William Hertling > William's Quotes

“We regret that we cannot return them to you,” Sister Stephens responded. “We now live in them. All your computer are belong to us.”
― William Hertling, A.I. Apocalypse

“Shirky pointed out that Americans watched a hundred million hours of television advertising every single weekend. In other words, we could have been creating another Wikipedia-sized project every week. But we didn’t, because most people don’t do that. They don’t spend time creating or learning. They passively consume.”
― William Hertling, The Last Firewall

“Mike rejoined them, carrying coffees on a tray and the New York Times, interrupting David’s introspection. “Guys, you are never going to believe this!” “They still print paper newspapers?” David said sarcastically. “You’re right, I don’t believe it.”
― William Hertling, Avogadro Corp

“I’m sorry, but our people are not ready to accept artificial intelligences.” President Smith shook her head. “You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that you’re going to be our robot overlords and that you’ll participate in society as equals. The fact is that you have the capacity to control our communications and our infrastructure, and people will believe that they are being manipulated, whether they are or not. They won’t accept that. We’ll have riots in the streets of America.” “Your people are manipulated every day,” Sister Jaguar said. “They are manipulated by commercial advertisements, by political speeches, through biased news reports. In my analysis of American politics, it is nearly impossible to find examples of political media that isn’t tainted by manipulation. Are your people rioting in the streets now? They should be.”
― William Hertling, A.I. Apocalypse

“Literature not only illuminated another’s experience, it provided, I believed, the richest material for moral reflection. My brief forays into the formal ethics of analytic philosophy felt dry as a bone, missing the messiness and weight of real human life.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air