Dr. Noam Chomsky is a famed linguist, political activist, prolific author and recognized public speaker, who has spent the last 60 years living a double life – one as a political activist and another as a linguist. His activism allegedly made him the US government’s public enemy number one. As a linguist he is often credited for dethroning behaviorism and becoming the “father of modern linguistics” (and/or cognitive science). Put together his accomplishments are the reasons why he is often listed as one of the most important intellectuals of the 20th century. And so I was very much looking forward to interviewing him on Singularity 1 on 1.

Unfortunately our time together was delayed, then rushed and a bit shorter than anticipated. So I was pretty nervous throughout and messed up some of my questions and timing. Never-the-less, I believe that we still had a worthy conversation with Dr. Chomsky and I appreciate the generous though limited time that he was able to grant me.

During our 30 minute conversation with Noam Chomsky we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: the balance between his academic and his political life; artificial intelligence and reverse engineering the human brain; why in his view both Deep Blue and Watson are little more than PR; the slow but substantial progress of our civilization; the technological singularity…

My favorite quote that I will take away from this interview with Dr. Chomsky is:

“What’s a program? A program is a theory; it’s a theory written in an arcane, complex notation designed to be executed by the machine. What about the program, you ask? The same questions you ask about any other theory: Does it give insight and understanding? These theories don’t. So what we’re asking here is: Can we design a theory of being smart? We’re eons away from doing that.”

Noam Chomsky: The Singularity is Science Fiction!

Singularity.FM is the first and best known singularity podcast - the place where we interview the future. 

Singularity.FM is a series of singularity podcast interviews with the best scientists, writers, entrepreneurs, film-makers, philosophers and artists, debating issues such as the technological singularity, transhumanism, artificial intelligence, life-extension and ethics.

Past guests of this singularity podcast include people such as Ray Kurzweil, Peter Diamandis, Noam Chomsky, Stuart Hameroff, Marvin Minsky, Aubrey de Grey, Max More, Michio Kaku, Vernor Vinge, Cory Doctorow, Charles Stross and many, many others.

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