Engineers From The United States

"Humanity is at a crossroads. Either it returns to the belief that it has a different nature than machines or it will be reduced to a machine among machines. The risk is not that artificial intelligence will become better than us, but that we will freely decide to submit to it and its masters."

"The matter is the ink with which the consciousness writes its self-experience."

"Wired Next Festa Trentino (September 29, 2024)"

"L’intelligenza artifciale non ha la capacità di essere creativa. La vera creatività porta a ciò che non è mai esistito, va ben oltre la combinazione di ciò che già esiste. Se le chiediamo di riprogettare questo teatro, l'AI rimescola le sedie che trova nella stanza ma siamo noi che dobbiamo decidere se ci piace o meno come lo fa, ricordando che quelle sedie sono state ricavate da algoritmi che partono da dati creati da noi. Il computer riconosce la correlazione tra simboli, ma non capisce ed è inutile pretenderlo, perché non capirà mai un tubo."

"I think we (NASA) need to do a better job of getting the message out about what life is really like up here (from space). It's pretty spectacular."

"I was inspired to become an astronaut after watching the Apollo 11 moon landing as an eight-year-old kid. We need to get kids interested in space and in science and math in general."

"Parents are happy I am doing what I love, maybe not so happy that all those videogames they told me were a waste of time ended up being as important as I always told them they would be!"

"For three critical years he directed the most awesome project in the history of mankind. He was a constant source of amazement . . . He had the deep respect and admiration of his staff for his ability to organize and get things done."

"He had a fatal weakness for good men."

"He's a genius. A real genius. While Lawrence is very bright, he's not a genius, just a good hard worker. Why, Oppenheimer knows about everything. He can talk to you about anything you bring up. Well, not exactly. I guess there are a few things he doesn't know about. He doesn't know anything about sports."

"At the time I was brought into the picture, research on the uses of atomic energy had been going on at a gradually accelerating pace since January, 1939, when Lise Meitner explained that the uranium atom could be split. The discovery opened up two divergent paths for its exploitation. Most physical scientsts realized that nuclear energy, derived from the splitting, or fissioning, of the atom, might be used either to generate power for peaceful purposes or to generate super-weapons. In general, however, it was the scientists who were personally acquainted with Hitler's New Order who first became most interested in the possible military uses of atomic energy and its effect on the existing balance of political power."

"I think the data that went out in the case of the Rosenbergs was of minor value. I would never say that publicly. Again that is something while it is not secret, I think should be kept very quiet, because irrespective of the value of that in the overall picture, the Rosenbergs deserved to hang, and I would not like to see anything that would make people say General Groves thinks they didn’t do much damage after all."

"At present the best defense against the atomic bomb is to not be there when it goes off."

"First, General Groves is the biggest S.O.B. I have ever worked for. He is most demanding. He is most critical. He is always a driver, never a praiser. He is abrasive and sarcastic. He disregards all normal organizational channels. He is extremely intelligent. He has the guts to make timely, difficult decisions. He is the most egotistical man I know. He knows he is right and so sticks by his decision. He abounds with energy and expects everyone to work as hard or even harder than he does. Although he gave me great responsibility and adequate authority to carry out his mission-type orders, he constantly meddled with my subordinates. However, to compensate for that he had a small staff, which meant that we were not subject to the usual staff-type heckling. He ruthlessly protected the overall project from other government agency interference, which made my task easier. He seldom accepted other agency cooperation and then only on his own terms. During the war and since I have had the opportunity to meet many of our most outstanding leaders in the Army, Navy and Air Force as well as many of our outstanding scientific, engineering and industrial leaders. And in summary, if I had to do my part of the atomic bomb project over again and had the privilege of picking my boss I would pick General Groves."

"It is difficult to generate a counterdiscourse if one is programmed to disappear. The highest purpose of the [medically defined] transsexual is to erase h/erself, to fade into the "normal" population as soon as possible. Part of this process is known as constructing a plausible history--learning to lie effectively about one's past. What is gained is acceptability in society. ... In the transsexual's erased history we can find a story disruptive to the accepted discourses of gender."

"To attempt to occupy a place as speaking subject within the traditional gender frame is to become complicit in the discourse which one wishes to deconstruct."

"Transsexuals for whom gender identity is something different from and perhaps irrelevant to physical genitalia are occulted by those for whom the power of the medical/psychological establishments, and their ability to act as gatekeepers for cultural norms, is the final authority for what counts as a culturally intelligible body."

