Why do animals communicate, and why and how did their many different methods of communication evolve? It's fascinating to learn from Dr. Arik Kershenbaum about such a crucial part of everyday living in the animal kingdom that we humans tend to overlook in our daily lives. A zoologist at the University of Cambridge, Arik studies vocal communications in animals, including wolves, dolphins, and gibbons. Arik speaks with us about his new book, Why Animals Talk, coming out this August, and we discuss his 2021 book, The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy, which takes us on a journey through the incredible variety of animals and their communication here on Earth and quite possibly beyond. As Arik says, animals are “not just automata, but living species with communicative intelligence not unlike our own,” and he introduces us to the vast and fascinating array of information that animals are exchanging all around us.

We sat down with Jessica West, who is a senior researcher in space governance with a depth of experience in a rapidly evolving and crucially important field, to talk about the challenges and opportunities for humanity beyond earth. With competing military and commercial activity in space, and large numbers of satellites and objects to track, Jessica has said that the situation is becoming tense and requires a lowering of the heat. Jessica explains the history of space governance, beginning with the United Nations’ 1967 Outer Space Treaty and its ideals, and the extent to which humanity’s presence in outer space has multiplied many times over since. As she outlines the present state of global discussions and activity at the UN, Jessica gives a sense of hope that we are on a path toward real progress in the peaceful use of outer space.

With his decades-long experience in virtual reality technologies, Louis Rosenberg talks about a new technological paradigm designed to facilitate a collective human superintelligence. Called Swarm AI, it's modelled after natural swarm intelligence among fish, bees, and other species, and aims to amplify the decision-making capacity of groups of people instead of the machine making the decision for them. Louis' new book, Our Next Reality, and his role with the Responsible Metaverse Alliance, highlight the crucial choices that lie ahead with increasingly powerful virtual reality applications, in building a future of humans, made by humans, and for humans. We can't know whether collective superintelligence is the answer, but the questions that Louis raises at the conclusion of the talk demand urgent attention and discussion.