Episode Details

Our guest for this week is Steven Kotler, a best-selling author, award-winning journalist, and entrepreneur.

Steven is a leading expert on ultimate performance and the state of flow. He co-founded the Flow Genome Project in order to answer questions such as the relationship between flow and creativity, flow and business success, as well as to explore altered states of consciousness and their effect on human performance. Other organizations he has founded are Creating Equilibrium, a conference dedicated to solving critical environmental challenges, and Rancho de Chihuahua, a hospice care dog sanctuary in the mountains of Northern New Mexico he co-founded with his wife Joy.

Steven is also a renowned, best-selling author with 2 Pulitzer Prize nominations to his work on “Stealing Fire” and “A Small, Furry Prayer”. His latest book called “Last Tango In Cyberspace” is a brilliantly well-researched novel which explores the future we may be living in just 5 years from now. The book is inspired by cutting edge technology which is still exclusively available in modern labs across the world. His predictions are based on years of researching the frontiers of neuroscience, psychology, psychopharmacology, and ecology, with a special appreciation for the progress of animal rights. Using this Sci-Fi setting, Steven dives into topics such as the evolution of empathy, the nature of consciousness, and our definition of “life.” 

Connect with Steven:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KotlerSteven/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxbLU30FsQmr-Ikxu6VrTAg

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kotler.steven/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/steven_kotler

Website: https://www.stevenkotler.com/

What Will Our World Look Like 5 Years From Now?

Steven has always been fascinated by technological advancements and he’s heavily invested in studying the forefronts of cutting-edge tech. He recognizes that the future will not come one new tech at a time but as a combination of complementary discoveries which will completely reshape the world we live in. He wrote “Last Tango in Cyberspace” in order to try and visualize what that world might look like 5 years from now, based on his insights into the technology available in some of the best labs and research centers in the world.

Even though most people view his book as futuristic, Steven firmly states that he was very conservative about what went into the book and steered away from making speculations and statements he wasn’t clear about. He also sees that the reason why making these types of predictions is extremely difficult is that rapid technological advancements have affected our ability to analyze and extrapolate about our progress:

“We can’t look back 5 years and go: “Well, what was happening 5 years ago? I can use that to make a prediction.” Because it’s accelerating so quickly.” - Steven Kotler

The future tech works as a well-researched context in the “Last Tango In Cyberspace” but the book actually deals with questions related to humanity and one of the key messages emerging regards the notion of empathy. Throughout our conversation, you can see that Steven is very excited about connection and the interconnectedness of the world that we’re living in. He puts empathy at the core of our humane values but the idea he calls “empathy for all” concerns not only empathy towards and among humans but animals, plants, ecosystems… He sees that the only way we can move forward when facing some of the biggest challenges of today’s world is that we base our efforts on empathy.

“We have the technology to meet these challenges… What we don’t have is the cooperation.” - Steven Kotler

The Future of AI

“What’s getting a lot of attention lately is: “Holly crap an AI is going to wake up and kill us all!”... But that’s not the point… It doesn’t matter. Because we’re