How to Speak Machine Quotes

“I honestly don’t believe that design is the most important matter today. Instead, I believe we should focus first on understanding computation. Because when we combine design with computation, a kind of magic results; when we combine business with computation, great financial opportunities can emerge. What is computation? That’s the question I would get asked anytime I stepped off the MIT campus when I was in my twenties and thirties, and then whenever I left any technology company I worked with in my forties and fifties. Computation is an invisible, alien universe that is infinitely large and infinitesimally detailed. It’s a kind of raw material that doesn’t obey the laws of physics, and it’s what powers the internet at a level that far transcends the power of electricity. It’s a ubiquitous medium that experienced software developers and the tech industry control to a degree that threatens the sovereignty of existing nation-states. Computation is not something you can fully grasp after training in a “learn to code” boot camp, where the mechanics of programming can be easily learned. It’s more like a foreign country with its own culture, its own set of problems, and its own language—but where knowing the language is not enough, let alone if you have only a minimal understanding of it.”
― John Maeda, How to Speak Machine: Computational Thinking for the Rest of Us

“But to ask a computing device to stop gathering information and to stop sharing it with other devices is like wishing away all the magic in your magic wand.”
― John Maeda, How to Speak Machine: Computational Thinking for the Rest of Us

“Cooperation is about working with another party at arm’s length, whereas collaboration is about having arms hugged around each other.”
― John Maeda, How to Speak Machine: Computational Thinking for the Rest of Us

“Underlying omotenashi is having an idea of what the customer wants without asking, so that their needs can be anticipated.”
― John Maeda, How to Speak Machine: Computational Thinking for the Rest of Us

“Now, you’re open to achieving a more perfect understanding rather than a more perfect product.”
― John Maeda, How to Speak Machine: Computational Thinking for the Rest of Us

“artists know to look deeper than just surface beauty. They dig for what’s underneath the underneath,”
― John Maeda, How to Speak Machine: Computational Thinking for the Rest of Us

“Because the arts are not about what you can just see or sense; they’re about discovering what underlies it all—”
― John Maeda, How to Speak Machine: Computational Thinking for the Rest of Us

“Design matters a lot when it is leveraged with a deep understanding of computation and the unique set of possibilities it brings.”
― John Maeda, How to Speak Machine: Computational Thinking for the Rest of Us