What if death, disease, and even biology itself were just problems waiting to be solved..? Futurist, thinker and inventor Ray Kurzweil thinks they are - and he’s built a career predicting the moment when humans and machines will merge.

In this episode, I have a mull about Kurzweil's key works, especiallyThe Singularity Is Near (2005) and its 2024 sequel The Singularity Is Nearer. Kurzweil claims that AI will match human intelligence by the end of the 2020s, and by mid- 2040s we’ll hit the “Singularity” - a point where exponential growth in AI, biotech, and nanotech transforms human life forever. Think radical life extension, brain–computer interfaces, and even digital immortality.

Kurzweil calls it progress. Critics call it techno-utopianism, even a kind of secular faith. In this audio essay, I discuss mind-uploading, overcoming death, whether AI is really “intelligent,” or just good at pattern recognition? Kurzweil’s vision is part science, part prophecy. Whether you find him inspiring or unsettling, his ideas force us to confront the future of intelligence, identity, and what it means to be human in a world remade by technology.

With thanks to Tristen Nunes -editing, research and post-production.

In this episode, I return to Alan Turing’s 1950 essay in Mind "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" – a foundational text in the history of artificial intelligence, but also one that is far stranger, more playful, and more haunting than we might anticipates. This is the essay where Turing famously asks, "Can machines think?" But rather than define thinking, he proposes a game - the Imitation Game[The Turing Test] - a conversational test designed not to reveal intelligence as an inner property, but as something enacted, judged, and performed in dialogue. We explore how this seemingly simple setup unsettles traditional metaphysical assumptions about the mind. On my re-reading I didn’t find a cold piece of determinism, it contains moments of humour, wonder, and a surprising detour into telepathy - a bizarre and often forgotten detail. What emerges is a vision of intelligence not as a static essence, but as a kind of performance -something that must be continually enacted and recognised by others.

If you would like to study with me you can find more information about our online education MAs in Philosophy here at Staffordshire University. You can find out more information on our MA in Continental Philosophy via this link. Or, join our MA in Philosophy of Nature, Information and Technology via this link. Find out more about me here. September intakes F/T or January intakes P/T. You can listen to more free back content from the Thales' Well podcast on TuneIn Radio, Player Fm, Stitcher and Pod Bean. You can also download their apps to your smart phone and listen via there. You can also subscribe for free on iTunes. Please leave a nice review.

On this episode I take a fresh look at how we think about technology by exploring David Edgerton’s old but updated book The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900. Rather than celebrating the latest inventions as revolutionary breakthroughs, Edgerton argues that we should pay closer attention to the technologies that persist - those that are used, maintained, repaired andadapted over time. I reflect on the difference between invention and use, the purpose of repair, and how technologies often remain central to daily life long after they’re considered outdated, and this persistence tells us about their real impact. Also, we pose some questions for Martin Heidegger's theory of technology too.

To get a sense of Edgerton's work you can visit his website here, or you can listen to an interview with him here on the Zukunft Denken Podcast which should give you a good summary of his central preoccupations. It was this article from the Manchester Mill that got me thinking about all this.

If you would like to study with me you can find more information about our online education MAs in Philosophy here at Staffordshire University. You can find out more information on our MA in Continental Philosophy via this link. Or, join our MA in Philosophy of Nature, Information and Technology via this link. Find out more about me here. September intakes F/T or January intakes P/T. You can listen to more free back content from the Thales' Well podcast on TuneIn Radio, Player Fm, Stitcher and Pod Bean. You can also download their apps to your smart phone and listen via there. You can also subscribe for free on iTunes. Please leave a nice review.