Q&A with Stephen Wolfram

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<button class="hamburger">&equiv;</button> <h1 id="logo"> <a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com">Stephen Wolfram <svg viewBox="6.252 51.944 1031.673 96.468"> <g id="logoSVG"> <path d="M643.657,60.162c1.429-0.357,2.501-0.714,3.572-0.714h0.536V53.91h-34.121v5.538h0.536 c4.287,0.357,7.503,1.072,9.468,1.965c1.787,0.894,2.68,1.965,2.68,3.216c0,1.072-0.179,2.322-0.357,3.751 s-0.893,4.288-1.965,8.218c-1.429,5.716-3.395,12.505-5.538,20.544c-2.144,7.682-4.645,16.436-7.503,26.439L588.456,55.16h-6.968 l-22.33,66.812c-4.823-16.971-8.218-29.297-10.719-37.693c-2.501-8.575-4.287-15.006-5.181-18.758c0-0.357-0.179-1.072-0.357-1.786 c-0.179-0.715-0.179-1.251-0.179-1.608c0-1.072,1.607-1.608,3.037-1.965c2.322-0.536,5.002-0.714,8.218-0.893h0.536V53.91h-38.23 v5.538h0.536c1.071,0,2.322,0.357,3.751,0.714c1.43,0.357,2.502,0.894,3.573,1.608c1.251,0.893,2.144,1.787,2.858,2.68 s1.251,2.144,1.607,3.394c1.608,5.538,4.646,16.257,9.111,32.514c4.466,16.078,8.933,31.799,13.22,46.805l0.179,0.357h6.432 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id="count">(39)</span></div> <div id="posts" class="grid heirs-width-1-2 heirs-width-full__600"> <div class="project future-perspectives software-technology" data-position="normal" data-date="1993-02-01 14:38:33"> <p class="date">February 1, 1993</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.stephenwolfram.com/media/stephen-wolfram-multiparadigm-man/'>Interview by Michael Swaine, <em>Dr. Dobb's Journal</em></a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/1993/02/01/do-you-have-any-opinions-on-the-dominant-paradigms-of-today-and-about-which-will-survive-into-the-next-decade/">Do you have any opinions on the dominant paradigms of today, and about which will survive into the next decade?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>I think the transformational-rule paradigm is working fairly well. I think the functional paradigm is largely working well. I think the procedural paradigm sucks, basically. I think the fundamental problem with it is there&#8217;s much too much hidden state in the procedural paradigm. You have these weird variables that are getting updated and things that are happening that you can&#8217;t see. I strongly believe that there is a way to do procedural programming that does not use hidden states. For example, here&#8217;s a thing that I&#8217;d love to be able to do: make a kind of symbolic template of the execution history of a program. The kind of thing that trace does&#8230; of taking a program that&#8217;s executing and giving you back the symbolic representation. What I&#8217;d like to be able to do is program by saying, here&#8217;s what I want&#8212;it&#8217;s not quite a flowchart, it&#8217;s something beyond a flowchart&#8212;my program to be like, now I would actually do the things that make it do this. That&#8217;s kind of vague, and the reason it&#8217;s vague is because I haven&#8217;t figured out how to do it. But I think one of the directions that could be very fruitful is how you take these conceptual ideas about procedural programming and turn them into something that&#8217;s easier to look at once you have a program. I mean, the idea of procedural programming, of loops and so on, people have no trouble grasping. But once they&#8217;ve written their programs, they have a lot of trouble grasping what the programs do. And if one could have a more explicit way of representing these things, one would be in good shape, I think.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="I think the transformational-rule paradigm is working fairly well. I think the functional paradigm is largely working well. I think the procedural paradigm sucks, basically. I think the fundamental problem with it is there&#8217;s much too much hidden state in the procedural paradigm. You have these weird variables that are getting updated and things that are happening that you can&#8217;t see. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> I think the transformational-rule paradigm is working fairly well. I think the functional paradigm is largely working well. I think the procedural paradigm sucks, basically. I think the fundamental problem with it is there’s much too much hidden state in the procedural paradigm. You have these weird variables that are getting updated and things that are happening that you can’t see. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="software-technology" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=software-technology">Software Technology</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives software-technology" data-position="normal" data-date="1996-06-01 19:22:00"> <p class="date">June 1, 1996</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.stephenwolfram.com/media/interview-stephen-wolfram-euromath-bulletin/'>Interview by Stephen Collart, <em>Euromath Bulletin</em></a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/1996/06/01/symbolic-computation-as-a-research-discipline-has-an-uneasy-existence-between-mathematics-and-computer-science-will-this-change-what-can-be-done-to-change-it/">Symbolic computation as a research discipline has an uneasy existence between mathematics and computer science. Will this change? What can be done to change it?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>Gosh, I&#8217;m not sure exactly what you mean. I&#8217;m not a great fan of a lot of academic work that goes on these days. I think a lot of areas of academia have become incredibly introverted: people just write papers that other people in their fields will read. They don&#8217;t seem to care much about anything outside. And there are all sorts of elaborate rituals that have developed about how to do academic work, how to present it, how to publish it, etc. It&#8217;s mostly fairly recent&#8212;last 50 years or so&#8212;and I guess it&#8217;s inevitable, given how large the academic enterprise has become. But assuming things go on the way they are, I&#8217;m afraid that over the next few decades we&#8217;ll almost certainly see the end of academia as a serious force in society&#8230;.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="Gosh, I&#8217;m not sure exactly what you mean. I&#8217;m not a great fan of a lot of academic work that goes on these days. I think a lot of areas of academia have become incredibly introverted: people just write papers that other people in their fields will read. They don&#8217;t seem to care much about anything outside. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> Gosh, I’m not sure exactly what you mean. I’m not a great fan of a lot of academic work that goes on these days. I think a lot of areas of academia have become incredibly introverted: people just write papers that other people in their fields will read. They don’t seem to care much about anything outside. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="software-technology" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=software-technology">Software Technology</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives software-technology" data-position="normal" data-date="1996-06-01 22:40:24"> <p class="date">June 1, 1996</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.stephenwolfram.com/media/interview-stephen-wolfram-euromath-bulletin/'>Interview by Stephen Collart, <em>Euromath Bulletin</em></a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/1996/06/01/do-you-believe-that-any-further-major-general-purpose-symbolic-computation-systems-could-be-successfully-launched-in-the-future/">Do you believe that any further major general-purpose symbolic computation systems could be successfully launched in the future?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>You mean Mathematica competitors? It depends what you mean by &#8220;major&#8221;. If we don&#8217;t do anything really stupid, I think it&#8217;s unlikely anyone else will reach a million users in the foreseeable future. But the more successful we are, the more there&#8217;ll be people who&#8217;ll want to claim that they&#8217;re building systems that are like ours. There&#8217;s certainly nothing impossible about building something like Mathematica&mdash;after all, we&#8217;ve done it. But it&#8217;ll take a great deal of effort, and I very much doubt the marketplace would be all that interested.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="You mean Mathematica competitors? It depends what you mean by &#8220;major&#8221;. If we don&#8217;t do anything really stupid, I think it&#8217;s unlikely anyone else will reach a million users in the foreseeable future. But the more successful we are, the more there&#8217;ll be people who&#8217;ll want to claim that they&#8217;re building systems that are like ours. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> You mean Mathematica competitors? It depends what you mean by “major”. If we don’t do anything really stupid, I think it’s unlikely anyone else will reach a million users in the foreseeable future. But the more successful we are, the more there’ll be people who’ll want to claim that they’re building systems that are like ours. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="software-technology" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=software-technology">Software Technology</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives software-technology" data-position="normal" data-date="1996-06-01 22:56:22"> <p class="date">June 1, 1996</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.stephenwolfram.com/media/interview-stephen-wolfram-euromath-bulletin/'>Interview by Stephen Collart, <em>Euromath Bulletin</em></a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/1996/06/01/one-sees-a-multiplication-of-smaller-specialized-systems-whose-design-is-also-increasingly-sophisticated-what-balance-and-relationship-do-you-see-in-the-future-between-specialized-and-comprehensive-s/">One sees a multiplication of smaller specialized systems whose design is also increasingly sophisticated. What balance and relationship do you see in the future between specialized and comprehensive systems?