(A response to What 7 of the World's Smartest People Think about Artificial Intelligence)
Rossum on Black Holes: All these dangerous, science-type things --- nuclear bombs, radioactivity, climate change, black goo, the whole rest of it --- don't exist until some scientist who wants to get funding dreams them up. Now we have to worry that some black hole will mosey over to the Solar System and squush us flatter than a pancake. Thanks for nothing.
Dr. Noonien Soong on venture capital. I am thinking of establishing a potato-salad-of-the-month club and I am looking around for start-up money.
Nathan Bateman on electric cars. The power cords will get all tangled up, and they'll strangle small animals. I don't like it at all. These technocrats have no respect for nature.
Professor Dobb on the anthropic principle. If the choice of the physical constants had been up to me, I would certainly have arranged to have a year be exactly 360 days. This business with leap years and with months of different lengths is ridiculous.
Dr. Susan Calvin on operating systems: Unix, as originally created by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, had a purity and elegance that has never been matched. It's been all downhill since 1970, with all the GUI's and PHUI's. An ASCII text file is a wonderful thing.
Trurl and Klapaucius on string theory: The world is made of string. Sure, why not? As long as it doesn't start to unravel. Then what are we supposed to do?
Wolfgang von Kempelen on optical character recognition. It's simple; you just hide a small person in the scanner.
Ernie Davis May 10, 2016