Wisdom in fragments

We are scientifically naked in front of this threat. We do not have the diagnostics to quickly detect an MDR or XDR case. Once detected, we do not have the drugs to effectively treat the patient at reasonable cost, and we do not have a TB vaccine.

Unknown.

HIV/AIDS is the greatest pandemic in human history. It is chronic pandemic, in the sense that its rise and fall is measured in decades. The known part of this pandemic is now three decades old, and it has several decades still to run.

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a country that stops its citizens having access to Facebook, say, or Google or Skype, faces real disadvantages – from inward investment to domestic discontent…

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In order to censor YouTube, for example, countries like Turkey and Pakistan had to block access to the whole site; it's not practical just to block selected content.

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

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[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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Co-Founder of Apple & Pioneer of Personal Computing

It hurts the laggards and benefits the smart ones- the smart ones will take the advantages and not say anything, and the laggards will complain.

Leading economist specializing in European monetary integration and financial crises.

I have never seen a good case for protectionism, but I can see a case for slowing down trade integration because it can be highly disruptive to domestic firms, markets and people's income in the short-run.

Leading economist specializing in European monetary integration and financial crises.

Every country that has managed to raise its standards of living has somehow integrated itself commercially with the rest of the world, it's probably a necessary condition.

Leading economist specializing in European monetary integration and financial crises.

The case for free trade is much stronger than the case for free capital movement. The case for free capital movement is weak, because financial markets suffer from very serious failures (right now is a nice example of that).

Leading economist specializing in European monetary integration and financial crises.

The general theory that integration is good for better allocation of resources is not the big thing, the big thing is that it makes it harder for governments to play with financial markets.

Leading economist specializing in European monetary integration and financial crises.