Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Sawyer interview on Roboethics online



The whole 20-minute interview with science-fiction writer and futurist Robert J. Sawyer about robot ethics that aired Monday, January 14, 2008, on TVOntario's flagship current-affairs program The Agenda is now available online here.

To watch, click on Robert Sawyer. (There's also a second interview with me accessible from the same page: Web-Exclusive: Robert Sawyer. That's a shorter one just about my time at Berton House in the Yukon, although the first one, the one on roboethics, also begins with a reference to that.)

By the way, I got a nice note from John Robert Colombo, the editor of Colombo's Canadian Quotations and other quote books, saying he'd added a couple of things I'd said in this interview to his quotations file:
"Science fiction is a Distant Early Warning System for social upheaval."

"The role of the science-fiction writer is to be the conscience of the technological age."

-- Robert J. Sawyer, author, interviewed by Steve Paikin, TVOntario’s The Agenda, 14 Jan. 2008.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site


2 Comments:

At January 16, 2008 1:26 AM , Anonymous Brad Siemens said...

Once again, an outstanding example of 'Canada's preeminent Science Fiction writer'. I particularly like the way you cut through the crap but I would enjoy it if you would provide me with at least one opportunity to disagree with you. :\

We need many more voices such as yours. Keep it up!

Thanks

 
At January 16, 2008 1:34 AM , Blogger S.M.D. said...

You're a fantastic speaker as usual. Great interview. I thoroughly enjoyed that. Sex robots...good lord, what is the world coming to? I saw that in jest of course. It doesn't really surprise me considering the industry that would support it and the foreign industries that would probably make interesting innovations in the field (Japan, perhaps, would be a contender in making realistic sex-bots). It's just bizarre for me to think of doing that. Then again, the people who will be doing that in the future will be different from the way we are today...

 

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