Some PhD physicists write software or work for hedge funds, but physics still has a problem with having very smart people but not enough opportunities.

The singularity has nothing to do with consciousness.

When I read philosophy or neuroscience papers about consciousness, I don't get the sense we're any closer to understanding it than we were 50 years ago.

Its really important to understand the difference between sentience and consciousness, which are important for human beings.

I used to say that if you gave me a trillion dollars to build a sentient or conscious machine I would give it back. I could not honestly say I knew how it works.

No one has a clue how to build a conscious machine, at all. We have less clue about how to do that than we have about build a faster-than-light spaceship.

Everything we have of value as human beings - as a civilization - is the result of our intelligence.

It's unlikely that machines would spontaneously decide they didn't like people, or that they had goals in opposition to those of human beings.

I expect that people are going to feel differently about that once they're aware that AI systems can watch through a camera and can, in some sense, understand what it's seeing.

Google or other search engines are examples of AI, and relatively simple AI, but they're still AI. That plus an awful lot of hardware to make it work fast enough.

It's very hard to predict what kind of uses we'd make of assistants that could read and understand all the information the human race has ever generated. It could be really transformational.

Happy people can look back and say they chose their life, not settled for it.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I’ll wake up with sweat drenching my chest and think it’s the blood and muck I was covered in that night.

Calling it off comes easy enough if you haven't told the girl you are smitten with her.

The hardest thing about being famous? Just working I guess. Just work. The famous part's the luxury.

When we learn to accept difficult circumstances patiently, the real problem disappears.

Sometimes I stagger even myself with my genius.

Creative people must entertain lots of silly ideas in order to receive the occasional strokes of genius

Coming age is the age of knowledge. However rich, poor or powerful a country be, if they want to move ahead, only knowledge can lead them to that path.

I got into the race and people literally laughed. They thought I had no chance of winning.