Wisdom in fragments

Systems change is slow because it requires consensus that there is a system failure to start with, as well as the presence of a viable alternative. This requires a combination of culture shift, behavioral change, and structural change to ultimately change the rules of the game.

Co-Founder of Bridgewater Associates & Pioneer in Radical Transparency

I love Mick and Bianca, but Jade's more my speed. I taught her how to colour and she showed me how to play Monopoly. She was four and I was forty-four.

Pop Artist Who Revolutionized Modern Art Through Mass Production & Celebrity Imagery

If I say to you 41, it's data. If I tell you 41 is the temperature in centigrade, that's information. If I tell you 41 is the temperature, in centigrade, of a human patient, that really is information – in fact, it's in danger of becoming knowledge because of the contextualisation it gives you.

Right now, it's a bit like the early stages of the universe. Lots of hot plasma gas everywhere, but structure takes time to emerge… 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.

I remain a technical optimist… the problem is not artificial intelligence, it's natural stupidity. Through treaties, regimes and pressure we have at least stopped ourselves from the worst excesses in chemical, biological and nuclear science.

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.

I grew up in the age of space exploration, reading Asimov, Le Guin and Clarke, getting lost in the worlds they had created which were littered with aliens, robots and AI. For me, I think it was a combination of Star Trek, far too much Asimov and the niggling question of understanding ourselves better through computing technologies.

The future isn't written, and so whether it's too late to fix this is not determined but it has on many occasions this year in particular felt that we've crossed the point of no return. We need to be optimistic to do so, pessimism serves nothing.

Pioneer of Virtual Reality & Critic of Social Media

I do feel that there is less hope now than there has ever been during my lifetime and- it would appear- for centuries. When you speak to most young people, they don't have an articulate sense of the future, of what they're looking forward to.

Pioneer of Virtual Reality & Critic of Social Media

Economics is like artificial intelligence, it's not really there… there's no physical invisible hand…. It's about people interacting with people against a social order, a set of ethics, principles and practices.

Pioneer of Virtual Reality & Critic of Social Media

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

Social media was kind-of created to destroy humanity, in a literal sense. The first notion of the implications of such networks was provided by B. F. Skinner who spoke of the dangers of people who- on networks- were too free, too creative and too uncontrolled.

Pioneer of Virtual Reality & Critic of Social Media

Humans haven't been able to survive in any of our environments 'raw' – we've made fire, made shoes, made hunting tools… we've never had to experience being adapted to an environment 'as it is,' and so there's no sensible definition of people without technology.

Pioneer of Virtual Reality & Critic of Social Media

We need a new Manhattan Project to rebuild trust in a world that's been deliberately attacked at its cultural foundation. This is not about state actors nuking each other's electricity grids but attacking each other's trust and cultural infrastructure which is just as critical.

Design ethicist & founder of Center for Humane Technology

There's a joke within Facebook that if you want to know which countries will have a genocide in the next couple of years, look at the ones that have Facebook free basics.

Design ethicist & founder of Center for Humane Technology