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>I guess the specialized systems that seem to me to make the most sense are the ones built in Mathematica. They start from all the stuff we&#8217;ve done, then add specialized abilities. I don&#8217;t know why there are so many people building specialized systems in languages like C. I guess it may conceivably make for a better story for an academic paper&mdash;though I&#8217;m not quite sure why&mdash;but I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s a good use of effort. What on earth is the point of building yet another parser, often based on a really simple-minded language design? Why not just use Mathematica?</p> <p>Of course, sometimes people are really concerned about efficiency, and want to write incredibly bit-hacked stuff. So then they probably have to write the core of their systems in C. But I think the scheme that makes the most sense in cases like that is to have the core in C, then to use MathLink to connect it to Mathematica, so you can use Mathematica as the interface to the system. There have been quite a few systems made this way, and I think it&#8217;s a pretty good approach. It&#8217;s a way where one can really use software components sensibly, without rebuilding a lot of stuff that surely isn&#8217;t the point of an algorithmic project.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="I guess the specialized systems that seem to me to make the most sense are the ones built in Mathematica. They start from all the stuff we&#8217;ve done, then add specialized abilities. I don&#8217;t know why there are so many people building specialized systems in languages like C. I guess it may conceivably make for a better story for an academic paper&mdash;though I&#8217;m not quite sure why&mdash;but I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s a good use of effort. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> I guess the specialized systems that seem to me to make the most sense are the ones built in Mathematica. They start from all the stuff we’ve done, then add specialized abilities. I don’t know why there are so many people building specialized systems in languages like C. I guess it may conceivably make for a better story for an academic paper—though I’m not quite sure why—but I don’t think it’s a good use of effort. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="software-technology" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=software-technology">Software Technology</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives software-technology" data-position="normal" data-date="1996-06-01 22:58:51"> <p class="date">June 1, 1996</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.stephenwolfram.com/media/interview-stephen-wolfram-euromath-bulletin/'>Interview by Stephen Collart, <em>Euromath Bulletin</em></a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/1996/06/01/the-community-has-proponents-of-free-software-increasing-numbers-of-researchers-and-better-software-engineering-might-make-public-domain-systems-increasingly-serious-contenders-what-future-do-yo/">The community has proponents of “free” software. Increasing numbers of researchers and better software engineering might make public domain systems increasingly serious contenders. What future do you see for the roles of free and commercial software?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>Free software is fine when it doesn&#8217;t cost much to develop and support. But you can&#8217;t expect to have a really vital long-term product and make it free. What we see a lot with Mathematica packages is that the first versions are free: they&#8217;re made by one or two people at a university or some such. But once the packages get serious&mdash;have real documentation, quality assurance, etc.&mdash;they have a real price. And the result is that money is made that supports the future development of the packages, and so on.</p> <p>Perhaps you&#8217;re asking whether I think software should be distributed for free in general. I guess I think that intellectual property protection is a pretty good feature of civilized society. Now of course there are some people who think software development should always be paid for by the government or something, and then distributed free. Well, I tend to think that the less the government has to get involved in, the better. Let people who want software pay for it; it really doesn&#8217;t make sense to tax everyone in order to get software for a small segment of society developed. It&#8217;s really very selfish on the part of mathematicians or whoever to expect all the taxpayers out there to support their particular software interests.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="Free software is fine when it doesn&#8217;t cost much to develop and support. But you can&#8217;t expect to have a really vital long-term product and make it free. What we see a lot with Mathematica packages is that the first versions are free: they&#8217;re made by one or two people at a university or some such. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> Free software is fine when it doesn’t cost much to develop and support. But you can’t expect to have a really vital long-term product and make it free. What we see a lot with Mathematica packages is that the first versions are free: they’re made by one or two people at a university or some such. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="software-technology" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=software-technology">Software Technology</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives" data-position="normal" data-date="1998-02-06 20:53:13"> <p class="date">February 6, 1998</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.stephenwolfram.com/media/computers-science-extraterrestrials-interview-stephen-wolfram/'>Interview by David Stork, <em>Hal's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality</em></a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/1998/02/06/a-lot-of-things-havent-worked-out-exactly-as-2001-a-space-odyssey-predicted-does-that-surprise-you/">A lot of things haven’t worked out exactly as <em>2001: A Space Odyssey</em> predicted. Does that surprise you?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>Well, given the level of detail in the movie, it&#8217;s an absolute setup to be proved wrong. I&#8217;ve got to say that I&#8217;m really impressed by how much was got right. And I think a lot of the mistakes are really interesting mistakes&mdash;mistakes that one learns something by seeing why they were made. I actually think quite a lot about trying to predict things, and I find it incredibly useful to go back and see why mistakes in predicting got made before.</p> <p>I suppose I&#8217;ve noticed two big reasons for mistakes. One is historical accidents&mdash;things that worked out the way they did for some fairly chance reason: because some particular person invented something in a particular way or whatever. And another is much deeper: not understanding a basic concept. Not getting a big idea&mdash;a paradigm shift or whatever&mdash;that really changes how a lot of stuff works.</p> <p>Of course in looking at the movie, some of the most obvious mistakes aren&#8217;t about technology. The hairstyles look all wrong. The voiceprint identification system asks for a &#8220;Christian name&#8221; and so on. Actually, it&#8217;s interesting that the various companies portrayed in the movie&mdash;Bell, Pan Am, BBC, Hilton and so on&mdash;are all still around, at least in one form or another. But most of them have quite different logos now. The fact that graphic design tastes change is a pretty general thing; but which particular companies changed their logos is definitely in the category of historical accident. Same with the fact that some of the typefaces in the movie look dated, and some don&#8217;t.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="Well, given the level of detail in the movie, it&#8217;s an absolute setup to be proved wrong. I&#8217;ve got to say that I&#8217;m really impressed by how much was got right. And I think a lot of the mistakes are really interesting mistakes&mdash;mistakes that one learns something by seeing why they were made. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> Well, given the level of detail in the movie, it’s an absolute setup to be proved wrong. I’ve got to say that I’m really impressed by how much was got right. And I think a lot of the mistakes are really interesting mistakes—mistakes that one learns something by seeing why they were made. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives just-curious" data-position="normal" data-date="1998-02-06 21:06:31"> <p class="date">February 6, 1998</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.stephenwolfram.com/media/computers-science-extraterrestrials-interview-stephen-wolfram/'>Interview by David Stork, <em>Hal's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality</em></a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/1998/02/06/what-kind-of-thing-would-make-us-sure-we-had-detected-extraterrestrial-intelligence-what-about-receiving-the-digits-of-pi/">What kind of thing would make us sure we had detected extraterrestrial intelligence? What about receiving the digits of pi?