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Science Fiction Becomes Science Fact with Kim Stanley Robinson

Science Fiction Becomes Science Fact with Kim Stanley Robinson

FromFuture Positive


Science Fiction Becomes Science Fact with Kim Stanley Robinson

FromFuture Positive

ratings:
Length:
17 minutes
Released:
Jul 18, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode

Description

In this episode, XPRIZE founder Peter H. Diamandis discusses AI and how it is often portrayed in science fiction with world renowned sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson, at XPRIZE Visioneering recorded at Paramount Studios. Robinson questions our relationship with AI and the important future of synthetic medicine. Although he is inspired by space exploration, he argues that the race to Mars is not an urgent problem, but rather a reward for fixing the problems on planet Earth. Recently named by Fortune as one of the “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders,” Peter H. Diamandis is the founder and executive chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, which leads the world in designing and operating large-scale incentive competitions. He is also the executive founder of Singularity University, a graduate-level Silicon Valley institution that counsels the world's leaders on exponentially growing technologies. As an entrepreneur, Diamandis has started over 20 companies in the areas of longevity, space, venture capital and education. He is cofounder of BOLD Capital Partners, a venture fund with $250M investing in exponential technologies, and co-founder and Vice Chairman of Celularity, Inc., a cellular therapeutics company. Diamandis is a New York Times Bestselling author of two books: Abundance – The Future Is Better Than You Think and BOLD – How to go Big, Create Wealth & Impact the World. His newest book in this series of exponential technologies—The Future is Faster Than You Think—was released on January 28, 2020. He earned degrees in molecular genetics and aerospace engineering from the MIT and holds an M.D. from Harvard Medical School. Diamandis’ favorite saying is “the best way to predict the future is to create it yourself.”Kim Stanley Robinson is an American novelist, widely recognized as one of the foremost living writers of science fiction. Robinson began publishing novels in 1984. His work has been described as "humanist science fiction" and "literary science fiction". Robinson himself has been a proud defender and advocate of science fiction as a genre, which he regards as one of the most powerful of all literary forms.Robinson was born in Waukegan, Illinois, but moved to Orange County, California, when he was two. As a child he loved to play in the orange groves stretching out for miles around his home, so when suburban sprawl began to encroach and the groves were torn out and paved over, the rapid change of modern life hit close to home. It was not until college in 1971 that he would stumble upon new wave science fiction and find in it an expression of that very sense of rapid change that had made such an impression upon him growing up, at which point he knew almost immediately that he would be committed to science fiction from then on. He enrolled at the University of California-San Diego (UCSD) in 1970 and received his B.A. in Literature in 1974. During that time he developed the idea to write a trio of books exploring three different alternative future histories in which southern California had gone down different paths, what became the Orange County trilogy. After briefly leaving California to receive an M.A. in English at Boston University in 1975, Robinson returned to UCSD to complete his Ph.D. Though science fiction was something of a "literary ghetto culture" in the academic world, Robinson could not have had a more sympathetic advisor in Fredric Jameson, who suggested that Robinson do his thesis on the works of Philip K. Dick, whom Robinson was not particularly familiar with at the time but whom Jameson regarded as the greatest living American novelist. Robinson agreed to the idea and finished his Ph.D. in 1982, a revised version of which was published in 1984 as The Novels Of Philip K. Dick. In 1978 Robinson took a break from his Ph.D. work and moved north to Davis, California, where he worked in a bookstore and spent a lot of time outdoors, especially backpacking in the mountains, where he continued to develop his love for landsc
Released:
Jul 18, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode

Titles in the series (55)

Welcome to Future Positive a podcast from XPRIZE that aims to bring you the most future-forward topics, covering everything from AI to avatars, to climate change, and more. We will share conversations from game-changing leaders, tech entrepreneurs and heavyweights from the creative industry - revealing their inspirations, and how and why they will change the world.If you’re into data-driven optimism, this is the podcast for you.© 2020 XPRIZE Foundation. All rights reserved Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.