Ep 17: Kevin Kelly and The Inevitable

The Christian Transhumanist Podcast

What's Inevitable, and what we get to choose? Micah Redding and Kevin Kelly discuss rapidly approaching technological change, the advent of Artificial Intelligence, and how technology challenges and illuminates our understanding of God, faith, and ourselves.

Kevin Kelly is the founding editor of Wired magazine, a former editor & publisher of the Whole Earth Catalog, and a founding member of the board of the Long Now Foundation. He's the author of What Technology Wants, and his latest book The Inevitable, which just hit bookshelves.

Topics and relevant links:

• The Inevitable, Kevin Kelly's latest book, and his last book What Technology Wants
• The Long Now Foundation, which is trying to build a 10,000 year clock
• How Artificial Intelligence will help us see new aspects of reality, and understand intelligence itself
• What happens when computers prove things humans can't understand?
• Kevin's conversion experience, as first told on This American Life
• Why humans cannot live "in the moment" alone
• The next 1000 years of Christianity, and why we maybe need another scenario of the future
• A robot catechism
• Predestination, free will, technological determinism, and how we can surprise God
• Further reading:
• Why I don't worry about a super AI
• Why robots should take our jobs
• Arguments against technology
• Quotes:
• "I believe we have a moral obligation to increase the power and presence of technology in the world"
• "Humanity is our greatest invention"
• "Technology is basically the extension of life"
• "Culture is so that ideas don't die out"
• "Our job is to surprise God." — Kevin Kelly