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>Well, that&#8217;s a tough one, for two reasons. First, how would we know that there was a complicated intentional intelligence generating those digits? You see, I&#8217;ve found some very simple systems that generate things like the digits of pi. Systems so simple that we could easily imagine they&#8217;d occur naturally, without intentional intelligence. So even if we found the digits of pi, we&#8217;d have a hard time being sure that the thing that produced them was something like us&mdash;a really complicated, evolved, learning thing&mdash;rather than just something like a piece of fluid.</p> <p>Then there&#8217;s a whole other problem: how would we know that we were receiving the digits of pi? You see, the digits of pi seem effectively random for essentially all purposes. And we certainly don&#8217;t have any idea how to build some kind of analyzer that would systematically detect the digits as nonrandom. Well, the obvious question is: are there in fact radio signals that could be the digits of pi coming from around the galaxy? The answer is definitely yes. If you point a radio telescope in almost any direction, you&#8217;ll hear &#8220;radio noise&#8221;. Maybe it&#8217;s all thermal emission from hot gas, but maybe&mdash;just maybe&mdash;there are the digits of pi out there. We don&#8217;t right now have any way to know for sure.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="Well, that&#8217;s a tough one, for two reasons. First, how would we know that there was a complicated intentional intelligence generating those digits? You see, I&#8217;ve found some very simple systems that generate things like the digits of pi. Systems so simple that we could easily imagine they&#8217;d occur naturally, without intentional intelligence. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> Well, that’s a tough one, for two reasons. First, how would we know that there was a complicated intentional intelligence generating those digits? You see, I’ve found some very simple systems that generate things like the digits of pi. Systems so simple that we could easily imagine they’d occur naturally, without intentional intelligence. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="just-curious" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=just-curious">Just Curious...</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives" data-position="normal" data-date="1998-02-06 21:10:12"> <p class="date">February 6, 1998</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.stephenwolfram.com/media/computers-science-extraterrestrials-interview-stephen-wolfram/'>Interview by David Stork, <em>Hal's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality</em></a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/1998/02/06/will-we-find-extraterrestrial-intelligence/">Will we find extraterrestrial intelligence?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>I expect so. And probably eventually the argument about whether the signals we get from them are really &#8220;natural&#8221; or &#8220;artificial&#8221; will die down. But my guess is that history will work out so that we build artificial intelligence in computers before we find extraterrestrial intelligence. And the result of that is that finding extraterrestrial intelligence will be considerably less dramatic to us. Because by then we&#8217;ll already know that we&#8217;re not the only intelligent things that can exist.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="I expect so. And probably eventually the argument about whether the signals we get from them are really &#8220;natural&#8221; or &#8220;artificial&#8221; will die down. But my guess is that history will work out so that we build artificial intelligence in computers before we find extraterrestrial intelligence. And the result of that is that finding extraterrestrial intelligence will be considerably less dramatic to us. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> I expect so. And probably eventually the argument about whether the signals we get from them are really “natural” or “artificial” will die down. But my guess is that history will work out so that we build artificial intelligence in computers before we find extraterrestrial intelligence. And the result of that is that finding extraterrestrial intelligence will be considerably less dramatic to us. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives science" data-position="normal" data-date="2002-07-07 23:00:12"> <p class="date">July 7, 2002</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/the-way-we-live-now-7-7-02-questions-for-stephen-wolfram-complexity-made-simple.html' target='_blank'>Interview by Loch Adamson, <em>The New York Times</em></a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2002/07/07/what-kinds-of-scientific-contributions-might-come-about-in-response-to-your-book-and-when-do-you-think-we-might-see-them/">What kinds of scientific contributions might come about in response to your book? And when do you think we might see them?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>I&#8217;m probably more nervous about people trying to apply what I&#8217;ve done in the book too quickly, rather than too slowly. It would be bizarre if my attempts to sort of change the direction of quite a bit of science were, you know, immediately absorbed and understood by people who had spent decades working in some different direction. In academia, there is this common statement: new ideas have either been done before, or they&#8217;re wrong, or both. And it&#8217;s kind of charming to me that people send mail about some things in my book, say, &#8220;We&#8217;ve said this before&#8221;.</p> <p>But I don&#8217;t think they&#8217;ve understood what I&#8217;ve said. In fact, if they did understand, their first response would be, &#8220;That can&#8217;t be right&#8221;. People&#8217;s responses are being documented in a very obvious way. There are newsgroups and postings. I find it rather interesting. But so far, I&#8217;m just collecting the data. The thing one learns about the history of science is that these things take awhile. And one waits.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="I&#8217;m probably more nervous about people trying to apply what I&#8217;ve done in the book too quickly, rather than too slowly. It would be bizarre if my attempts to sort of change the direction of quite a bit of science were, you know, immediately absorbed and understood by people who had spent decades working in some different direction. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> I’m probably more nervous about people trying to apply what I’ve done in the book too quickly, rather than too slowly. It would be bizarre if my attempts to sort of change the direction of quite a bit of science were, you know, immediately absorbed and understood by people who had spent decades working in some different direction. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="science" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=science">Science</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives science" data-position="normal" data-date="2005-04-09 22:52:28"> <p class="date">April 9, 2005</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.stephenwolfram.com/media/revolution-shaped-automata/'>Interview by Andres Hax, <em>Clar铆n</em></a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2005/04/09/how-do-you-see-the-future-of-the-human-race-will-the-implications-of-the-principle-of-computational-equivalence-if-recognized-and-adopted-alter-the-evolution-of-the-human-race-if-so-how-and-how-s/">How do you see the future of the human race? Will the implications of the Principle of Computational Equivalence, if recognized and adopted, alter the evolution of the human race? If so, how and how soon?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>There&#8217;s going to be more and more coupling between computers and humans. More and more of our activities&mdash;including cognitive ones&mdash;will be successfully &#8220;outsourced&#8221; to computers. Then there&#8217;ll be questions about what&#8217;s essentially different between computers and humans. And the Principle of Computational Equivalence says there will never be anything fundamentally different. So that means that the difference all has to come from history&mdash;it&#8217;ll be that thread of history that defines humans.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="There&#8217;s going to be more and more coupling between computers and humans. More and more of our activities&mdash;including cognitive ones&mdash;will be successfully &#8220;outsourced&#8221; to computers. Then there&#8217;ll be questions about what&#8217;s essentially different between computers and humans. And the Principle of Computational Equivalence says there will never be anything fundamentally different. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> There’s going to be more and more coupling between computers and humans. More and more of our activities—including cognitive ones—will be successfully “outsourced” to computers. Then there’ll be questions about what’s essentially different between computers and humans. And the Principle of Computational Equivalence says there will never be anything fundamentally different. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="science" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=science">Science</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives science" data-position="normal" data-date="2008-07-01 17:16:30"> <p class="date">July 1, 2008</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.stephenwolfram.com/media/five-questions-about-philosophy-computing/'>Interview by Luciano Floridi, <em>Philosophy of Computing and Information: 5 Questions</em></a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2008/07/01/what-are-the-most-important-open-problems-concerning-computation-andor-information-and-what-are-the-prospects-for-progress/">What are the most important open problems concerning computation and/or information, and what are the prospects for progress?