“Some people, like Larry Page, one of the Google founders, expect the internet to come alive at some point, while other, like science historian George Dyson, think that migh already have happened.”

“According to a new creed, we technologists are turning ourselves, the planet, our species, everything, into computer peripherals attached to the great computing clouds. The news is no longer about us but about the big new computational object that is greater than us.

The colleagues I disagree with often conceive our discussions as being a contest between a Luddite (who, me?) and the future. But there is more than one possible technological future, and the debate should be about how to best identify and act on whatever freedoms of choice we still have, not about who’s the Luddite.”

“Computational power is now being put into things we wouldn’t recognize as computers — cars, appliances, cameras, roadways . . . even pharmaceuticals and livestock. We are interconnecting all of this throught the Internet, which has come of age. And we are applying powerful new systems and sophisticated analytics to turn the oceans of data into insight, knowledge and intelligence..”

“Imagine how a smarter planet will transform all the things we seek. The ways we pursue economic growth, societal progress, environmental sustainability and cures for disease. The way we interact with each other and the world.”