Big Data is neither color-blind nor gender-blind. We can see how it is used in marketing to segment people.

Only by developing a deeper understanding of AI systems as they act in the world can we ensure that this new infrastructure never turns toxic.

The promoters of big data would like us to believe that behind the lines of code and vast databases lie objective and universal insights into patterns of human behavior, be it consumer spending, criminal or terrorist acts, healthy habits, or employee productivity. But many big-data evangelists avoid taking a hard look at the weaknesses.

There's been the emergence of a philosophy that big data is all you need. We would suggest that, actually, numbers don't speak for themselves.

We can just assume they have much more and powerful, more advanced technology, all the new computers, everything could be much more easier and help them to build much more and many more nuclear weapons.

I would have thought technology would have made it harder to do what I did.

I think there are a lot of really positive aspects to social media for novelists. Even though our work is pretty solitary, through Twitter and Tumblr and Facebook and Instagram and blogging in general, we're better able to connect directly with readers.

From the streets of Cairo and the Arab Spring, to Occupy Wall Street, from the busy political calendar to the aftermath of the tsunami in Japan, social media was not only sharing the news but driving it.