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>There&#8217;s a lot still to discover about the computational universe. It&#8217;s like many past explorations&#038;mdash&#8217;whether of the flora and fauna of Earth, of the chemicals that can be created or of the diversity of astronomical objects. We&#8217;ve learned enough to be able to do some basic classification, and we&#8217;ve been able to guess at some general principles. But there&#8217;s a huge amount of detailed science to do in studying the computational universe.</p> <p>There are a lot of important things that we might find in the computational universe. Perhaps we&#8217;ll find an ultimate model for the physics of our actual, physical universe. Perhaps we&#8217;ll find the keys to many longstanding mysteries in science. Of one thing I am certain: in the computational universe there is a huge amount that we can mine for human purposes&mdash;for creating technology, or art, or other things that we as humans use.</p> <p>For millennia, we have mined the natural world for objects and materials that we can use. But when it comes to procedures, forms or algorithms, we have tended to create them incrementally using traditional engineering methods. The computational universe provides a fantastically new rich source.</p> <p>I and others have already created a growing body of technology derived from &#8220;mining&#8221; the computational universe. And this process will surely accelerate&mdash;so that in a few decades I expect that there will be more new technology obtained by mining the computational universe than by all traditional methods put together.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="There&#8217;s a lot still to discover about the computational universe. It&#8217;s like many past explorations&#038;mdash&#8217;whether of the flora and fauna of Earth, of the chemicals that can be created or of the diversity of astronomical objects. We&#8217;ve learned enough to be able to do some basic classification, and we&#8217;ve been able to guess at some general principles. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> There’s a lot still to discover about the computational universe. It’s like many past explorations&mdash’whether of the flora and fauna of Earth, of the chemicals that can be created or of the diversity of astronomical objects. We’ve learned enough to be able to do some basic classification, and we’ve been able to guess at some general principles. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="science" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=science">Science</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives science" data-position="normal" data-date="2008-11-12 17:49:43"> <p class="date">November 12, 2008</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.stephenwolfram.com/media/five-questions-about-complexity/'>Interview by Carlos Gershenson, <em>Complexity: 5 Questions</em></a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2008/11/12/how-do-you-see-the-future-of-complexity-including-obstacles-dangers-promises-and-relations-with-other-areas/">How do you see the future of complexity (including obstacles, dangers, promises and relations with other areas)?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>It&#8217;s already underway&#8230; but in the years and decades to come we&#8217;re going to see a fundamental change in the approach to both science and technology. We&#8217;re going to see much simpler underlying systems and rules, with much more complex behavior, all over the place.</p> <p>Sometimes we&#8217;re going to see &#8220;off-the-shelf&#8221; systems being used&mdash;specific systems that have already been studied in the basic science that&#8217;s been done. And often we&#8217;re going to see systems being used that were found &#8220;on demand&#8221; by doing explicit searches of the computational universe.</p> <p>In science, our explorations of the computational universe have greatly expanded the range of models that are available for us to use. And we&#8217;ve realized that rich, complex behavior that we see can potentially be generated by models that are simple enough that we can realistically just explicitly search for them in the computational universe.</p> <p>In technology, we&#8217;re used to the standard approach to engineering: to the idea that humans have to create systems one step at a time, in a sense always understanding each step. What we&#8217;ve now realized is that it&#8217;s possible to find great technology just by &#8220;mining&#8221; the computational universe. There are lots and lots of systems out there&mdash;often defined by very simple programs&mdash;that we can see do very rich and complex things.</p> <p>In the past, we&#8217;ve been used to creating some of our technology just by picking up things in nature&mdash;say magnets or cotton or liquid crystals&mdash;then figuring out how to use them for our purposes. The same is possible on a much larger scale with the abstract systems in the computational universe. For example, in building Mathematica, we&#8217;re increasingly using algorithms that were &#8220;mined&#8221; from the computational universe, rather than being explicitly constructed step by step by a human.</p> <p>I think we&#8217;re going to see a huge explosion of technology &#8220;mined&#8221; from the computational universe. It&#8217;s all going to depend on the crucial fundamental scientific fact that even very simple programs can make complexity. And the result is that in time, &#8220;complexity&#8221; will be all around us&mdash;not only in nature, but also in the technology we create.</p> <p>When I started working on complexity nearly 30 years ago, the intuition was that complexity was a rare and difficult thing to get. In the future, everyone will be so exposed from an early age to technology that&#8217;s based on complexity that all those ideas that seem so hard for people to grasp now will become absolutely commonplace&mdash;and taken for granted.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="It&#8217;s already underway&#8230; but in the years and decades to come we&#8217;re going to see a fundamental change in the approach to both science and technology. We&#8217;re going to see much simpler underlying systems and rules, with much more complex behavior, all over the place. Sometimes we&#8217;re going to see &#8220;off-the-shelf&#8221; <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> It’s already underway… but in the years and decades to come we’re going to see a fundamental change in the approach to both science and technology. We’re going to see much simpler underlying systems and rules, with much more complex behavior, all over the place. Sometimes we’re going to see “off-the-shelf” <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="science" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=science">Science</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives" data-position="normal" data-date="2009-08-31 17:31:06"> <p class="date">August 31, 2009</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.crazyengineers.com/threads/dr-stephen-wolfram-wolframalpha-mathematica-a-new-kind-of-science.62790' target='_blank'>Interview by Kaustubh Katdare, <em>CrazyEngineers</em></a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2009/08/31/how-do-you-think-dependence-on-computers-will-affect-us-in-future/">How do you think dependence on computers will affect us in the future?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>Throughout human history, progress has tended to be about automating more and more things, so we as humans don&#8217;t have to do them ourselves. Computers are an important new step in this direction. So far we&#8217;ve only seen the very beginning of what they&#8217;ll let us do. Broad access to computable knowledge is going to be pretty important. But ultimately I think what&#8217;s going to be most important is the new kind of technology we can get by &#8220;mining&#8221; the computational universe. Right now when we create technology, we do it by building it up step-by-step as human engineers. But what NKS shows us is that we can just go out into the universe of simple programs, and search for ones that achieve our technological purposes. We now do this a lot in building Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha. But it&#8217;s going to become ubiquitous. And it&#8217;s going to lead to all sorts of technology that we as humans can&#8217;t imagine.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="Throughout human history, progress has tended to be about automating more and more things, so we as humans don&#8217;t have to do them ourselves. Computers are an important new step in this direction. So far we&#8217;ve only seen the very beginning of what they&#8217;ll let us do. Broad access to computable knowledge is going to be pretty important. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> Throughout human history, progress has tended to be about automating more and more things, so we as humans don’t have to do them ourselves. Computers are an important new step in this direction. So far we’ve only seen the very beginning of what they’ll let us do. Broad access to computable knowledge is going to be pretty important. