I spent an amazing couple of hours with a few dozen students at the University of Washington’s “Smart Machines & The Future of Humanity” course on Monday. While not focused on focused on futures methodology, I’m really pleased to see college courses focused on trying to anticipate and understand the […]
Okay, titling this post “Richard and TED’s Excellent Adventure” is a bit corny, but it’s accurate too. My experience applying to, preparing for and presenting at my first TEDx event was a most excellent adventure! The quality of TEDxSnoIsleLibraries’ organization and coaching was superb and it was both a pleasure […]
You may not be able to judge a book by it’s cover, but you certainly can judge a bot by its conversation! I recently had the pleasure of being one of the finalist judges for Amazon’s $2.5 million Alexa Prize. This inaugural competition focused on the grand challenge of building […]
It’s been a busy week! Clients, interviews, research, writing and prepping for a TEDx talk had me wearing many hats and keeping lots of balls in the air. (That’s either a mixed-metaphor or I’m in the circus. Perhaps it’s both!) The week started with an interview for the RoboPsych podcast […]
I’m thrilled to be speaking at the Emotion AI Summit at MIT Media Lab next month! It’s a one-day event focused on artificial emotional intelligence and features Nicholas Negroponte, Rosalind Picard, Rana el Kaliouby, Cynthia Breazeal, AI scientists from Google and Amazon and many others who are central to this […]
The Association of Professional Futurists had their 2017 Gathering in Seattle this past weekend and it was a huge success! Centered around a theme of Global Health Futures, we explored issues dealing with the future of human health, planetary and environmental health and literally extraplanetary health! This later addressed our […]
GeekWire, the national technology news site just made me their “Geek of the Week“. Given all the amazing tech talent in the Seattle and Puget Sound region, it’s quite the accolade. Half interview, half bio, it’s definitely great publicity, not to mention a good introduction to what a futurist does. […]
My latest is Psychology Today is titled “Westworld, Emotion and the Dilemma of Machine Consciousness“. It explores the future of AI and the feasibility of machine consciousness through the lens of HBO’s hit series “Westworld“. Drawing from the ideas set out in my book, “Heart of the Machine“, the article […]
The new podcast Seeking Delphi only began a few months ago, but host Mark Sackler has already spoken to several excellent guest futurists. So I was really pleased when he asked me to speak with him about the focus of my book for Podcast #12: Artificial Emotional Intelligence. It was […]
Wow, what a month March was! Heart of the Machine was officially released on March 7 and we marked the occasion with a one hour talk, signing and official book launch at Town Hall Seattle. 150 people attended, made up of friends, family and (hopefully) prospective readers. Then it was […]