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.

The real Social Security crisis is that the government does not have the money to redeem its IOUs.

The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.

And we are grateful to the American young men and women who are risking their lives to give the Iraqi people this chance, this dream of democracy in Iraq now.

GE sells more than 96 percent of its products to the private sector, where America's future must be built. But government can help business invest in our shared future.