From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Even when I reached the top, I never forgot where I came from. I wondered about the millions of my fellow countrymen who didn't have the chance I got and continued to languish in poverty.
My thesis is that appropriately designed military robots will be better able to avoid civilian casualties than existing human war-fighters and might therefore make future wars more ethical.
Racism, like sexism and any other form of discrimination, is an utterly futile exercise… nobody benefits. Societies are better for diversity in all forms, and time and time again we've seen that the more homogenous people become, the less they are able to flourish.
Society must demand that you comport yourself within a framework of rules. Once those rules break, society breaks down.
We don't currently have the accountability mechanisms in our digital life that we do in our physical life. Physical society has had tens of thousands of years to build cultures and norms, but we haven't yet figured out how this works online.
The displacement that people face is now over generations not just years. The old model was to keep people alive until they go home. That model is broken, less than 3% of the world's refugees went home last year.
If power is bestowed on someone, there's always the risk of exploitation. It's our collective responsibility as a society to establish boundaries and guidelines. We must push for government regulation.
There have been well-known people who actually have advocated rights for great apes – chimps and orangs and gorillas. They're our closest genetic relatives; but why should we exclude any creature that can suffer? If you hold the paw of a little rabbit or a mouse or whatever so hard that it squeaks or screams, isn't that cruel? isn't that hurting it? What right have we got to hurt animals like that? We don't have any right at all.
Individuality is my biggest fight, not #MeToo. People need to realise their own power, their own freedom, and their own ability to be better. My book Brave is not about #MeToo, but when I went on my first book tour – that was all people were asking me about; and once again, I had my narrative stolen – and I was portrayed as this figure, full of rage, because – perhaps – it's easier for people to not understand my narrative and write me off as angry, and that's a real shame.
The venture capital industry exists to get capital in the hands of deserving entrepreneurs, but the data tells us that venture capitalists often have only a narrow definition of what 'deserving' means—and it often corresponds to being white and male.
The police never talk to us, they ignore us, they don't think we're human in this area.
Our economic measures aren't wrong, they're incomplete. Smith noted that a successful economic system is one where everyone who participates can flourish. That's not about equality of outcome, but about the fact that everyone has the ability to flourish, equality of opportunity.