Episode 7 of the Beyond Electric Sheep podcast on AI discusses what our future will be like living with other intelligent beings. Interestingly, this isn't the first time Homo Sapiens has lived with other intelligent being. In this episode, Brick Thompson and I discuss my Medium.com article "What's Past is Prologue" which can be found at https://medium.com/@edbdaniels/whats-past-is-prologue-10af858525d2 Ed observes that Homo Sapiens evolved alongside other Intelligent Hominins. He then asks what lessons that experience might teach us as we begin to live with our newly-created intelligent AI companions. Brick and Ed talk about this question and consider the implications.
"What's past is prologue" is a quote from William Shakespeare's play The Tempest, Act 2, Scene 1.
Beyond Electric Sheep, is a reference to the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. That novel is the source for the movies Blade Runner (1982) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017). It explores the themes of artificial intelligence, empathy, and reality in a dystopian future where humans and androids coexist.
The novel raises the question of whether androids can dream or feel anything at all, and whether they are different from humans in any meaningful way.
In our Beyond Electric Sheep podcast we go beyond the novel and the movies and discuss the broader implications and applications of artificial intelligence in our personal lives and in our businesses. We explore the pragmatic as well as the ethical and philosophical issues that arise from creating and interacting with intelligent machines.
Beyond Electric Sheep is also available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYg2J0jET_BPCKSnsxz8mleEmYogYJZhn
