Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, it's a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps

that it's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream

van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC sounds.

This is a download from the BBC. For more information and our terms of use, go to BBC.co.uk slash radio three.

Tonight, one of theatre's most compelling new voices lets a few indiscreet thoughts slip about his new production at the Royal Court Theatre.

I'm going to say this anyway. The court has been sponsored by Coots and we politely had a discussion

with Coots and said, please don't be involved in this play. As Anders Lusgarten's new play

blasting the austerity culture opens in London tonight, he lifts the curtain for us on satire,

savagery and sponsorship. We'll be waltzing Matilda and frantically gathering maple leaves as we debate the idea

of the Anglo-sphere. As the politics of Europe destabilise, does anything really unite the English-speaking

nations, apart from empire, Earl Grey and social embarrassment? But first, if we were thinking of a

21st century empire, then Google would be a hot contender for the title.

And the California Software Behemoth has just appointed a new director of engineering named Ray Kurzweil.

Now, the reason they've grabbed him might have something to do with the fact that he pioneered voice recognition and optical character reading technology

and was awarded the National

Technology Medal by President Clinton. But it might also be because he's one of the world's boldest

futurists. He's predicted that within 20 years, humans will have developed an artificial

superintelligence beyond our current imagining called the singularity. Kurtzvil also says that one day we will all live forever,

an event which will turn us into trans humans,

and for which he's preparing by taking some 150 pills a day.

His new book, How to Create a Mind,

makes the case that will get an artificial intelligence

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