Podcast: What did the future look like in the past?

[@cambridgeuniversity]

If you want to skip ahead or rewind to a bit you liked, here are the time-stamps for each section: [00:00] - Introductions [02:15] - How did new science and technology (railways, telegraphic communication, mass printing) transform the 19th Century. [03:30] - How these technologies are going to change the future not just for the individual but for society. [03:45] - The concept of modernity. How people view change and progress as a society. [05:00] - Futures and utopias delivered by technology as opposed to magic. [07:15] - Science, the idea of progress and moving forward. (The Great Exhibition of 1851) [09:30] - Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, computers and the idea of the mind as a factory. [10:30] - We also need to think about the imbalances around gender, sex, class and colonality. [11:05] - Modernity creates a sense of chaos because of rapid change and new technology. [11:45] - The telegraph and the annihilation of space by time. The message being divorced by the carrier. [12:40] - The development of telegraphic communication technologies and fantasies about global governance and racial dominance. [15:40] - Recap of the first part of the conversation [21:38] - How are new ideas about the future influencing the way people think about artificial intelligence and sci-fi in the 1900’s? [23:44] - Ada Lovelace as a contemporary sci-fi iconic figure [24:45] - Mary Shelley and Frankenstein as an example of fiction grappling with a response to the feeling of chaos resulting from new technologies [26:45] - Other examples of science fiction dealing with new technologies and new ideas and projecting into the future [28:58] - Fulfilled and unfulfilled promises of artificial intelligence in recent history [31:50] - What resistance to ideas of the future has looked like and how technology contributes to ideas of utopia [33:50] - Dominant beliefs and values in the 19th century that showed up in science fiction and actual scientific theories [38:20] - How future projections come from the time in which they’re made but sometimes fictional or artistic pursuits can break out of reflecting the dominant viewpoints at the time of their creation [41:35] - Recap of second part of conversation [48:15] - Comparing older expectations of artificial intelligence (AI) with more recent expectations of AI [50:05] - When and why did AI become scary or threatening? And the cyclical nature of unresolved fears around technology. [54:28] - Current futures of AI and technology and the problematic idea of technology as being free and limitless versus the world ending [56:10] - What’s coming up in technology in the next 100-ish years? [1:00:17] - What the guests look forward to when thinking about the future [1:03:28] - Recap of the last part of the conversation [1:07:09 ] - Thank you and goodbye

[@Prashantmishra21693]

Thank you Cambridge

[@omerblk1773]

Thanks Cambridge