I know how models are built, because I build them myself, so I know that I'm embedding my values into every single algorithm I create and I am projecting my agenda onto those algorithms.

We've learned our lesson with finance because they made a huge goddamn explosion that almost shut down the world. But the thing I realized is that there might never be an explosion on the scale of the financial crisis happening with big data.

Google is so big you have no idea what a given person does.

People are starting to be very skeptical of the Facebook algorithm and all kinds of data surveillance.

I wanted to prevent people from giving them too much power. I see that as a pattern. I wanted that to come to an end as soon as possible.

Especially from my experience as a quant in a hedge fund - I naively went in there thinking that I would be making the market more efficient and then was like, oh my God, I'm part of this terrible system that is blowing up the world's economy, and I don't want to be a part of that.

The training one receives when one becomes a technician, like a data scientist - we get trained in mathematics or computer science or statistics - is entirely separated from a discussion of ethics.