Look at something like Uber... on balance- it's still a taxi service! In the end, what they designed was a different way to connect customers and a service provider using technology, leading to a better experience for both.
— Mitch Cohen“My fear has never been the machines waking up and deciding to do away with us, but rather that we- in our own bone headed way- deploy systems inappropriately, or without thinking through the unintended consequences that may occur.”— Sir Nigel Shadbolt
The quote archive
Technology
A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.
Transport, natural disasters, the distribution of resources, globalisation – engineers and inventors have the traits and skillset to solve the problems the world faces today. And therefore have the potential to impact the world and economy. The economy can be boosted by exporting tangible technology that is in global demand. This is the hands of engineers.
— Sir James DysonInventor & Founder of Dyson Ltd, Bagless Vacuum Pioneer
At Dyson our philosophy has always been to invest in the long term. To power our 25 year pipeline of technology we have just announced a further £1.5 billion investment into new research and development on top of our current spending of £3 million a week. You cannot create disruptive technology without investing heavily in the long term.
— Sir James DysonInventor & Founder of Dyson Ltd, Bagless Vacuum Pioneer
Today you have the unique chance to change this situation, and at the same time to bring invaluable benefit to your country and the entire world, and write your name in world history, by supporting the creation of the immortality industry.
— Dmitry ItskovFounder of the 2045 Initiative; Russian entrepreneur promoting mind uploading and digital immortality
A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation.
— William GibsonScience fiction author who coined the term "cyberspace
Cyberspace has had a profoundly positive impact on humanity, but has also been abused, as a playground for criminals already used by some as a battle-space.
— Clarke, KnakeIn humanity's relentless drive for convenience and economic growth we have developed a dangerous level of dependency on networked systems in a very short space of time: in less than two decades, huge parts of the so-called 'critical national infrastructure' in most countries have come under the control of ever more complex computer systems.
— Misha GlennyJournalist & Author on Organized Crime & Cybercrime
The last century has witnessed a radical transformation in the entire human environment, largely as a result of the impact of the mathematical and physical sciences upon technology.
— Lewis MumfordInfluential American historian, philosopher, and social critic of technology and urbanism
We were approaching the technological simulation of consciousness, when the creative process of knowing will be collectively and corporately extended to the whole of human society.
— Marshall McLuhanMedia Theorist Who Predicted the Digital Age & Global Communication
The Internet is subsuming most of our other intellectual technologies, it's becoming our typewriter and our printing press, our map and our clock, our calculator and our telephone, our post office and our library, our radio and our TV.
— Nicholas CarrTechnology writer & author of "The Shallows" and "The Big Switch
We are in the epoch of simultaneity; we are in the epoch of juxtaposition, the epoch of the near and the far, of the side-by-side, of the dispersed.
— Michel FoucaultInfluential Philosopher of Power, Knowledge, and Discourse in Modern Society
Electronic systems change not only what we know, but how we know it.
— Richard PosnerInfluential Federal Judge & Law and Economics Scholar
It's the convergence of technologies at any given time that allow individuals to achieve the things which simply were not possible before. Your smartphone can be used to diagnose diseases for example – every disease has a pattern.
— Naveen JainEntrepreneur & Founder of Moon Express, Infosys Technologies Co-Founder
What I've learned about tech is that it's cold and robotic; you don't know any of the people who make the stuff you live on.
— will.i.amGrammy-winning rapper, producer, and member of The Black Eyed Peas
The difference now is that our actions are not isolated. Developments in communication mean that we now engage in a subtle yet continual process of peer-review which assesses the morality of our conduct as societies and individuals.
— UnknownPeople really don't oppose new technologies but they question the way they are used so the challenges are more social than they are technological.
— Professor Calestous JumaLeading African innovation and development scholar at Harvard Kennedy School