Whenever I see a new film, I deliberately tune down several 'dials' in my mind - critical faculties associated with logic, plotting, science - just so I can retain some ability to enjoy a flick in the spirit it's offered.

Secrecy is the underlying mistake that makes every innovation go wrong in Michael Crichton novels and films! If AI happens in the open, then errors and flaws may be discovered in time... perhaps by other, wary AIs!

Competition, by itself, always leads to cheating by the powerful, who try to establish pyramids of power, like feudalism. Yet, competition is the great creative force! So how do we save it from its own contradictions? By cooperation! By cooperating with each other, via politics, to make rules and prevent cheating, so that competition can thrive!

Anyone who wants simple, pat stories should buy another author's product. The real universe ain't that way, and neither are my fictive ones.

As a first-generation American, my parents expected that I would go on to have pretty tactical higher-education-type jobs - doctor, lawyer, engineer. Those were the three options. My dad was not at all open to the idea that there would not be a higher education in my future.

Even though education was key in my family, I had no access to museums or art where we lived. I was a bit starved.

You must get an education. You must go to school, and you must learn to protect yourself. And you must learn to protect yourself with the pen, and not the gun.

A black agenda is jobs, jobs, jobs, quality education, investment in infrastructure and strong democratic regulation of corporations. The black agenda, at its best, looks at America from the vantage point of the least of these and asks what's best for all.