"Hopes for social robots keep outpacing reality. Late last year, the squat, almost featureless Jibo graced the cover of Time Magazine's "best inventions" edition. Its creator, MIT robotics researcher Cynthia Breazeal, told The Associated Press at the time that "there's going to be a time when everybody will just take the personal robot for granted."... Jibo, a foot-high, vaguely conical device topped by a wide hemispherical "head," stays where you put it, typically on a countertop. But it can swivel its flat, round screen "face" to meet your gaze; tells joke and plays music; and can shimmy convincingly if you ask it to dance. It was pitched as "the world's first social robot for the home." At almost $900, though, Jibo didn't win anywhere near enough friends."

"Like many of us, Cynthia Breazeal’s fascination with robots started with Star Wars. And as an associate professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT Media Lab, she has made bringing robots to life her career. Her latest venture? Founder and chief scientist of Jibo, which has been dubbed the world's first family robot. The company is in the final stages of bringing Jibo to a limited developers’ market later this year; a full commercial rollout is expected by summer 2016. Jibo is based on principles of socio-emotive artificial intelligence and engaging human-computer interaction, which Breazeal has been working on since building her first robot."

"MIT's Cynthia Breazeal is developing "social robots" that could help care for patient's emotional wellbeing. In the future Breazeal noted that social robots could help a number of different demographics including the veteran community, supporting education for children, and aging care."

"There is one view that we can allow these AI [tools] to deal with data and analytics and we let people deal with the caring, and the empathy, and the emotional aspects of care, which I think is absolutely critical... What if technology is capable of high touch engagement? What if AI was also social and emotionally intelligent? For me when I talk about emotional engagement, it’s not just about great user experience with technology... It is about deeper human engagement to enable transformative change in people’s lives... We have the world of design and we have the world of AI and right now those two aren’t built top of each other... But these have to come together. So we, through a lot of psychology, understand how people are thinking about experiencing new technology."

"There's going to be a time when everybody will just take the personal robot for granted."

"We’re starting to see some exciting and significant learning gains... I am very encouraged... We see a social-emotional benefit across age groups... We need to be thinking more deeply around ethics ... particularly with AI with children."

"Can robots help teachers improve classroom learning?... Consider the work of Cynthia Breazeal... who leads the Personal Robots group. The group is conducting randomized control trials of the use of an AI-powered, teddy bear-sized and -looking robot named Tega in Boston-area schools... to improve the language and literacy skills of 5- and 6-year-olds. Researchers are tracking gains in the youngsters’ vocabulary and oral language development to determine how the use of human teachers and artificially intelligent robots together in classrooms compares with instruction without robots. “We’re starting to see some exciting and significant learning gains,” Breazeal said. “I am very encouraged.” But she conceded that a longer, bigger study is the next step... “We see a social-emotional benefit across age groups,” she said... If students started feeling much more comfortable interacting with robots... they might jeopardize their willingness and ability to have meaningful conversations or relationships with other people... Breazeal recognizes those downsides. “We need to be thinking more deeply around ethics,” she said, “particularly with AI with children.”"

"Cynthia Breazeal has been promoted to full professor and named associate director of the Media Lab, joining the two other associate directors: Hiroshi Ishii and Andrew Lippman. Both appointments are effective July 1... Breazeal will work with lab faculty and researchers to develop new strategic research initiatives... Most recently, Breazeal has led an MIT collaboration between the Media Lab, MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, and MIT Open Learning to develop aieducation.mit.edu, an online learning site for grades K-12, which shares a variety of online activities for students to learn about artificial intelligence, with a focus on how to design and use AI responsibly. While assuming these new responsibilities, Breazeal will continue to head the lab’s Personal Robots research group, which focuses on developing personal social robots and their potential for meaningful impact on everyday life — from educational aids for children, to pediatric use in hospitals, to at-home assistants for the elderly. Breazeal is globally recognized as a pioneer in human-robot interaction. Her book, “Designing Sociable Robots” (MIT Press, 2002), is considered pivotal in launching the field. In 2019 she was named an AAAI fellow. Previously, she received numerous awards..."

"There are so many things that we did with Kismet at MIT, in the Personal Robots Group, that are highly relevant today. It was the first of its kind, a scientific exploration, arguably the first robot to model emotions as an important way for it to make decisions as much as it did on its interactions with humans... When I first saw Star Wars I wanted R2D2 to be my sidekick! Like any kid with a Disney fantasy, when I saw him, I wanted him to come and live in my house... Of course C3PO is the cool humanoid robot, but the magic in Star Wars was those two robots together. They played off each other in a beautiful way, almost like Laurel & Hardy."

