🔮 Quantum puzzle; crypto & the mirror of Erised; dark proteome ++ #357

Hi, I’m Azeem Azhar. I convene Exponential View to help us understand how our societies and political economy will change under the force of rapidly accelerating technologies.

🎙This week on the podcast

I spoke to my friend and EV member, world-leading neuroscientist,  Anil Seth about one of science’s most fascinating current issues: consciousness. Our conversation was wide-ranging, touching on how humans “hallucinate” their realities, whether an AI could ever become truly conscious, and what the science of the brain can teach us about the metaverse. And, of course, the meaning of life - all the light stuff.

You can 🎧 listen to our conversation here or 📜 read a full transcript.

The near future

🧩 Quantum Computing: A possible bust?
Today the quantum computing industry exists as a wave function, a superposition of several states. It is all together the greatest invention of humanity; a powerful computer; an interesting tool; a false hope; a hype-driven balloon.

We’ve been getting hints and …