“We have to be aware of our cognitive fallacies to build some immunity to our cognitive traps. We can never get rid of our bias, but we can be more aware of it.”
— Christer Sturmark

The quote archive

Technology

A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.

[the impact of the internet on liberty and free speech has been] very positive indeed – not so much two steps forward and one step back, as ten steps forward for every step back. By breaking the oligopoly of the established press and letting everyone be a publisher, it has made information much harder for the powerful to control.

— Ross Anderson

Unknown.

the overall picture that's emerging is that the controls which still work operate more along corporate boundaries than along national boundaries.

— Ross Anderson

Unknown.

We therefore see the drone (robot) exhibiting (through software) signs of the moral-affective function of 'guilt' when engaging in each mission. The aim of such developments is to introduce a level of ethics into the battlefield which, as more drones and high power long range weapons are used, is becoming increasingly fraught with collateral damage.

— Ronald Arkin

Roboticist & Pioneer of Ethical Autonomous Systems and Robot Ethics

If it did more damage than expected—for example, if a nearby cemetery or mosque was harmed by an attack on a suspected terrorist safe house—then it could use this information to restrict its choice of weapon in future engagements. It could also pass the information to other drones.

— Ronald Arkin

Roboticist & Pioneer of Ethical Autonomous Systems and Robot Ethics

This timely book outlines and directly addresses the ethical dilemmas posed by the development of autonomous military robots, which will confront roboticists and military policy makers in the future. Arkin's thesis, 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, is likely to be the subject of intense debate and controversy for years to come.

— Ronald Arkin

Roboticist & Pioneer of Ethical Autonomous Systems and Robot Ethics

After each strike the drone would be updated with information about the actual destruction caused. It would note any damage to nearby buildings and would subsequently receive information from other sources, such as soldiers in the area, fixed cameras on the ground and other aircraft. Using this information, it could compare the level of destruction it expected with what actually happened.

— Ronald Arkin

Roboticist & Pioneer of Ethical Autonomous Systems and Robot Ethics

It feels great to have the iPad launched into the world...it's going to be a game changer.

— Steve Jobs

Co-Founder of Apple & Pioneer of Personal Computing

The group found that, on average, people living in Manhattan travel 2.5 miles most days, compared to five miles in Los Angeles. But we also found that when you look at the longest trips people make, people that live in New York go significantly further, 69 miles on a weekday compared to 29 in Los Angeles

— Ramón Cáceres

Unknown.

Mobile telephones can really revolutionize the study of human behavior

— Ramón Cáceres

Unknown.

This is a race to the future, a future powered by renewable energy sources and underpinned by efficient energy use. The winning nations, corporation and citizens will reap enormous benefits in terms of jobs, sustainable economic development, energy security and vastly improved local environments.

— Kumi Naidoo

Environmental activist & former Executive Director of Greenpeace International

We can cut our carbon emissions while achieving economic growth by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy and energy efficiency. The technologies are already there, all we need is the political will.

— Kumi Naidoo

Environmental activist & former Executive Director of Greenpeace International

Technology is no longer a separate segment- it is pervasive. It is technology IN agriculture, IN governance, IN education, IN health. It is also about health technologies, education technologies and agricultural technologies- there are two sides to it.

— Dr. Sam Pitroda

Telecom Pioneer & Advisor to Indian Government on Technology Policy

Telecommunications has connected India- and has brought about openness, accessibility, connectivity, networking, democratisation, decentralisation and as a result- social transformation.

— Dr. Sam Pitroda

Telecom Pioneer & Advisor to Indian Government on Technology Policy

Almost all of the processes we use today were designed in the twentieth century, with the old mindset of command and control. Forms and data such as immigration, customs, starting a company, land records, birth certificates, death certificates, police reports, court cases- all these processes, designed in the twentieth century, are now obsolete. You have to redesign your processes to meet the needs of the twenty first century, and the web.

— Dr. Sam Pitroda

Telecom Pioneer & Advisor to Indian Government on Technology Policy

When I entered the telecom scene in India, in the early nineteen eighties, we had two million telephones for seven hundred and fifty million people. It used to take fifteen years to get a telephone connection. In a very short space of time, just twenty five years, we have seven hundred and fifty million telephones. We are adding ten million every month, month after month, and for the first time in the history of India- we are a connected nation of over a billion people.

— Dr. Sam Pitroda

Telecom Pioneer & Advisor to Indian Government on Technology Policy

A nervous system is just a group of cells specialised in transmitting impulses from one to another. Ordinary plant cells can do this, albeit in a less efficient way. It is indisputable that there is no need of this "Holy Grail" of a nervous system to have the miracle of the transmission of electrical signals and communication.

— Stefano Mancuso

Plant neurobiologist and founder of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology.