Alan N. Shapiro interviewed by Erik Aru
This interview appeared in October 2011 in the Estonian print magazine HEI: Hea Eesti Idee, an EU publication known as “Estonia’s biggest innovation magazine.”
Alan N. Shapiro, a speaker at Tallinn’s Plektrum Festival, talks about how to think about the future, why artificial intelligence research is going nowhere, and how he plans to change the world with his technology firm.
Erik Aru: You’ve been called many different names – futurologist, social scientist, etc. How do you yourself define what you’re doing?
Alan N. Shapiro: I think that my main project is to invent a new computer science because I believe that many artists and scholars working in media studies, and new media art, and cyberculture studies – they are critical of the mainstream way of thinking about technology and I’m also critical. But they are not transforming informatics at the most fundamental level and that is what I’m trying to do…