Welcome to the After-On podcast, I'm your host Rob Reed, and this is a very unusual episode

because today June 18th is an unusual day, and that a talk I gave several weeks back at the

annual TED conference was just posted to the front page of TED.com, and this episode is an expansion

on and a companion to that talk. First, to orient those of you who are listening for the first time,

this show is normally built around interviews that I conduct with world-class thinkers,

founders, and above all scientists. The interviews are very deep dives, they're quite unhurried,

often running 90 minutes or more, and while they're absolutely not dumbed down,

they're totally accessible to any non-expert who listens closely and patiently. Topics include

neuroscience, AI, astronomy, cryptocurrency, drones, consciousness, and lots, lots more. You can

find an archive of 50 of these episodes at After-On.com or on your podcast player. Today, though,

I'm the interviewer, and the topic is my TED talk. The talk's topic is certain dangers that could

be posed by a technology that I'm generally a rabid fan of, specifically synthetic biology.

My interviewer is someone I admire greatly, Kevin Rose. Kevin is a media figure, turned entrepreneur,

turned investor, and it's really hard to overstate his contributions to social media,

to podcasting itself, and a lot more. Kevin saw me give my TED talk in person,

they interviewed me for his own podcast, The Kevin Rose Show, which I recommend to all of my

listeners and you'll get a very vivid sense for what it's like in a moment. He's posting our

interview simultaneously to his own feed. By the way, you don't have to watch my TED talk before

listening to our interview, although I hope you'll want to watch it afterward. Also, after the

main interview with Kevin here, I'll have lots of extra resources connected to the risks discussed

today, as well as news about something really exceptional I have for backers of the show on Patreon.

But I'm just going to be brief for now, because this episode is a bit like a tested Russian doll.

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