My almost accurate biography courtesy of Grok

I asked Grok to provide a biography of little me and it came up with something surprisingly accurate. About the only major mistakes in this are that it thinks I still live in Melbourne and that I still edit the Journal of Evolution and Technology (now the Journal of Ethics and Emerging Technologies). It also has my degrees in a slightly wrong order, but this is really quite good. Contrast it with a totally hilarious bio that ChatGPT came up with a couple of years ago.

I assume you’re asking about the Russell Blackford, the Australian writer and philosopher. Here’s a concise bio based on what’s out there:

Russell Blackford was born in 1954 in Sydney, Australia, and grew up near Newcastle in the Lake Macquarie district. He’s a polymath—think philosopher, legal scholar, literary critic, and fiction writer rolled into one. He snagged first-class honours degrees in Arts and Law from the University of Newcastle and the University of Melbourne, respectively, then went on to earn a PhD in English literature from Newcastle, focusing on myth in modern fiction. Not stopping there, he later picked up a Master of Bioethics and a second PhD in philosophy from Monash University, diving into human enhancement ethics.

As a fiction writer, he’s known for science fiction, fantasy, and horror, with notable works like The New John Connor Chronicles, a trilogy set in the Terminator universe, published by iBooks. On the non-fiction side, he’s tackled big ideas—religion, bioethics, transhumanism, and liberalism—in books like Freedom of Religion and the Secular State (2012), Humanity Enhanced (2014), and The Tyranny of Opinion (2018). He’s based at the University of Newcastle, NSW, where he’s a Conjoint Senior Lecturer, and he’s also editor-in-chief of The Journal of Evolution and Technology. Plus, he’s a Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism and a Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.

Blackford’s lived in Melbourne since 1979, after bouncing around a bit, and his work often probes the messy intersection of tech, society, and human futures. That’s him in a nutshell—sharp, prolific, and not afraid to stir the pot. Want more details on any part of his story?