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives wolfram-language" data-position="normal" data-date="2009-08-31 21:48:08"> <p class="date">August 31, 2009</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.crazyengineers.com/threads/dr-stephen-wolfram-wolframalpha-mathematica-a-new-kind-of-science.62790' target='_blank'>Interview by Kaustubh Katdare, <em>CrazyEngineers</em></a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2009/08/31/what-kind-of-problems-can-we-attempt-to-solve-in-the-future-using-mathematica/">What kind of problems can we attempt to solve in the future using Mathematica?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>Anything that can be made computational! There&#8217;s a huge knowledgebase of algorithms and data now in Mathematica. And the symbolic programming paradigm that underlies Mathematica has turned out to be incredibly general and powerful. It&#8217;s really fun for me to see how incredibly productive people who know Mathematica well can be. They seem to be able to solve pretty much any kind of computational problem with it&mdash;very fast.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="Anything that can be made computational! There&#8217;s a huge knowledgebase of algorithms and data now in Mathematica. And the symbolic programming paradigm that underlies Mathematica has turned out to be incredibly general and powerful. It&#8217;s really fun for me to see how incredibly productive people who know Mathematica well can be. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> Anything that can be made computational! There’s a huge knowledgebase of algorithms and data now in Mathematica. And the symbolic programming paradigm that underlies Mathematica has turned out to be incredibly general and powerful. It’s really fun for me to see how incredibly productive people who know Mathematica well can be. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="wolfram-language" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=wolfram-language">Wolfram Language</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives" data-position="normal" data-date="2012-05-14 15:08:10"> <p class="date">May 14, 2012</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/tmutz/stephen_wolfram_nks_10th_anniversary/c4nyuc5/' target='_blank'>Reddit AMA</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2012/05/14/is-there-any-validity-in-the-talk-about-the-singularity-and-transhumanism/">Is there any validity in the talk about the Singularity and Transhumanism?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>Transhumanism: yes. Singularity: depends what one means. I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s going to be a dramatic moment; more a process.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="Transhumanism: yes. Singularity: depends what one means. I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s going to be a dramatic moment; more a process."> Transhumanism: yes. Singularity: depends what one means. I don’t think it’s going to be a dramatic moment; more a process. </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives science" data-position="normal" data-date="2012-05-14 15:09:21"> <p class="date">May 14, 2012</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/tmutz/stephen_wolfram_nks_10th_anniversary/c4nyuc5/' target='_blank'>Reddit AMA</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2012/05/14/will-we-ever-formulate-the-grand-unified-field-theory-or-will-it-always-be-a-mystery-to-us/">Will we ever formulate the Grand Unified Field Theory, or will it always be a mystery to us?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>It&#8217;s hard to know for sure&#8230; but my guess is that we will find an easy-to-describe theory of physics. It might even happen soon. I&#8217;m guessing we have the science and technology needed to do it. Now it&#8217;s just a question of deciding it&#8217;s possible, and putting all the effort in&#8230;</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="It&#8217;s hard to know for sure&#8230; but my guess is that we will find an easy-to-describe theory of physics. It might even happen soon. I&#8217;m guessing we have the science and technology needed to do it. Now it&#8217;s just a question of deciding it&#8217;s possible, and putting all the effort in&#8230;"> It’s hard to know for sure… but my guess is that we will find an easy-to-describe theory of physics. It might even happen soon. I’m guessing we have the science and technology needed to do it. Now it’s just a question of deciding it’s possible, and putting all the effort in… </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="science" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=science">Science</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives science" data-position="normal" data-date="2012-05-14 16:39:39"> <p class="date">May 14, 2012</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/tmutz/stephen_wolfram_nks_10th_anniversary/c4nyw03/' target='_blank'>Reddit AMA</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2012/05/14/do-you-have-any-sci-fi-type-ideas-that-you-really-think-are-achievable-within-your-lifetime-faster-than-light-travel-meeting-extraterrestrial-intelligent-life-things-of-that-sort/">Do you have any sci-fi type ideas that you really think are achievable within your lifetime? Faster-than-light travel, meeting extraterrestrial intelligent life, things of that sort.</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>Well&#8230; some things may actually be impossible&#8230; and I even wrote an essay about that a little while ago: <a href='https://www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/recent/fqxi09/'>https://www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/recent/fqxi09/</a></p> <p>Some things may happen gradually; others may be the result of a sudden discovery.</p> <p>I&#8217;m guessing &#8220;AI&#8221; (with some footnotes about what it means) will happen gradually, as will the merger of humans with machines.</p> <p>Something like cryonics might happen suddenly. Effective human immortality will probably be gradual.</p> <p>I&#8217;m guessing faster-than-light travel is outright impossible in the way we currently think about it. But somehow when our existence is more virtual and distributed it may seem like less of an issue.</p> <p>Extraterrestrial intelligence: I&#8217;ve been interested in that one for a long time&#8230; I have a bad feeling, though, that the question doesn&#8217;t even really make sense. As a consequence of the Principle of Computational Equivalence, lots of things in our universe should really be thought of as &#8220;intelligent&#8221;&#8230; and we have to be more specific, asking about human-like civilization histories&#8230; and that&#8217;s a very different story.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="Well&#8230; some things may actually be impossible&#8230; and I even wrote an essay about that a little while ago: <a href='https://www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/recent/fqxi09/'>https://www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/recent/fqxi09/</a> Some things may happen gradually; others may be the result of a sudden discovery. I&#8217;m guessing &#8220;AI&#8221; (with some footnotes about what it means) will happen gradually, as will the merger of humans with machines. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> Well… some things may actually be impossible… and I even wrote an essay about that a little while ago: <a href='https://www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/recent/fqxi09/'>https://www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/recent/fqxi09/</a> Some things may happen gradually; others may be the result of a sudden discovery. I’m guessing “AI” (with some footnotes about what it means) will happen gradually, as will the merger of humans with machines. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="science" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=science">Science</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives science" data-position="normal" data-date="2012-05-14 20:18:26"> <p class="date">May 14, 2012</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/tmutz/stephen_wolfram_nks_10th_anniversary/c4nyzpc/' target='_blank'>Reddit AMA</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2012/05/14/what-will-be-the-most-promising-topics-of-research-in-computational-science-in-the-near-future/">What will be the most promising topics of research in computational science in the near future?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>There are lots. Including many based on NKS&#8230; some of which I touched on in a blog post I did today: <a href='https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2012/05/looking-to-the-future-of-a-new-kind-of-science/'>https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2012/05/looking-to-the-future-of-a-new-kind-of-science/</a></p> <p>It&#8217;d be fun to make an organized list, though. Perhaps something for our annual summer school <a href='https://education.wolfram.com/summer/school/'>https://education.wolfram.com/summer/school/</a></p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="There are lots. Including many based on NKS&#8230; some of which I touched on in a blog post I did today: <a href='https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2012/05/looking-to-the-future-of-a-new-kind-of-science/'>https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2012/05/looking-to-the-future-of-a-new-kind-of-science/</a> It&#8217;d be fun to make an organized list, though. Perhaps something for our annual summer school <a href='https://education.wolfram.com/summer/school/'>https://education.wolfram.com/summer/school/</a> <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> There are lots. Including many based on NKS… some of which I touched on in a blog post I did today: <a href='https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2012/05/looking-to-the-future-of-a-new-kind-of-science/'>https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2012/05/looking-to-the-future-of-a-new-kind-of-science/</a> It’d be fun to make an organized list, though. Perhaps something for our annual summer school <a href='https://education.wolfram.com/summer/school/'>https://education.wolfram.com/summer/school/</a> <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="science" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=science">Science</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives" data-position="normal" data-date="2013-04-26 16:18:06"> <p class="date">April 26, 2013</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/7542' target='_blank'>Interview by Patrick Tucker, IEET</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2013/04/26/given-the-future-of-digitized-knowledge-the-exponential-growth-in-structured-and-unstructured-data-that-we-can-look-forward-to-over-the-coming-decades-is-it-possible-that-the-space-of-irreducible-kn/">Given the future of digitized knowledge, the exponential growth in structured and unstructured data that we can look forward to over the coming decades, is it possible that the space of irreducible knowledge, of unpredictable knowledge鈥攚hile it will still always exist鈥攊s shrinking? Would this mean that the space of predictable knowledge is in fact growing?