John Underkoffler: Sci-Fi Interface Design in the Real World

05/16/18 • 57 min

MIND & MACHINE: Science & Tech of Maximizing Human Capability

My guest today is John Underkoffler. As an early member of the MIT Media Lab, John was approached by Steven Spielberg and legendary world-builder Alex McDowell to help design the interface of the future for the film Minority Report. The system John and the team designed became legendary for its vision and conceptual innovation. He’s gone on to help design many sci-fi computer interfaces including Iron Man’s JARVIS. Building on these fictional computer interfaces, John has founded the company Oblong where he is bringing these collaborative, gestural, and tactile computer interfaces to life — enabling digital objects and data to live in the environment instead of the device. We discuss John’s visionary science fiction design, his real-world incarnation of these interfaces, and go deep into many aspects of human-computer interaction. More at: https://www.MindAndMachine.io

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UBI: Universal Basic Income? Build the Floor Founder Larry Cohen

Today we look at Universal Basic Income, or UBI. With increasingly advanced artificial intelligence and robotics, we face the threat of job loss on an unprecedented scale — by many estimates well into double digits and some forecasting a majority of the workforce will at some point not be needed. Others look at current poverty rates and the difficulty of escaping a downward economic spiral and ask if we are doing enough to give members of our society the chance to invest in their own growth and build a better future. My guest today is Larry Cohen, founder of “Build the Floor”, a Universal Basic Income advocacy group. We discuss what UBI is and how it fits into the context of modern politics and economics. Then Larry addresses the most common criticisms of the concept and ultimately explores how such an endeavor could be funded. More about Larry at: https://twitter.com/larrycohen More on UBI: Build the Floor: https://buildthefloor.org Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BasicIncome/ Economic Security Project: https://economicsecurityproject.org Book: “The War on Normal People”: https://www.amazon.com/War-Normal-People-Disappearing-Universal/dp/0316414247 _________________________________ More at: https://www.MindAndMachine.io

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Mental Health & Wellbeing Transformative Technologies with Nichol Bradford

Mental health and wellness are not areas you typically think of along with cutting edge exponential technology. However, that is about to change. My guest today is Nichol Bradford. Nichol is building the future of human possibility by facilitating bold new technologies for mental health and well-being. Nichol is the executive Director and co-founder of the Transformative Technology Lab, Transtech Conference, and the Transformative Technology Academy. We explore how technology can be applied to achieve radical growth for the human “inner landscape”, enabling a better psychological state in our accelerating world. More on Nichole and her work: www.transtechlab.org www.ttconf.org www.nicholbradford.com __________ More at: https://www.MindAndMachine.io