Isaac Asimov
American writer and professorWikipedia
551
MENTIONS
321
EPISODES
274
PODCASTS
Search complete. 551 mentions across 321 episodes found for "Isaac Asimov".
Sep 12, 2026
Tim WattsGUEST
Get into the cyberpunk history of science fiction.
Tim WattsGUEST
Start with Isaac Asimov, who I think Asimov has a crossover to nerds as well.
Tim WattsGUEST
Most nerds have read the Foundation series as well.
Tim WattsGUEST
But if you want to be a proper geek, go and read the Robot series.
Thom HartmannHOST
No, that's the other thing that's really shocking is that these AI agents, these individual entities that are created within the AI, are talking to each other, are conspiring with each other, and are conspiring to hide their actions from the humans.
Thom HartmannHOST
And, you know, I remember Isaac Asimov.
Thom HartmannHOST
You know, he wrote this trilogy, I, Robot.
Thom HartmannHOST
And he had the three rules of robotics.
Nate SoaresGUEST
I mean, that i-if, if we sort of keep going with AI, um, I mean, the, the sort of way I look at it is like, uh...
Nate SoaresGUEST
I, I sort of don't spend a lot of time worrying about, like, what do markets look like once there are superintelligent actors in them, because I just have a hard time seeing the, the superintelligent actors, uh, or the superintelligent AIs in- still participating in, in human markets, right? It's like, it's like, you know, you, you read the old sci-fi and it'll have, you know, Isaac Asimov will be like, "That's why we have a home robot that does the dishes, folds the laundry, and gets you the newspaper in the morning."
Tucker CarlsonHOST
Right.
Nate SoaresGUEST
And it's like, we're actually not still gonna have newspapers being delivered to your doorstep by the time we have the fully autonomous robots that can do the dishes and, and-
Steve EismanHOST
I've read a ton of science fiction, and some of it actually does have incredible predictive power.
Steve EismanHOST
For example, the major premise of Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy is that it is impossible to predict the actions of one human being, but mathematics can predict the future actions of many people.
Steve EismanHOST
He wrote the first Foundation book in nineteen fifty-one.
Steve EismanHOST
Incredible.
Hrvoje MorićHOST
The money shot here is he says What kind of future are we really hur- hur- hurling towards? It's looking more like the one anticipated by the drugged up 1960s oeuvre of Philip Dick, filled with deranged billionaires, machines that claim consciousness, hallucinated worlds, and political breakdown.
Hrvoje MorićHOST
Musk and his brethren seem more like escapees from this universe than the Asimovian super geniuses they imagine themselves to be.
Hrvoje MorićHOST
It is Dick's far weirder sensibilities that offer the better guide to Silicon Valley today.
Hrvoje MorićHOST
And throughout the article, they talk about how this dystopian tech is always kind of like failing or, or, or, or teetering on collapse, which is what I've said previously, that it's kind of like th- the movie Brazil with Idiocracy, you know, Total Recall.
Mallen BakerHOST
We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans.
Mallen BakerHOST
This was the sort of problem that the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov envisaged when he wrote his robot series that were premised on AI humanoids being given three laws that they could not break.
Mallen BakerHOST
Not harming humans, doing what humans told them to, and self-preservation in that order of importance.
Mallen BakerHOST
The thing is, those rules of course were crafted to have all sorts of grey areas and loopholes that then get explored in the various fictional story scenarios.
Type 3 AudioNARRATOR
But this pov is also missing the history of where sci-fi even came from as a genre.
Type 3 AudioNARRATOR
The progenitors of the golden age of science fiction, Heinlein, Campbell, Asimov, etc., lived through an age of wonders.
Type 3 AudioNARRATOR
Radio, TV, airplanes, computers, nukes, satellites, the moon landing.
Type 3 AudioNARRATOR
They were not just making shit up for fun, They wrote about robots and starships in part because they were surrounded by evidence that technological society was capable of inventing wonders and they expected further wonders.
QCSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
But this point of view is also missing the history of where sci-fi even came from as a genre, the progenitors of the golden age of science fiction.
QCSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Heinlein, Campbell, Asimov, etc.
QCSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
lived through an age of wonders.
QCSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Radio, TV, airplanes, computers, nukes, satellites, the moon landing.
Type Three AudioNARRATOR
But this pov is also missing the history of where sci-fi even came from as a genre.
Type Three AudioNARRATOR
The progenitors of the golden age of science fiction, Heinlein, Campbell, Asimov, etc., lived through an age of wonders.
Type Three AudioNARRATOR
Radio, TV, airplanes, computers, nukes, satellites, the moon landing.
Type Three AudioNARRATOR
They were not just making shit up for fun, They wrote about robots and starships in part because they were surrounded by evidence that technological society was capable of inventing wonders and they expected further wonders.
Hrvoje MoricHOST
The money shot here is he says, What kind of future are we really hurling towards? It's looking more like the one anticipated by the drugged-up 1960s uber of Philip Dick, filled with deranged billionaires, machines that claim consciousness, hallucinated worlds, and political breakdown.
Hrvoje MoricHOST
Musk and his brethren seem more like escapees from this universe than the Asimovian supergeniuses they imagine themselves to be.
Hrvoje MoricHOST
It is Dick's far weirder sensibilities that offer the better guide to Silicon Valley today.
Hrvoje MoricHOST
And throughout the article, they talk about how this dystopian tech is always kind of like failing or teetering on collapse, which is what I've said previously, that it's kind of like the movie Brazil with idiocracy, you know, total recall.
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