Let’s talk TREK!
1. February 2024
Trekkie Psychology: Episode 2
3. February 2024
Isaac Asimov (1920 – 1992) was one of the most important pioneers of science fiction. He epitomised the transformation of the entire genre away from the evil robot that wants to subjugate humans towards robots as assistants to humans, protected by special safety precautions (“Asimov’s Laws”).
There are many links to Star Trek and also to Gene Rodenberry himself. Asimov wrote an epic review of TOS for a television magazine, later found more conciliatory words and worked closely with Roddenberry as a consultant from the first film at the latest.
There are also countless references to Asimov’s literary work in the various Star Trek series. In the series “Picard” we see the protagonist reading a book by Asimov. In TNG, the author is mentioned by Deanna Troi. Of course, she only states the obvious to Data: Data corresponds exactly to Asimov’s character “R. Daneel Olivaw”, a robot whose appearance and technical details match those of Data. One example of this is the “positronic brain” – an invention by Asimov.
The name Asimov is familiar to many Star Trek fans. Details about his life, work or his impact on Star Trek are often only rudimentarily known. This lecture aims to change that.
Lecturer: Dr. Christoph Endres
Duration: 30 min - The Lecture will be held in: germanDr Christoph Endres (*1971) studied computer science - inspired by the works of Isaac Asimov - and specialised in the field of artificial intelligence, where he ultimately completed his doctorate. Following a YouTube series ("Dr Security - A man like a firewall"), in which he played the lead role and had Apple founder Steve Wozniak as a guest star, he switched to the field of cybersecurity in 2014. He is currently the founder and CEO of sequire technology GmbH, which became known worldwide in 2023 for compromising (hacking) major language models, including those of OpenAI, Microsoft and Google.
He has been working on the topic of Isaac Asimov for over 30 years and probably has the largest collection on this topic in Europe.
He has published both scientific and popular science literature on the subject of science fiction, including together with Prof Harald Lesch.
He has decades of moderation and lecture experience. His biggest lecture was at the BlackHat (the world's leading hacker conference) in Las Vegas in 2023 (21,000 participants, > 2,000 of whom attended his lecture).
Sources & additional links for Isaac Asimov and Star Trek:
