Buckminster Fuller? Mike Vance? Diane Deacon? Daniel Quinn? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Inventor and futurist R. Buckminster Fuller once spoke about the best way to accomplish positive changes. He said that one rarely changes something by fighting it directly. Instead, one should build a new system or model that makes the existing model obsolete. …
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Quote Origin: I Fear the Day That Technology Will Surpass Our Human Interaction
Albert Einstein? Cell Phone Critics? Pranksters? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: A friend sent me a link to a message on a website with the title: “The day that Albert Einstein feared may have finally arrived”. The message showed eight pictures of groups of people looking intently at cell phone screens. The people were ignoring …
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Quote Origin: It Has Become Appallingly Obvious That Our Technology Has Exceeded Our Humanity
Albert Einstein? Victor Salva? Sean Patrick Flanery? Jeff Goldblum? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: There’s a quote attributed to Albert Einstein which I like a lot, but I’m not sure if it’s really his: It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. Can you please tell me if it was said …
Quote Origin: If You Wish to Achieve Some Kind of Intellectual Immortality, Writing for the AIs Is Probably Your Best Chance
Tyler Cowen? Joshua Rothman? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Currently, the training of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems requires vast quantities of text, pictures, and videos. Most of this data is unlicensed. Hence, this training has become controversial, and the backlash against such systems has been growing. Numerous creators wish to exclude their creative output …
Quote Origin: The Programming Occupation Will Become Extinct
Herbert A. Simon? Eric Schmidt? Andrej Karpathy? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The capabilities of artificial intelligence systems continue to grow in 2025. Complex computer programs can now be generated from prompts uttered in English, Chinese, and other natural languages. Here are two predictions separated by sixty-five years: (1) It is far more likely that …
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Dialogue Origin: “When Will This Futuristic System Be Built?” “Ten Years After You’ve Stopped Laughing”
Arthur Kantrowitz? Gerard K. O’Neill? Timothy Leary? Arthur C. Clarke? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Grand futuristic projects such as the following four examples have been greeted with a mixture of hope, excitement, skepticism, and derision: (1) Laser propulsion systems for spacecraft(2) Space-based solar power systems(3) Space habitats with thousands or millions of people(4) Space …
Quote Origin: Nine-Tenths of Painting Will Be Extinguished by the Competition of Photographs
George Bernard Shaw? Henrietta Clopath? Sidney Trefusis? Charles Baudelaire? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems are now capable of rapidly constructing images, videos, 3d-objects, and text. The current output displays flaws, but the quality and variety continues to improve. Artists are experiencing a volatile mixture of wonder, anticipation, uncertainty, fear, …
Quote Origin: People Will Only Work Fifteen Hours a Week In the Future
John Maynard Keynes? Bertrand Russell? Herman Kahn? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The ongoing developments in artificial intelligence and robotics remind me of a remark attributed to the famous English economist John Maynard Keynes. Apparently, he predicted that technological advancements would allow society to adapt a fifteen-hour work week. Would you please help me to …
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Quote Origin: At Long Last, We Have Created the Torment Nexus from Classic Sci-Fi Novel: Don’t Create The Torment Nexus
Alex Blechman? Ray Bradbury? Neal Stephenson? Mark Zuckerberg? Abe Murray? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Science fiction is filled with cautionary fables and dystopian visions such as the murderous HAL 9000 computer of the movie “2001”, the relentless T-800 robot of the movie “The Terminator”, the disorienting cyberspace of the short story “Burning Chrome” by William …
Quote Origin: The World Has Cancer, and the Cancer Cell Is Man
Alan Gregg? William Ralph Inge? Paul R. Ehrlich? Marston Bates? Edward Abbey? Ronald Dellums? Question for Quote Investigator: The size of the human population and the power of human technology have both grown dramatically during the past century. Unfortunately, the biosphere has been damaged by human actions. Someone formulated the following provocative analogy: The world …
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