My Futures Agency colleague and fellow futurist Calum Chace disagrees with me on many of my core messages on topics such as the singularity, (trans)-humanism, artificial intelligence and what I call  ‘man+machine futures’. Nevertheless we have become friends and we respect each other’s views. Today, we’d like to invite everybody that is interested in these topics to join us for a hard-hitting debate on April 23rd at 9pm CET, 3pm EST, 12 noon PST, 10pm UK. There will be no soft-balls and no beating around the bush in this debate – just honesty and curiosity:).

See more details below. Sign up here.

Calum Chace (the transhumanist) is a global keynote speaker and best-selling writer about the future impact of AI. His best-known books on AI are Surviving AI and The Economic Singularity. Read his posts on Forbes.com.  Gerd Leonhard (the humanist) is a top-rated Futurist, the Author of Technology vs Humanity, the CEO of The Futures Agency and a Global Keynote Speaker.

Calum and Gerd have very contrary opinions on the future of technology and humanity, and will battle it out ad-hoc and in real time, covering topics such as:
1) Humans are not just data (Gerd) vs. Organisms are algorithms (Calum)
2) We should transcend technology not humanity (Gerd) vs. We should transcend human limitations (Calum)
3) What is important is our humanity (Gerd) vs What is important is our minds (Calum)
4) We should follow the precautionary principle to govern exponential technological change (Gerd) vs If a technology solves a big problem we should adopt it unless we can confidently forecast significant harm (Chalum)

This will be a very lively event, with fully integrated audience interaction (audio, video, chat, polls, q&a and more); and it will broadcasted live on Youtube – just click here or on the link below!

Sign up here.