"You have to remember we brought back a picture of the Earth as it is 240,000 miles away. And the fact is, it gives you a different perspective of the Earth when you see it as three-dimensional between the sun and the moon, and you begin to realize how small and how significant the body is. … When I put my thumb up to the window I could completely hide it, and then I realized that behind my thumb that I'm hiding this Earth, and there are about 6 billion people that are all striving to live there. You have to really kind of think about our own existence here in the universe, … You realize that people often say, "I hope to go to heaven when I die." In reality, if you think about it, you go to heaven when you're born. You arrive on a planet that has the proper mass, has the gravity to contain water and an atmosphere, which are the very essentials for life … And you arrive on this planet that's orbiting a star just at the right distance — not too far to be too cold, or too close to be too hot — and just at the right distance to absorb that star's energy and then, with that energy, cause life to evolve here in the first place. … In reality, you know, God has really given us a stage, just looking at where we were around the moon, a stage on which we perform. And how that play turns out is up to us, I guess."

"We learned a lot about the Moon, but what we really learned was about the Earth. The fact that just from the distance of the Moon you can put your thumb up and you can hide the Earth behind your thumb. Everything that you've ever known, your loved ones, your business, the problems of the Earth itself-all behind your thumb. And how insignificant we really all are, but then how fortunate we are to have this body and to be able to enjoy loving here amongst the beauty of the Earth itself."

"On that small blue and white planet below is everything that means anything to you: all of history and music, poetry and art, death and birth, love, tears, joy and games... All on that little spot in the cosmos. National boundaries and human artifacts no longer seem real. Only the biosphere, whole and home of life."

"A distributed system is one in which the failure of a computer you didn't even know existed can render your own computer unusable."

"I think in other things that I've done, I can look back and see: "This idea developed from something else." Sometimes it would lead back to a previous idea of mine, very often it would lead to something somebody else had done. But the Bakery algorithm just seemed to come out of thin air to me. There was nothing like it that preceded it, so perhaps that's why I'm proudest of it."

"The first thing is deciding what the program should do. If you don’t think carefully about that, it’s going to wind up not doing something that it probably should do or you wind up with an ‘absolute bug-free program’. Because to have a bug, you have to have some notion of what it means for the program to be operating correctly. And there is no precise definition of what it means for the program to be correctly operating — so, well, no bugs. Not a very good situation."

"With so many people doing so much writing, great writing is hard to find ... If you succeed in attaining a position that allows you to do something great, if you do something that really is great, and if you realize that it’s great, there’s still one more hurdle: You have to convince others that it’s great. This will require writing."

"Thinking doesn't guarantee that we won't make mistakes. But not thinking guarantees that we will."

"Beyond our normal twenty-year outlook period, we recently attempted a forecast of the CO2 [carbon dioxide] build-up. We assumed different growth rates at different times, but with an average growth rate in fossil fuel use of about one percent per year starting today, our estimate is that the doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels might occur sometime late in the 21st century. That includes the impact of a synfuels industry. Assuming the greenhouse effect occurs, rising CO2 concentrations may begin to induce climactic changes around the middle of the 21st century."

"Our first action that really set us off in a bad direction was when Nato started to expand, bringing in eastern European nations, some of them bordering Russia. At that time we were working closely with Russia and they were beginning to get used to the idea that Nato could be a friend rather than an enemy ... but they were very uncomfortable about having Nato right up on their border and they made a strong appeal for us not to go ahead with that."

"We stand today, I believe, in greater danger of a nuclear catastrophe than we faced during the Cold War. And I can explain why I believe that, but the first point I want to make, though, is that hardly anybody understands that. And because we don’t understand it, our policies are not responsive to those dangers. During the Cold War, at least we had, we understood the danger and were taking action to try to deal with it; we had very serious arms control discussions, for example. Today, it’s so far in the background that people don’t understand it at all, particularly the new generation of people who didn’t live through the Cold War. But it’s a very dangerous situation today. And the headlines, which are about North Korea, just emphasize the danger; but the greater danger, really, is–the ultimate danger–is some sort of an exchange between the United States and Russia today. That would lead not just to a great catastrophe, it would basically lead to the end of civilization. So that’s what’s at stake here: ending our civilization, and the nuclear weapons have the power to do that."

