David Pennington

I’d be even more aware from now on! I’d remember that machine learning has been defined by the people who want me to believe it works the way they say it does. But an algorithm can’t really observe anything. So it can’t really measure my behavior, and so it can’t really discover anything for me, or about me!

We don’t need to fix the problems of the world with technology, we need to fix technology with our human spirit.”

Addressing those who are critical of using the technology in this way, Zuckerberg said, “If you think that something someone is doing is bad, and they think it’s really valuable, most of the time, in my experience, they’re right and you’re wrong, and you just haven’t come up with a framework yet for understanding why the thing that [they’re] doing... See more

I concluded that what we call “intelligence” is as much about virtues such as honesty, integrity, and bravery, as it is about “raw intellect.”

In this frivolous new world, everything must be pleasing and inoffensive. Everything and everybody gets marketed like an exciting new product—even old, creepy politicians, or ancient film actors, or 80-year-old rock stars.

They all get repackaged and rebranded—thank the digital gods for those apps that make old stuff look new! Everything is now... See more

Basic dynamic in life: there is nothing meaningful enough to make you happy that could not make you sad if you lost it. This is the paradox of feeling, and it’s inherent and existential. If things inspire real positive emotion in you then they are necessarily things in which you are sufficiently invested that you would feel negative emotions when... See more

I do not want to be in the business of manipulating your split-second attention.