By far, the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it.

Anything that could give rise to smarter-than-human intelligence - in the form of Artificial Intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, or neuroscience-based human intelligence enhancement - wins hands down beyond contest as doing the most to change the world. Nothing else is even in the same league.

There's a popular concept of 'intelligence' as book smarts, like calculus or chess, as opposed to, say, social skills. So people say that 'it takes more than intelligence to succeed in human society.' But social skills reside in the brain, not the kidneys.

A burning itch to know is higher than a solemn vow to pursue truth. To feel the burning itch of curiosity requires both that you be ignorant, and that you desire to relinquish your ignorance.

Social media is its own sort of thing: Twitter and Facebook have changed the way everyone perceives everything.

The new freedom of expression brought by the Internet goes far beyond politics. People relate to each other in new ways, posing questions about how we should respond to people when all that we know about them is what we have learned through a medium that permits all kinds of anonymity and deception.

I do think that if you've got a compelling argument to make in this country, going on television, going online, being on social media, you've got a broader ability to be effective at communicating your message if you engage a wide span of platforms rather than just standing on the House floor in the middle of the night, speaking to an empty room.

The pace of innovation may slow down or speed up depending on the appetite in the public markets, but the constant progress of technology doesn't really ever stop. There's always opportunities for new ideas and creative people to go build great things. I'm always interested in learning about those kinds of opportunities.