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>Interesting question. Once we know enough, will we just be able to predict everything? In Wolfram|Alpha, for example, we know how to compute lots of things that you might have imagined weren&#8217;t predictable. You have a tree in your backyard. It&#8217;s such and such a size right now. How big will it be in 10 years? It&#8217;s now more or less predictable.</p> <p>As we accumulate more data, there will certainly be patterns that can be seen, and things that one can readily see that are predictable. You can expect to have a dashboard&mdash;with certain constraints&mdash;showing how things are likely to evolve for you. You then get to make decisions: <em>Should I do this? Should I do that?</em></p> <p>But some part of the world is never going to be predictable. It just has this kind of computational irreducibility. We just have to watch it unfold, so to speak. There&#8217;s no way we can outrun it. I suspect that, in lots of practical situations, things will become a lot more predictable. That&#8217;s a big part of what we&#8217;re trying to address with Wolfram|Alpha. Take the corpus of knowledge that our civilization has accumulated and set it up so that you can automatically make use of it.</p> <p>There are three reasons why one can&#8217;t predict the things that can&#8217;t be predicted. The first reason is not enough underlying data. The second is computational irreducibility&mdash;it&#8217;s just hard to predict. The third is simply not knowing enough to be able to predict something. You, as an individual, don&#8217;t happen to know enough about that particular area to be able to do it. I&#8217;m trying to solve that problem.</p> <p>We&#8217;re seeing a transition happening right now, and more and more things can be figured out in an automatic way. We&#8217;re seeing computation that is finally impinging on our lives in a very direct way. There are lots of things that used to be up to us to estimate, but now they&#8217;re just being computed for us: a camera that auto focuses, for example, or that picks out faces and figures what to do, or automatically clicks the shutter when it sees a smile&mdash;those kinds of things. Those are all very human judgment activities, and now they&#8217;re automated.</p> <p>I think this is the trend of technology. It&#8217;s the one thing, I suppose, in human history that has actually had a progression: There&#8217;s more technology; there are more layers of automation about what we do.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="Interesting question. Once we know enough, will we just be able to predict everything? In Wolfram|Alpha, for example, we know how to compute lots of things that you might have imagined weren&#8217;t predictable. You have a tree in your backyard. It&#8217;s such and such a size right now. How big will it be in 10 years? <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> Interesting question. Once we know enough, will we just be able to predict everything? In Wolfram|Alpha, for example, we know how to compute lots of things that you might have imagined weren’t predictable. You have a tree in your backyard. It’s such and such a size right now. How big will it be in 10 years? <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives just-curious" data-position="normal" data-date="2013-04-26 16:21:27"> <p class="date">April 26, 2013</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/7542' target='_blank'>Interview by Patrick Tucker, IEET</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2013/04/26/where-do-you-see-yourself-in-10-years-and-what-do-you-see-yourself-having-accomplished-10-years-from-now/">Where do you see yourself in 10 years? And what do you see yourself having accomplished 10 years from now?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>Well, that&#8217;s an interesting question. My gosh. That&#8217;s the kind of question one&#8217;s supposed to ask at a job interview. I never ask those, because I always figure that they&#8217;re silly questions. I&#8217;m hoping I&#8217;ll do a few new things. We&#8217;ll see. For the last decade, Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha were my main activities. I felt pretty good about those. I hope for a few more in the decade to come.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="Well, that&#8217;s an interesting question. My gosh. That&#8217;s the kind of question one&#8217;s supposed to ask at a job interview. I never ask those, because I always figure that they&#8217;re silly questions. I&#8217;m hoping I&#8217;ll do a few new things. We&#8217;ll see. For the last decade, Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha were my main activities. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> Well, that’s an interesting question. My gosh. That’s the kind of question one’s supposed to ask at a job interview. I never ask those, because I always figure that they’re silly questions. I’m hoping I’ll do a few new things. We’ll see. For the last decade, Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha were my main activities. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="just-curious" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=just-curious">Just Curious...</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives science" data-position="normal" data-date="2013-04-26 20:30:02"> <p class="date">April 26, 2013</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/7542' target='_blank'>Interview by Patrick Tucker, IEET</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2013/04/26/your-seminal-book-a-new-kind-of-science-is-ten-years-old-you-recently-wrote-a-blog-post-on-the-anniversary-can-you-talk-a-little-bit-about-the-future-of-science/">Your seminal book, <em>A New Kind of Science</em>, is ten years old. You recently wrote a blog post on the anniversary. Can you talk a little bit about the future of science?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>The main idea of <em>A New Kind of Science</em> was to introduce a new way to model things in the world. Three hundred years ago, there was this big transformation in science when it was realized that one could use math, and the formal structure of math, to talk about the natural world. Using math, one could actually compute what should happen in the world—how planets should move, how comets should move, and all those kinds of things.</p> <p>That has been the dominant paradigm for the last 300 years for the exact sciences. Essentially it says, <em>Let&#8217;s find a math equation that represents what we&#8217;re talking about, and let&#8217;s use that math equation to predict what a system will do</em>. That paradigm has also been the basis for most of our engineering: <em>Let&#8217;s figure out how this bridge should work using calculus equations</em>, and so on. Or, <em>Let&#8217;s work out this electric circuit using some other kind of differential equation</em>, or <em>algebraic equation</em> or whatever.</p> <p>That approach has been pretty successful for lots of things. It&#8217;s led to a certain choice of subject matter for science, because the science has tended to choose subject matter where it can be successful.</p> <p>The same is true with engineering. We&#8217;ve pursued the particular directions of engineering because we know how to make them work. My goal was to look at the things that science has not traditionally had so much to say about—typically, systems that are more complex in their behavior, and so on—and to ask what we can do with these.</p> <p>It&#8217;s a great approach, but it&#8217;s limited. The question is, what&#8217;s the space with all possible models that you can imagine using?</p> <p>A good way to describe that space is to think about computer programs. Any program is [a set of] defined rules for how a system works. For example, when we look at nature, we would ask what kinds of programs <em>nature</em> is using to do what it does, to grow the biological organisms it grows, how fluids flow the way they do—all those kinds of things.</p> <p>I&#8217;ve discovered that very simple programs can serve as remarkably accurate models for lots of things that happen in nature. In natural science, that gives us a vastly better pool of possible models to use than we had from just math. We then see that these may be good models for how nature works. They tell us something about how nature is so easily able to make all this complicated stuff that would be very hard for us to make if we just imagined that nature worked according to math.</p> <p>Now we realize that there&#8217;s a whole different kind of engineering that we can do, and we can look at all of these possible simple programs and use those to create our engineering systems.</p> <p>This is different from the traditional approach, where I would say, <em>I know these things that work. I know about levers. I know about pulleys. I know about this. I know about that. Let me incrementally build the system where I, as an engineer, know every step of how the thing is going to work as I construct it</em>.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="The main idea of <em>A New Kind of Science</em> was to introduce a new way to model things in the world. Three hundred years ago, there was this big transformation in science when it was realized that one could use math, and the formal structure of math, to talk about the natural world. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> The main idea of <em>A New Kind of Science</em> was to introduce a new way to model things in the world. Three hundred years ago, there was this big transformation in science when it was realized that one could use math, and the formal structure of math, to talk about the natural world. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="science" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=science">Science</a> </div> </div> <div class="project artificial-intelligence future-perspectives" data-position="normal" data-date="2015-07-27 16:57:30"> <p class="date">July 27, 2015</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://gigaom.com/2015/07/27/interview-with-stephen-wolfram-on-ai-and-the-future/' target='_blank'>Interview by Byron Reese, <em>Gigaom</em></a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2015/07/27/how-many-years-away-in-your-mind-are-we-from-airobot-rights-becoming-a-mainstream-topic-is-this-a-decade-or-25-years-or/">How many years away, in your mind, are we from AI/robot rights becoming a mainstream topic? Is this a decade, or 25 years, or …?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>I think more like a decade. Look, there&#8217;s going to be skirmish issues that come up more immediately. The issues that come up more immediately are, &#8220;Are AIs responsible?&#8221; That is, if your self-driving car&#8217;s AI glitches in some way, who is really responsible for that? That&#8217;s going to be a pretty near-term issue. There&#8217;re going to be issues about, &#8220;Is the bot a slave, basically? Is the bot an owned slave, or not? And at what point is the bot responsible for its actions, as opposed to the owner of the bot? Can there be un-owned bots?&#8221; That one, just for my amusement, I&#8217;ve thought about how it would work, in the way the world was set up in the very amusing scenarios of un-owned bots, where it&#8217;s just not clear who has the right to anything with this thing, because it doesn&#8217;t have an owner. A lot of the legal system is set up to depend on&mdash;okay, companies were one example. There was a time when it was just, &#8220;there&#8217;s a person, and they&#8217;re responsible&#8221;, and then there started to be this idea of a company.</p> <p>So I think the answer is that there will be skirmish issues that come up in the fairly near term. In the kind of the big &#8220;bots as another form of intelligence on our planet&#8221;-type thing, I&#8217;m not sure&#8230; Right now, the bots don&#8217;t have advocacy, particularly, for them, but I think there will be scenarios in which that will end up happening. As I say, these things about the extent to which a bot is merely a slave of its owner. I don&#8217;t even know what happened historically with that, to what extent there was responsibility on the part of the owner. The emancipation of the bots, it&#8217;s a curious thing. Here&#8217;s another scenario. When humans die, which they will continue to do for a while, but many aspects of them are captured in bots, it will seem a little less like, &#8220;Oh, it&#8217;s just a bot. It&#8217;s just a bag of bits that&#8217;s a bot&#8221;. It will be more like, &#8220;Well, this is a bot that sort of captures some of the soul of this person, but it&#8217;s just a bot&#8221;. And maybe it&#8217;s a bot that continues to evolve on its own, independent of that particular person. And then what happens to that sort of person-seeded but evolved thought? And at what point do you start feeling, &#8220;Well, I don&#8217;t think&mdash;it isn&#8217;t really right to just say, &#8216;Oh, this bot is just a thing that can be switched off and that doesn&#8217;t have any expectation of protection and continued existence, and so on&rsquo;&#8221;.</p> <p>I think that that&#8217;s a transitional phenomenon. I think it&#8217;s going to be a long time before there is serious discussion of generic cellular automata having rights, if that ever happens. In other words, something disconnected from the history of our civilization, something that is not connected to and informed by the kinds of things&mdash;in this kind of knowledge-based, language way of creating things, that&#8217;s going to be a much more near-term issue. At some level, then, we&#8217;re back to, &#8220;Does the weather have a mind of its own?&#8221; and &#8220;Do we have to give rights to every animistic?&#8221; It&#8217;s animism turned into a legal system, and, of course, there are places where that&#8217;s effectively happening. But the justification is not, &#8220;Don&#8217;t mess with the climate. It has a soul-type thing&#8221;. That&#8217;s not really the rhetoric about that, although I suppose with the Gaia hypothesis, one might not be so far away from that.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="I think more like a decade. Look, there&#8217;s going to be skirmish issues that come up more immediately. The issues that come up more immediately are, &#8220;Are AIs responsible?&#8221; That is, if your self-driving car&#8217;s AI glitches in some way, who is really responsible for that? That&#8217;s going to be a pretty near-term issue. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> I think more like a decade. Look, there’s going to be skirmish issues that come up more immediately. The issues that come up more immediately are, “Are AIs responsible?” That is, if your self-driving car’s AI glitches in some way, who is really responsible for that? That’s going to be a pretty near-term issue. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="artificial-intelligence" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=artificial-intelligence">Artificial Intelligence</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives" data-position="normal" data-date="2016-02-23 16:45:20"> <p class="date">February 23, 2016</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/478njk/im_stephen_wolframask_me_anything/d0b2qyx/' target='_blank'>Reddit AMA</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2016/02/23/what-are-your-thoughts-about-the-singularity/">What are your thoughts about the singularity?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>I think different people mean different things by it. (Long ago I met I. J. Good, who I believe invented the term &#8220;intelligence explosion&#8221;&#8230; but we mostly talked about biological not technological evolution&#8230;) Gosh, there&#8217;s a lot to say about this. My Principle of Computational Equivalence implies that &#8220;intelligence&#8221; exists in lots of things, with a great deal of equivalence, making the idea of &#8220;superintelligence&#8221; less plausible. I think I shouldn&#8217;t start writing about this here, or I won&#8217;t get any other questions answered. I would say that I think the most practical &#8220;singularity&#8221; for our species will come when we achieve effective human immortality. Maybe I&#8217;ll come back to this question later in this AMA if there&#8217;s still time.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="I think different people mean different things by it. (Long ago I met I. J. Good, who I believe invented the term &#8220;intelligence explosion&#8221;&#8230; but we mostly talked about biological not technological evolution&#8230;) Gosh, there&#8217;s a lot to say about this. My Principle of Computational Equivalence implies that &#8220;intelligence&#8221; exists in lots of things, <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> I think different people mean different things by it. (Long ago I met I. J. Good, who I believe invented the term “intelligence explosion”… but we mostly talked about biological not technological evolution…) Gosh, there’s a lot to say about this. My Principle of Computational Equivalence implies that “intelligence” exists in lots of things, <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives" data-position="normal" data-date="2016-07-20 15:18:54"> <p class="date">July 20, 2016</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4tspts/im_stephen_wolframask_me_anything/d5k06kw/' target='_blank'>Reddit AMA</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2016/07/20/how-realistic-do-you-think-it-is-for-data-science-as-a-career-to-become-obsolete-due-to-automation-in-the-next-twenty-years/">How realistic do you think it is for data science as a career to become obsolete due to automation in the next twenty years?