"Any further spread of nuclear weapons multiplies the possibilities of nuclear confrontation and magnifies the danger of diversion. Thus, if proliferation of weapons of mass destruction continues into Iran and remains in North Korea in the face of all ongoing negotiations, the incentives for other countries to follow the same path will become overwhelming. Considerations as these have induced former Senator Sam Nunn, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, former Secretary of State George Shultz, and I -- two Democrats and two Republicans -- to publish recommendations for systematically reducing and eventually eliminating reliance on nuclear weapons. We have a record of strong commitment to national defense and security. We continue to affirm the importance of adequate deterrent forces, and we do not want our recommendations to diminish essentials for the defense of free peoples while a process of adaptation to new realities is going on. At the same time, we reaffirm the objective of a world without nuclear weapons that has been proclaimed by every American President since President Eisenhower."

"In February William Perry let slip that if this reform falls through in Russia, then the West should be ready to strengthen its collective security. What's the connection? Since when can the defense secretary of the U.S. determine the type of economic reform Russia needs? And why are we being threatened with external pressure if Russia changes the direction and tempo of reform?"

"It could be that today's conservative movement remains in thrall to the same narrative that has defined its attitude toward film and the arts for decades. Inspired by feelings of exclusion after Hollywood and the popular culture turned leftward in the '60s and '70s, this narrative has defined the film industry as an irredeemably liberal institution toward which conservatives can only act in opposition—never engagement. Ironically, this narrative ignores the actual history of Hollywood, in which conservatives had a strong presence from the industry's founding in the early 20th century up through the '40s, '50s and into the mid-'60s]. The conservative Hollywood community at that time included such leading directors as Howard Hawks, Frank Capra, and Cecil B. DeMille, and major stars like John Wayne, Clark Gable, and Charlton Heston. These talents often worked side by side with notable Hollywood liberals like directors Billy Wilder, William Wyler, and John Huston, and stars like Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Spencer Tracy. The richness of classic Hollywood cinema is widely regarded as a testament to the ability of these two communities to work together, regardless of political differences. As the younger, more left-leaning "New Hollywood" generation swept into the industry in the late '60s and '70s, this older group of Hollywood conservatives faded away, never to be replaced. Except for a brief period in the '80s when the Reagan Presidency led to a conservative reengagement with film—with popular stars like Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger making macho, patriotic action films—conservatives appeared to abandon popular culture altogether. In the wake of this retreat, conservative failure to engage with Hollywood now appears to have been recast by today's East Coast conservative establishment into a generalized opposition toward film and popular culture itself. In the early '90s, conservative film critic Michael Medved codified this oppositional feeling toward Hollywood in his best-selling book Hollywood vs. America."

"The films subsequently produced for the Army by Capra and his team survive as classics of wartime cinematic propaganda- a remarkable accomplishment, in retrospect, since each script had to be approved by some fifty military and civilian agencies in Washington. One of the primary objectives of the series was to combat the isolationist sentiments that lingered in the United States, and with this in mind the seven core films that Capra directed were given the collective title Why We Fight. President Franklin Roosevelt was so impressed by the first of these documentaries that he urged it to be shown in public theaters as well as to recruits. This was done, and Prelude to War went on to win an Academy Award as the best documentary of 1942. During the course of World War Two, the Why We Fight films were required viewing for millions of American soldiers. The series was also distributed abroad, with soundtracks in French, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese."

"Shortly after the United States entered World War Two, Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall summoned Frank Capra, the Hollywood director, and asked him to prepare a series of orientation films for viewing by American troops. When Capra demurred on the grounds that he had never made a documentary before, Marshall retorted: "Capra, I have never been Chief of Staff before. Thousands of young Americans have never had their legs shot off before. Boys are commanding ships today, who a year ago had never seen the ocean before." The director apologized, and promised "The best damned documentary films ever made.""

"To be inspired with the will to win, Capra told his associates as they embarked on this work, Americans needed to be shown that they were fighting for the existence of their country, and at the same time were carrying the "torch of freedom" for a better postwar world- a world in which conquest, exploitation, and economic evils had been eliminated, and peace and democracy prevailed. This seemed a clear line, and a familiar one to anyone who recalled the idealistic Allied propaganda of World War One."

"I made mistakes in drama. I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries."

"Great art isn't about decoration - it's a different language that can both touch our hearts, and open our minds."

"Art and design are not luxuries, nor somehow incompatible with science and engineering."

"When the first alien spacecraft lands in Washington, I want the little green people to walk first into the National Gallery of Art. I want our art to explain who and what we are before our leaders do."

"[Visionaries] not only believed that the impossible can be done, but that it must be done."

"We need to love [children] and help them discover their passions. We need to encourage them to work hard and help them understand that failure is a necessary ingredient for success, as is perseverance."

"[On the need for ultra high definition television] The problem with television isn't the number of horizontal scanning lines. It's the lines of dialogue spoken by the actors."