Autonomous Quotes

“But now we know there has been no one great disaster—only the slow-motion disaster of capitalism converting every living thing and idea into property.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“For all the robots who question their programming.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“Everybody is an outsider, if you go deep enough. The trick is reassuring people that you’re their kind of outsider.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“She wasn’t sure which motivation made better fuel for innovation: naïve but ethical beliefs, or the need to survive.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“Suffrage didn’t mean equal opportunity.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“He was a user of his own consciousness, but he did not have owner privileges. As a result, Paladin felt many things without knowing why.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“People assigned genders based on behaviors and work roles, often ignoring anatomy. Gender was a form of social recognition.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“Nothing like drugs to take the edge off drug problems.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“My mother says that smart women are always crazy.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“Back then, she was certain she could change the world just by making commits to a text file repository,”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“The key to autonomy, she realized, was more than root access on the programs that shaped her desires. It was a sense of privacy.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“She could taste a nuanced ethical understanding of the patent system all over his body.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“Over a century ago, scientists first began to argue that the patent system and scientific data should be opened up. Back then, it was popular for conservatives to claim that putting geneng into the hands of the public would result in mega-viruses or total species collapse. Open data would be the gateway to a runaway synthetic biology apocalypse. But now we know there has been no one great disaster—only the slow-motion disaster of capitalism converting every living thing and idea into property.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“Bots, who cost money, required a period of indenture to make their manufacture worthwhile. No such incentive was required for humans to make other humans.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“How many times had Paladin looked into this human face, its features animated by neurological impulse alone? He did not know. Even if he were to sort through his video memories and count them up one by one, he still didn't think he would have the right answer. But after today's mission, human faces would always look different to him. They would remind him of what it felt like to suffer, and to be relieved of suffering.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“Somehow Jack’s call for participation on a couple of local biotech hacker forums had gotten reposted to an artists’ mailing list, and a bunch of poets showed up to argue with them about the true meaning of anarchy.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“Perhaps human intelligence gathering was a version of network penetration, and he could better integrate into social situations by inviting humans to see an illusory version of himself.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“and finally his current self-awareness, tinged with compulsions whose origins he couldn’t access or control.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“Every master loves to fuck a slave. It is a law of nature, or maybe culture.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“When it came to intellectual property, justice was simple and clear.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“You may be a hydrocarbon guzzling bot, but he likes you because you’re dealing with the same problem. Just figure out a way to share their problems.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“It didn’t just boost your concentration. It made you enjoy work. You couldn’t wait to get back to the keyboard, the breadboard, the gesture table, the lab, the fabber.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“Plus, it was made by Zaxy, the company behind Smartifex, Brillicent, and other popular work enhancement drugs.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“She just wouldn’t stop reimplementing operating system features for her programming class. The only thing keeping her alive was a feeding tube the docs had managed to force up her nose while she was in restraints.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“She was designed to look human, her face the replica of a woman whose image Med’s tissue engineer had licensed from an old Facebook database.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“When does the thinnest smear of genetic material left by spilled blood finally evaporate? At some point it becomes invisible to human eyes, its redness dimmed by water and the mopper’s crawl, but there are still pieces left—shattered cell walls, twists of DNA, diminishing cytoplasm. When do those final shards of matter go away?”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“A profound silence settled around the edges of her mind, more powerful than a defensive perimeter in battle. Nobody could find out what she was thinking, unless she allowed it. The key to autonomy, she realized, was more than root access on the programs that shaped her desires. It was a sense of privacy.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“These feelings came from programs that ran in a part of his mind that he couldn’t access. He was a user of his own consciousness, but he did not have owner privileges. As a result, Paladin felt many things without knowing why.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“When they kissed, she could taste the political analysis he’d described during the Freeculture meeting. His flavor, a mixture of smoke and fennel, was redolent of the Good Science she’d dreamed about doing when she was an undergraduate: the science that helped people, and gave them a chance to lead lives they could be proud of. Nothing made her want to strip a man naked more than knowing he had good ideas … and so she did. She could taste a nuanced ethical understanding of the patent system all over his body.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“After turning on several dirt roads, they reached a newish farm in the middle of a solar field. Its main building was an arched wall of thick glass set deeply into a grassy hill that rose like a green bubble out of a sea of dark, boxy solar antennas dribbling hydrocarbons into underground tanks.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous