Nikola Danaylov Ⓥ

Futurist Keynote Speaker | Raconteur & Provocateur | Redefining Context. Rewriting Story. Shaping the Future. 👉

[Nikola Danaylov Ⓥ @singularityblog]

My old professor was nicknamed Dr. Doom.

Then he wrote a book on hope.

In 2020, he told me:

“Despair is only for those who know the future without any doubt. We do not.”

With #AI and #ClimateChange both accelerating, it hits harder now.
https://t.co/ksIf75Jttt

[Nikola Danaylov Ⓥ @singularityblog]

“Every time technology tries to stand in for ethics, we deny ourselves the opportunity for growth.”

Matthew Cole told me this about vegan meat.

Swap in #AI and it lands even harder.

Why the only #vegan sociologist I know distrusts the tech fix: https://t.co/EVftChkg84

[Marathon Fusion @MarathonFusion]

Last month, we demonstrated high-rate alchemy: turning mercury into real, stable gold, beating CERN’s record by a factor of 10.

Last week, we enriched isotopes in the world’s most powerful plasma centrifuge, beating the Soviet record that stood for 40 years.

Now, we’re building a fusion reactor in San Francisco to achieve record power density.

[Nikola Danaylov Ⓥ @singularityblog]

Kim Stanley Robinson told me the future discount rate isn’t science; it’s #Philosophy.

Every #ClimateChange model that says tomorrow matters less is a moral choice dressed up as math. Now swap in #AI. Did this #SciFi legend see 2026 coming?

Watch: https://t.co/hLJwXwA76V

[Nikola Danaylov Ⓥ @singularityblog]

The best book on #transhumanism I've read was written by a #posthumanist. Two years before the #AI boom, Francesca Ferrando and I asked if the human/transhuman line is even real, and whether tech utopias are the White Man's Burden in new clothes. https://t.co/McIBn00GZC

[Nikola Danaylov Ⓥ @singularityblog]

"We've been well-meaning but stupid." Gus Hosein told me in 2021, after 20 years of fighting #surveillance. His #privacy definition: setting the conditions by which we are seen and understood. Now #AI doesn't just see us. It speaks for us. Still stupid? https://t.co/YKaE75zSfm

[Nikola Danaylov Ⓥ @singularityblog]

In 2021, I taped a COVID-era #keynote on #futurism. Rewatching it, I cringe at my delivery. But the argument holds: the weather ignores the forecast; the future doesn't. With most #AI pundits selling certainty, whose image of the future are you living in? https://t.co/dwGB4vHhAa

[Nikola Danaylov Ⓥ @singularityblog]

The first atomic bomb was nicknamed "Gadget."

I opened a 2021 COVID #keynote with it. I cringe at my delivery now, but the content stands: #technology is a magnifying mirror, not a crystal ball. Five years and one #AI boom later, it lands harder.

https://t.co/0zbQQZis3B

[Yonan @yonann]

Jason Alexander says he feared visiting Palestine as a Jew until 10 Palestinians protected him during an Israeli army raid in Ramallah

“How much of a risk would I be taking as an American Jew walking into Palestinian cities? And Mohammed said, ‘The greatest dishonor that could happen to a religious Muslim is to allow harm to come to an invited guest’”

“And he said, ‘Jason, if they had to, they’ll take a bullet for you.’ And what was so interesting about that trip is, we were having lunch in Ramallah with a bunch of actors and artists at a sort of outdoor restaurant”

“And the Israeli army was conducting a raid on a bank that they thought had terrorist ties a couple blocks away. And they must have, to announce themselves, just shot into the air. And I remember 10 of those guys at the table surrounding me. And I went, ‘Oh my God, he wasn’t kidding. They’re not going to let me get hurt’”

[Nikola Danaylov Ⓥ @singularityblog]

Ten months before #ChatGPT, Lisa Cron told me the brain runs #storytelling as a virtual reality simulator. What happens when #AI can write our stories endlessly and cheaply? Whoever writes the story shapes the simulation. Recorded 2022. Hits harder now. https://t.co/HfdAhWwu4r

[Nikola Danaylov Ⓥ @singularityblog]

Old stories are failing, and #AI now writes new ones at scale. So who writes the human Story? Ex-Xena writer turned #SciFi novelist PJ Manney on the New Mythos, myth gaps, and why #storytelling is to us what water is to fish. Recorded in 2022. Truer now. https://t.co/V6wKhpyH9t

[Izabella Kaminska @izakaminska]

The problem of our time is not merely information overload. It is that the time required to construct a coherent understanding of reality is becoming longer than the time during which that understanding remains valid.

[Nikola Danaylov Ⓥ @singularityblog]

Feb 2022, 9 months before ChatGPT, a neuroscientist turned Shakespeare PhD who advised DARPA told me #AI can't be creative.

Not "yet." Can't.

The brain isn't a computer & #story is its operating system.

Was Angus Fletcher wrong, or right all along?

https://t.co/L8OgOD7Ts3

[Nikola Danaylov Ⓥ @singularityblog]

A Zen Master who survived cancer and lives among Japan's supercomputers told me acceptance is not giving up.

We recorded this 9 months before ChatGPT. What does #Zen say to the #Transhumanism and #AI crowd trying to fix everything with tech? He answers.
https://t.co/Y0QeqMYdi6

[Nikola Danaylov Ⓥ @singularityblog]

"We're not gods, we're just storytelling animals."

Will Storr told me that 8 months before ChatGPT. Now #AI feeds our hero-making brains endless stories where we're always right. Who's writing whom?

A #Storytelling conversation that aged scarily well:
https://t.co/eyPi2y2P7o

[Gerd Leonhard @gleonhard]

“Hinton said that the AI venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel, and the CEO of the newly rebranded SpaceXSI, Elon Musk, “don’t believe in democracy”. They see themselves as “Übermenschen” who believe they should “control society” and that Trump is a useful instrument in that aim, he said.”

AI godfather Geoffrey Hinton: ‘We’re creating alien beings. I’m willing to be selfish and choose humans’
https://t.co/FkR7TXT2G6
via Instapaper

[Nikola Danaylov Ⓥ @singularityblog]

In 2022, pre-ChatGPT, #marketing pioneer Jonah Sachs told me #storytelling is the neglected secret weapon we all have. His films reached 60M+ people and moved Congress. Now #AI writes them by the billion. Is that weapon being handed over, or sharpened? https://t.co/f8qgogNclS

[Nikola Danaylov Ⓥ @singularityblog]

Classic or modern, #Toronto sunrises never disappoint.

Same morning, same frame, two moods. Which one speaks to you?

#TorontoSkyline #Sunrise #LakeOntario #CNTower #Photography #TOWaterfront

[Voice of Rabbis @voiceofrabbis]

"If you're Jewish or non-Jewish, please, let the world know:

Thousands of Orthodox Jews lined up in London to oppose Zionism while chanting “Israeli Government Shame On You!”

Our voice is silenced that’s why you don’t hear from us, but NOT because it’s not there.

Torah Observant Jews understand the dangers of Israel’s false claims of representing Jews and are pushing back strongly!

Help us get our voice heard!

[Nikola Danaylov Ⓥ @singularityblog]

March 2022, 8 months before ChatGPT, John Smart argued that the future is both predicted and created; that our love of freedom blinds us to what is already locked in.

Is #foresight a gift or a trainable skill? His answer reframes #AI, #AGI + #futurism.

https://t.co/b4SHtyICS6