Growing up with a name that rhymes with turkey - and jerky - was no great fun. But, as an adult, I tell you, being globally unique in the age of Google can be extremely helpful.

I certainly never intended for myself an academic career and, were the academy to suffer, I'd just go do something else. I don't have a commitment to it or to really, frankly, almost any institution that assumes that it has to be stable forever.

Algorithms don't do a good job of detecting their own flaws.

I removed 'cyberspace' from my vernacular. The idea, which I grew up with, of going into a place separate from the real world, is something my students just don't recognise.

We are sliding back into a dark era, and there seems little we can do about it. I am profoundly depressed at just how difficult it has become merely to get a realistic conversation started on issues such as climate change or genetically modified organisms.

No one has any idea what's next... the uncertainty of the business climate in America is frightening, frightening to everybody, and it's delaying the recovery.

I don't think that VR is going to lead to humanity being enslaved in the matrix or letting the world crumble around us. I think it's going to end up being a great technology that brings closer people together, that allows for better communication, that reduces a lot of environmental waste that we're currently doing in the real world.

The atmospheric CO2 concentration is rising - mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels. It's agreed that this build-up will, in itself, induce a long-term warming trend, superimposed on all the other complicated effects that make climate fluctuate.