of Biodiversity and Public Science at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. We discuss the role of museums in society, the unglamorous side of science, open and citizen science, scientific spending, ownership of museum items, the war in Ukraine, preserving museum specimens, the effectiveness of political protest and marches, scientists as politicians, AI and misinformation, and much more.
►Watch on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/KT_p26a_d_M
►For more information about Johannes work: https://www.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin/en/about/team/johannes.vogel
These conversations are supported by the Andrea von Braun Foundation (http://www.avbstiftung.de/), as an exploration of the rich, exciting, connected, scientifically literate, and (most importantly) sustainable future of humanity. The views expressed in these episodes are my own and those of my guests. This episode focuses on the sustainability of western democracies in the face of anti-scientific sentiment.
Friday Sep 15, 2023
Friday Sep 15, 2023
In this conversation I speak with Dr. Gary Linkov about the ethics and practice of plastic surgery. Gary is a double board certified facial plastic surgeon who specializes in lip lift surgeries and hair restoration. He is also renowned for carrying out complex nasal surgery for US war veterans in need, and for teaching rhinoplasty procedures to the NYU head and neck surgery residents.
Plastic surgery is controversial. On the one hand critics claim that it leads to unhealthy beauty standards, and that aggressive marketing preys upon people who are already under enormous pressure the alter who they are to conform with societies view of beauty. On the other hand our society values personal agency and individual choice, and plastic surgery can help improve self image and quality of life. This is particularly apparent in cases where patients have suffered from physical trauma, or cancer, or who were born with congenital defects. We discuss some of the ethics behind plastic surgery, including who might be an appropriate candidate. We also touch on the technical aspects of the job, including how certain procedures are done.
►Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/8iOLX1_LbRU
►For more information about Gary's research and work: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_O-qmfUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao https://cityfacialplastics.com/dr-gary-linkov/
►Follow Gary on YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@drgarylinkov
These conversations are supported by the Andrea von Braun Foundation (http://www.avbstiftung.de/), as an exploration of the rich, exciting, connected, scientifically literate, and (most importantly) sustainable future of humanity. The views expressed in these episodes are my own and those of my guests.
Tuesday Jul 25, 2023
Tuesday Jul 25, 2023
In this conversation I discuss distributed and decentralized organizations with Jean-Philippe Vergne, who is an associate professor of strategy at University College London. We focus on the development of blockchain technology, which at least in theory should allow for new forms of organization that don't rely on centralized authorities to function. The initial dream was that blockchain technology would drive innovation, provide transparency, limit abuses of power, and provide access to financing for people living in dysfunctional states. Crypto currencies based on the technology might also act as a counterweight to the sovereign monopoly that nation states have on currency creation. As we discuss, however, blockchain networks and applications often maintain elements of centralization and it is often difficult in practice to use the technology to construct organizations that are more distributed than traditional hierarchical organizations.
►Watch on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/qxe5Oiwvk7c
►For more information about JP's research: https://www.mgmt.ucl.ac.uk/people/jeanphilippevergne
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2631787720977052
►Follow JP on twitter and LinkedIn:
https://twitter.com/PirateOrg
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jpver/
These conversations are supported by the Andrea von Braun foundation (http://www.avbstiftung.de/), as an exploration of the rich, exciting, connected, scientifically literate, and (most importantly) sustainable future of humanity. The views expressed in these episodes are my own and those of my guests. This episode focuses on new forms of organization and the evolution of societies.
Wednesday Jul 19, 2023
Wednesday Jul 19, 2023
What is the future of our oceans? On this episode of the Podcast I speak with Dr. Shawn Robinson about marine ecology, aquaculture, and the politics and economics of what ends up on your plate. Shawn is a marine ecologist who did his graduate work at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia on the giant Pacific octopus (MSc) and at the University of British Columbia on biological oceanography off Vancouver Island (PhD). He began his career as a research scientist in 1988 with the Dept. Fisheries and Oceans at the Biological Station in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada, one of Canada’s oldest marine research stations. Over the last 35 years, he has been actively engaged in applied ecological research on a wide range of marine invertebrate species such as blue mussels, sea scallops, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, soft-shell clams, lobsters, marine worms, sea lice and marine bacteria. His research team specifically studied the natural ecological processes by which these animals interact with and utilise their environment so that better and more sustainable culture techniques could be developed for the evolution of food production in today’s society (such as the concept of integrated multi-trophic aquaculture or IMTA). Most recently, he and other colleagues have been studying sea lice ecology in relation to salmon farming, biodiversity in marine bacteria through eDNA genomic approaches in response to organic impacts, and wild-farmed interactions between natural ecosystems and salmon aquaculture farms. He currently lives in St. Andrews enjoying the retirement pleasures that a coastal town in the Canadian Maritimes provides.
These conversations are supported by the Andrea von Braun foundation (http://www.avbstiftung.de/), as an exploration of the rich, exciting, connected, scientifically literate, and (most importantly) sustainable future of humanity. The views expressed in these episodes are my own and those of my guests. This episode looks at the sustainable use of our oceans.
►Watch on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/N805eseQtWA
►Subscribe And Turn On All Notifications To See More: https://www.youtube.com/c/EscapedSapiens?sub_confirmation=1
Monday Jun 26, 2023
Monday Jun 26, 2023
In only 250 years since colonization, Australia has seen the extinction of 38 species of mammals. Much of the devastation to Australia's native wildlife has been caused or exacerbated by the introduction of invasive pests like cats, dogs, cane toads, camels, and rabbits. A key question is whether science will one day be able to return Australia to its original state? In this conversation I speak with Dr. Stephen Frankenberg about genetic biocontrol and de-extinction. We focus on the use of gene drives, which are genetic tools that can be used to increase the likelihood that a suite of genes will spread throughout a population. Gene drives can be used, to spread infertility into a population over a number of generations, removing that population without having to cull animals. We also discuss the work being done to return the Tasmanian tiger from extinction.
►Watch on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/Qeth7hIPNnM
►Check out Stephen's research here: https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/pasklab/dr-stephen-frankenberg/
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Fk_RvmoAAAAJ&hl=en
►Follow Stephen on Twitter: @srfrankenberg
These conversations are supported by the Andrea von Braun foundation (http://www.avbstiftung.de/), as an exploration of the rich, exciting, connected, scientifically literate, and (most importantly) sustainable future of humanity. The views expressed in these episodes are my own and those of my guests. This episode looks at using technology to preserve species that are in threat of extinction, and to return the wild spaces that have already been destroyed.
Tuesday May 30, 2023
Tuesday May 30, 2023
Progress in AI development seems to be accelerating, and we might be living through a period in human history that is every bit as significant as the agricultural and industrial revolutions. We might be witnessing the dawn of synthetic general intelligence. In this conversation I speak with David Shapiro who is an AI researcher and YouTube content creator. We discuss the current state of the art LLMs, and the inevitable rise of autonomous AI given current global economic competition. We cover the social implications in the near term and existential threats in the long term, as well as alignment and AI control.
►Watch on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/YfjaspSWI0c
►Check out David's work on alignment here:
https://www.gatoframework.org/
►Visit David's Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DavidShapiroAutomator
►Join David's Discord:
https://discord.com/invite/32kNMc2Pqt
►Support David's work on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/daveshap
These conversations are supported by the Andrea von Braun foundation (http://www.avbstiftung.de/), as an exploration of the rich, exciting, connected, scientifically literate, and (most importantly) sustainable future of humanity. The views expressed in these episodes are my own and those of my guests. This episode looks at maintaining human cohesion, birthrates, social security, and world peace in the face of artificial general intelligence.