Mobs and dictators were made for each other, and when mobs appear, dictators will soon flourish.

The upheavals [of artificial intelligence] can escalate quickly and become scarier and even cataclysmic,” the New York Times tech columnist once wrote. “Imagine how a medical robot, originally programmed to rid cancer, could conclude that the best way to obliterate cancer is to exterminate humans who are genetically prone to the disease.

Anonymous blog comments, vapid video pranks and lightweight mash-ups may seem trivial and harmless, but as a whole, this widespread practice of fragmentary, impersonal communication has demeaned personal interaction.

Books are really, really hard to write. They represent a kind of a summit of grappling with what one really has to say

We imagine "pure" cybernetic systems, but we can prove only that we know how to build fairly dysfunctional ones. We kid ourselves when we think we understand something, even a computer, merely because we can model or digitize it.

I think seeking perfection in human affairs is a perfect way to destroy them.

Evolution has never found a way to be any speed but very slow.