Transition Point Quotes

“My dogs might believe, in their little doggy brains, that they wield the power in our relationship because I feed them, pet them, come when they bark, pick up their poop, buy them toys and care for them when they are sick. However, if they ever decided to act on their beliefs and try to exert power over me or my family, then their true place in the relationship would quickly become apparent. Likewise, we may feel confident that we are the master of our AI creations, only to be taken completely by surprise when we realise – too late – that we are no longer in control.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“The paradox of change is that while everyone says they want change, not many people actually like it, and even less want to lead it.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“In many ways, the status quo is human nature; people are often paradoxically afraid of change and also afraid of staying the same – but when push comes to shove, staying the same seems safer.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“When workers’ jobs are easily sacrificed for short-term stock gains – stocks which the leaders own but the workers do not – then the truth becomes clear: We aren’t all in this together. You’re just in it for yourself, and I’m expendable.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“The near future is going to be defined by the outcomes of a battle between those in control of the machines, and those controlled by them. Corporations have become richer and more powerful than countries, but without any form of societal contract or responsibility to citizens or communities. They are not the Quakers of old. Their loyalty to you starts and ends with your worth as a consumer and as a data provider.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“The ‘lump of equality’ argument, which assumes that if someone is doing well it must be at the expense of someone else, is both false and has been used to previously justify some pretty dystopian actions. When those with power believe that the end justifies the means, any action to achieve this end becomes viable. We’ve seen multiple variations of ideology-based ‘equality’ solutions implemented in the real world; none of which turned out well for those they purported to help.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“We should not be complacent and view China’s actions as those of an alien nation; they are in many ways simply more honest about their totalitarianism. To control a population of disenfranchised and divided people, Western governments and bodies like the EU are all following China’s example and calling upon the power of digital and financial corporations to monitor and report on their citizen’s activities both in the real world and online. Their veneer of democratic respectability is peeling away, allowing people to see the truth that lies beneath.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“This collaboration between global technology companies and the state is enabling a worrying level of draconian oversight into our everyday lives, providing those who wish to control us with the tools to identify, intimidate and incarcerate any wrong-thinkers. Once again, those who deem themselves the most virtuous have little qualms about imposing their virtue onto others by restricting their rights – only this time they are backed up by some seriously powerful technological hardware.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“What these protestors of Western culture forget is that they are only able to hold their protests, broadcast their views and write their articles because of the very same freedoms they are fighting to suppress. By severing the roots, they will also kill the tree under whose branches they shelter.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“Like the story of the steam drill against John Henry, the machine will be victorious because it doesn’t get tired and keeps on going long after a human worker will have dropped dead from exhaustion. The modern-day steam drill is likely to be an AI system, and John Henry is played by the planner, doctor, analyst, stockbroker or accountant who believes that they can process more data and crunch more numbers than the new machine overlords. They can’t.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“It is a human tendency to take our recent past and project it in a linear fashion into the future. We are hardwired to think linearly and to expect any accelerations in the rate of change to be consistent, for exponential rates of change are hard for humans to comprehend. The next twenty years, we figure, will more or less unfold as the last twenty years have. Not a chance.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“Given their apparent immortality, the past is surprisingly littered with the corpses of deities.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“The industrial age has transformed our material well-being, but these improvements have come at the cost of our beliefs: belief in our special place in the universe; belief in an omnipresent god; belief in country and community; belief in monogamy and marriage, and belief in our values. What, then, holds up the foundations of society when these beliefs finally fall away?”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“Technology provides access to more power than our ancestors would have thought possible but does not guide us as to what to do with that power. Similarly, the market provides us with endless choices but does not tell us how to use these choices. And our liberal, individualist and faithless state gives us freedom, but provides no intellectual, moral or spiritual guidance for how to use that freedom.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“As machines increasingly do more of the work, and real-life relationships lose their allure, then the allegory of Plato’s Cave becomes real. A mass of people living inside, disconnected from those who live their lives outside, systematically unable or unwilling to participate in the competition of life because they cannot stand the unpredictability of reality.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“It’s the mother of all technological babysitters, and its ability to entertain will be welcomed if both parents are lucky enough to have jobs. These children are not going to be concerned about the issues of the physical world when they have a whole virtual universe to explore and an on-demand genius as a best friend. Like Pinocchio and the other boys being tempted by the lights and promise of instant gratification on Pleasure Island, so the world of online gaming, AI friends and virtual reality will attract children away from real-world activities – and, like Pleasure Island, it has the potential to turn them into dumb and docile asses, easy to manipulate and control.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“The increasing use of artificial intelligence in the design and development of virtual worlds and virtual friends will make them more advanced, more personal, and more attuned to your likes and dislikes. They will allow you to live out your wildest fantasies in a matrix of your own creation, whereas back in the real world you are stuck in your apartment that you’ve been unable to find the energy to tidy for weeks.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“It’s not only a question of who’s watching the watchmen, but also whether the watchmen and their watchers are in collusion with each other.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“The future is less about management and the ability to recall information or taught skills, and more about the ability to use critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration and adaptability.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“Consumers have stopped trusting institutions and started trusting strangers. Why? Because companies have an agenda, and their focus on constantly pushing products doesn’t inspire, doesn’t engage and doesn’t drive action.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“The industrial model doesn’t work any more, yet many businesses still behave as if it does. They will have to wise up quick.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“Most people blindly assume that machines will only be used as our slaves, when they are just as likely to be used in our enslavement. Individual freedoms, liberty and equality are a relatively new state of affairs for most nations, and as a species we have considerably more experience in treating people as commodities than as free agents.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“By the end of the decade many of these technologies will have crossed the chasm and become disruptive, creating a world in which people, insights, and money interact quickly, easily and cheaply, affecting nearly every industry at every level. This will have both positive and negatives, for each new wave brings a period of technological Darwinism, as creation never travels alone; its companion, destruction, always hitches a ride.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity

“The collapse of the sixth wave is likely to represent a fracturing of the socio-economic model and the end of the age of capitalism as we know it. It will be mortally wounded by the dual effects of overcoming the issue of scarcity and the demise of the relationship between productivity and employment.”
― Sean A. Culey, Transition Point: From Steam to the Singularity