Technology

As humans, we've evolved in a world where the pace of change was slow. Our minds are not structured for the pace of rapid change that we're seeing and, increasingly, will experience. One way that we deal with the accelerating rate of change is by sort of riding on top of that tsunami of change rather than being crushed by it.

Founder of X Prize Foundation & Singularity University

We're moving towards a world of increasing abundance. The poorest and wealthiest can access the same information because of Google; the same information Larry Page has! That same democratisation and demonetisation will occur in other critically important areas of our life.

Founder of X Prize Foundation & Singularity University

At first, the 100 thousand million, million keys you would need to search might appear impossible, but Moore's law was increasing processing power and we quickly figured that if you could search a million keys per second on a chip, and you bought a million chips, you could search a million, million keys per second.

Co-inventor of Public-Key Cryptography & Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange

Last week I was asked to help the NHS get video-consultations up and running in every GP practice in the country, in one week.

Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine & Implementation Science at Oxford University

From a global point of view, we are currently in the middle of a technical revolution similar to what our grandparents experienced when everybody switched their horse carts for cars. The same is happening now and it is a phase of transition for many businesses.

Former Formula 1 World Champion, won 2016 title with Mercedes

Most people would have a nervous breakdown if they didn't have their phone for a day; I would have a total breakdown if there was no culture, no art. I couldn't live without art, it would be impossible.

British artist known for provocative conceptual and autobiographical works

Without quantum mechanics, we wouldn't have the modern world… we wouldn't have electronics… we wouldn't have understood the semi-conductor, the computer chip…. All of our modern technology relies on this mathematical description of the world of the very small.

Theoretical physicist, author, and BBC science communicator known for public engagement

We've had an explosion of platforms that have atomized the delivery and consumption of music, and I'm really for that- it's democratized music. Previously, there were a lot of gatekeepers that controlled how you were supposed to listen to music… that's all gone now.

Renowned composer known for film scores and electronic classical music

What is worrying is not the rise of multinational corporations, but the rise of social media. Facebook has 2.5 billion participants and Russia was able to use Facebook as a device to penetrate and disrupt the American electoral process in 2016.

Harvard Professor & Creator of "Soft Power" Concept

Now, the internet has democratized this, and you don't need to be wealthy to be a patron. You can help bring something to life with $10 because you like the project, not because you see it as a financial return.

Founder of Kickstarter, crowdfunding platform pioneer

You can't build a bridge or an aircraft using postmodernist feminist epistemology.

Evolutionary Psychologist & Author Known for Consumer Behavior Research

We have to have a conversation about how data can empower or oppress us- we have the opportunity to re-imagine this, it's not a deal that's been done, and it's not too late to imagine a different way of organising, regulating, collecting, contributing and benefiting.

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.

We didn't just make technology, it made us. In the modern context, this phenomenon terrifies some people and excites others- but it's going to happen. We have to understand how humans and their tools and technologies blend at scale – it's going to be an absolutely fascinating journey.

Technology isn't a 'thing,' it's a social structure that people act upon the universe through. The social structure has incentives, roles and governance which determine the meaning and effect of the technology, not the engineering itself.

Pioneer of Virtual Reality & Critic of Social Media

I actually think social media can be fine, and in fact if you look at the first year or two of any particular social media, they often start out quite charming before the stupid business model kicks in where companies can only make money by having third parties inject money into the system.

Pioneer of Virtual Reality & Critic of Social Media