I was recently interviewed by Stephen Ibaraki and Alex Lin (CEO of ChinaValue) in what turned out to be the most interesting, far-reaching, and multi-disciplinary (and long) interview I’ve ever given. I was very pleased with the depth of their questions and the topics we covered. You can listen to the MP3 version here, or read a full-text transcript here.

Topics covered:

• My work over the last few decades
• Big life lessons I’ve had
• My recent “Venture Production Studio” concept
• Stealth ventures I’m working on (realtime web, wireless power, etc.)
• Intelligent assistants
• Predictions for the future
• Augmented reality
• The Singularity
• Do we have free will? Will that change as Global Mind emerges?
• The changing nature of individuality
• The Psychological Singularity
• The Global Brain – history and implications
• The WebOS – Which cloud will win?
• The Semantic Web – what it’s really for, is it being adopted?
• What level does the brain compute at? Neural vs. quantum.
• Nature of consciousness (Buddhist view vs. Western Scientific view) – “I think, therefore I am” vs. “I am, therefore I think”
• The nature of self & possibility of artificial selves
• The Singularity
• John Searle’s Chinese Room thought experiment
• Digital physics & cellular automata; Ed Fredkin & Stephen Wolfram
• Bostrom’s Simulation Hypothesis
• Buddhist views on ultimate nature of reality
• My relationship with Peter Drucker (my grandfather) and his influence (management, knowledge workers, social sector etc.)
• The shift to a now-centric civilization
• The fragmentation of the Semantic Web
• Freeing intelligence from human brains (like we did with knowledge)
• Symbiosis; Part vs. Whole – When does the Global Brain change to a new level of order?
• Beyond Homo Sapiens – What’s next? Cyborgs, collective beings, etc.
• Technological ethics – what kind of future are we building?
• Combining the best of Asian and Western intellectual approaches
• IBM-Jeopardy Challenge