“Privacy is a thing of the past. Technologically, it is obsolete. However, there will be social norms and legal barriers that will dampen out the worst excesses.” — Hal Varian, University of California–Berkeley and Google
“Fear of enslavement by our creations is an old fear and a literary tritism. But I fear something worse and much more likely—that sometime after 2020 our machines will become intelligent, evolve rapidly, and end up treating us as pets. We can at least take comfort that there is one worse fate—becoming food—that, mercifully, is highly unlikely.” — Paul Saffo, director, The Institute for the Future
“English will be a prominent language on the Internet because it is a complete trollop willing to be remade by any of its speakers (after all, English is just a bunch of mispronounced German, French, and Latin words)…That said—so what? Chinese is every bit as plausible a winner. Spanish, too. Russian! Korean!” — Cory Doctorow, blogger and cofounder of Boing Boing; EFF Fellow
“Profit motives will impede data flow…Networks will conform to the public utility model, with stakeholders in generation, transmission, and distribution. Companies playing in each piece of the game will enact roadblocks to collect what they see as their fair share of tariff revenue.” — Peter Kim, senior analyst, marketing strategy and technology team, Forrester Research
“There will be a bigger push for both ‘national walled gardens’ and international cooperation.” — Robert Shaw, Internet strategy and policy advisor, International Telecommunication Union
“The more autonomous agents, the better. The steeper the ‘J-curve,’ the better. Automation, including through autonomous agents, will help boost standards of living, freeing us from drudgery.” — Rob Atkinson, director, Technology and New Economy Project, Progressive Policy Institute
“We are constructing architectures of surveillance over which we will lose control. It’s time to think carefully about Frankenstein, the Three Laws of Robotics, Animatrix, and Gattaca.” — Marc Rotenberg, executive director, Electronic Privacy Information Center