Blindsight (Firefall, #1)

by Peter Watts

“Thing about game theory is, it assumes rational self-interest among the players. And people just aren’t rational.”

Luddites love to go on about computer malfunctions, and how many accidental wars we might have prevented because a human had the final say. But funny thing, commissar; nobody talks about how many intentional wars got started for the same reason.

We’re not thinking machines, we’re—we’re feeling machines that happen to think.”

“You have a naïve understanding of evolutionary processes. There’s no such thing as survival of the fittest. Survival of the most adequate, maybe. It doesn’t matter whether a solution’s optimal. All that matters is whether it beats the alternatives.”

when you get powerful enough, you don’t need to act like other people. Other people start acting like you.”