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SF Tech Events Weekly
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Astrophysicist & science journalist Adam Becker has his eye on the dreams of Silicon Valley's billionaire elite-and he's unimpressed. He says Silicon Valley's heartless, baseless, & foolish obsessions-with escaping death, building AI tyrants, & creating limitless growth-pervert public discourse & distract us from real social problems.
He argues that tech billionaires have decided that they should determine our futures for us, & that the only good future for humanity is one powered by technology: trillions of humans living in space, functionally immortal, served by superintelligent AIs.
In More Everything Forever, Becker investigates what he calls wildly implausible & often profoundly immoral visions of tomorrow-and shows why, in reality, there is no good evidence that they will, or should, come to pass. Nevertheless, these obsessions fuel fears that overwhelm reason-for example, that a rogue AI will exterminate humanity-at the expense of essential work on solving crucial problems like climate change. What's more, these futuristic visions cloak a hunger for power under dreams of space colonies & digital immortality. The giants of Silicon Valley claim that their ideas are based on science, but Becker says the reality is darker: they come from a jumbled mix of shallow futurism & racist pseudoscience.
Adam Becker says that powerful & sinister ideas that Silicon Valley. Now he comes to the heart of the global tech world to challenge us to see how these visions of the future are foolish & dangerous.
SPEAKERS
Adam Becker, Astrophysicist; Author, More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, & Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity
In conversation with Annalee Newitz, Author; Journalist; Co-Host, "Our Opinions Are Correct" Podcast
5 p.m. doors open & check-in
5:30-6:30 p.m program
6:30 p.m. book signing
(all times Pacific Time)
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