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>What&#8217;ll always be important is figuring out what questions one cares about. One of the things we&#8217;re doing with the Wolfram Language is to automate a very broad range of the actual operations one needs to do in data science. Oh, and we already have lots of machine learning capabilities for pulling out &#8220;interesting things&#8221;&#8230;</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="What&#8217;ll always be important is figuring out what questions one cares about. One of the things we&#8217;re doing with the Wolfram Language is to automate a very broad range of the actual operations one needs to do in data science. Oh, and we already have lots of machine learning capabilities for pulling out &#8220;interesting things&#8221;&#8230;"> What’ll always be important is figuring out what questions one cares about. One of the things we’re doing with the Wolfram Language is to automate a very broad range of the actual operations one needs to do in data science. Oh, and we already have lots of machine learning capabilities for pulling out “interesting things”… </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives" data-position="normal" data-date="2016-11-21 17:44:11"> <p class="date">November 21, 2016</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.space.com/34783-stephen-wolfram-arrival-interview.html' target='_blank'>Interview by Sarah Lewin, Space.com</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2016/11/21/is-there-any-concept-you-invented-for-the-movie-arrival-that-youre-thinking-about-exploring-more/">Is there any concept you invented for the movie <em>Arrival</em> that you’re thinking about exploring more?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>[One] thing that I did think about for this movie is the following question: Is there an infinite frontier of technology? If we know the fundamental theory of physics, are we done, or is there always more to discover? What you realize is it&#8217;s very similar to the problem of axioms in mathematics and how math is hard, and ideas like Gödel&#8217;s Theorem&mdash;it&#8217;s an almost theoretically necessary fact that there is an infinite frontier of technologies to discover. You can always build a more complicated program.</p> <p>Another question is, is there more interesting stuff to discover? We can write down an infinite number of theorems in some area of mathematics, but we might say we&#8217;ve gotten all the interesting ones. All the other ones are ornate, uninteresting things. That&#8217;s a really interesting question I don&#8217;t really know the answer to.</p> <p>The question of interestingness is very closely related to these questions about purpose and cultural context, because what counts as interesting [depends on] what are you trying to do. A good example of this, coming from the Pythagoreans: they were really into the fact that 1+2+3+4=10, something that we consider now to be just, who cares. But for them, that was a profound fact. And I think that&#8217;s an example of, is it interesting, or is it just some trivial arithmetical fact? It depends a lot on context.</p> <p>It&#8217;s far from obvious that as an alien you are going to be at all into trying to find out as much as possible. That might not be the point. </p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="[One] thing that I did think about for this movie is the following question: Is there an infinite frontier of technology? If we know the fundamental theory of physics, are we done, or is there always more to discover? What you realize is it&#8217;s very similar to the problem of axioms in mathematics and how math is hard, <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> [One] thing that I did think about for this movie is the following question: Is there an infinite frontier of technology? If we know the fundamental theory of physics, are we done, or is there always more to discover? What you realize is it’s very similar to the problem of axioms in mathematics and how math is hard, <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives wolfram-language" data-position="normal" data-date="2017-03-08 22:28:26"> <p class="date">March 8, 2017</p> <p class="asker">From: Interview by John Horgan, <em>Scientific American</em></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2017/03/08/whats-the-ultimate-purpose-of-the-wolfram-language-can-it-fulfill-leibnizs-dream-of-a-language-that-can-help-us-resolve-all-questions-moral-as-well-as-scientific-can-it-provide-a-means-of-unamb/">What’s the ultimate purpose of the Wolfram Language? Can it fulfill Leibniz’s dream of a language that can help us resolve all questions, moral as well as scientific? Can it provide a means of unambiguous communication between all intelligent entities, whether biological or artificial?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>My goal with the Wolfram Language is to have a language in which computations can conveniently be expressed for both humans and machines&#8212;and in which we&#8217;ve integrated as much knowledge about computation and about the world as possible. In a way, the Wolfram Language is aimed at finally achieving some of the goals Leibniz had 300 years ago. We now know&#8212;as a result of Gödel&#8217;s theorem, computational irreducibility, etc.&#8212;that there are limits to the scientific questions that can be resolved. And as far as moral questions are concerned: well, the Wolfram Language is going in the direction of at least being able to express things like moral principles, but it can&#8217;t invent those; they have to come from humans and human society.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="My goal with the Wolfram Language is to have a language in which computations can conveniently be expressed for both humans and machines&#8212;and in which we&#8217;ve integrated as much knowledge about computation and about the world as possible. In a way, the Wolfram Language is aimed at finally achieving some of the goals Leibniz had 300 years ago. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> My goal with the Wolfram Language is to have a language in which computations can conveniently be expressed for both humans and machines—and in which we’ve integrated as much knowledge about computation and about the world as possible. In a way, the Wolfram Language is aimed at finally achieving some of the goals Leibniz had 300 years ago. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="wolfram-language" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=wolfram-language">Wolfram Language</a> </div> </div> <div class="project artificial-intelligence future-perspectives" data-position="normal" data-date="2017-03-08 22:39:24"> <p class="date">March 8, 2017</p> <p class="asker">From: Interview by John Horgan, <em>Scientific American</em></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2017/03/08/are-autonomous-machines-capable-of-choosing-their-own-goals-inevitable-is-there-anything-we-humans-do-that-cannot-or-should-not-be-automated/">Are autonomous machines, capable of choosing their own goals, inevitable? Is there anything we humans do that cannot—or should not—be automated?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>When we see a rock fall, we could say either that it&#8217;s following a law of motion that makes it fall, or that it&#8217;s achieving the &#8220;goal&#8221; of being in a lower-potential-energy state. When machines&#8212;or for that matter, brains&#8212;operate, we can describe them either as just following their rules, or as &#8220;achieving certain goals&#8221;. And sometimes the rules will be complicated to state, but the goals are simpler, so we&#8217;ll emphasize the description in terms of goals.</p> <p>What is inevitable about future machines is that they&#8217;ll operate in ways we can&#8217;t immediately foresee. In fact, that happens all the time already; it&#8217;s what bugs in programs are all about. Will we choose to describe their behavior in terms of goals? Maybe sometimes. Not least because it&#8217;ll give us a human-like context for understanding what they&#8217;re doing.</p> <p>The main thing we humans do that can&#8217;t meaningfully be automated is to decide what we ultimately want to do. </p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="When we see a rock fall, we could say either that it&#8217;s following a law of motion that makes it fall, or that it&#8217;s achieving the &#8220;goal&#8221; of being in a lower-potential-energy state. When machines&#8212;or for that matter, brains&#8212;operate, we can describe them either as just following their rules, or as &#8220;achieving certain goals&#8221;. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> When we see a rock fall, we could say either that it’s following a law of motion that makes it fall, or that it’s achieving the “goal” of being in a lower-potential-energy state. When machines—or for that matter, brains—operate, we can describe them either as just following their rules, or as “achieving certain goals”. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="artificial-intelligence" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=artificial-intelligence">Artificial Intelligence</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives just-curious" data-position="normal" data-date="2017-03-08 22:45:58"> <p class="date">March 8, 2017</p> <p class="asker">From: Interview by John Horgan, <em>Scientific American</em></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2017/03/08/whats-your-utopia/">What’s your utopia?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>If you mean: what do I personally want to do all day? Well, I&#8217;ve been fortunate that I&#8217;ve been able to set up my life to let me spend a large fraction of my time doing what I want to be doing, which usually means creating things and figuring things out. I like building large, elegant, useful, intellectual and practical structures&#8212;which is what I hope I&#8217;ve done over a long period of time, for example, with Wolfram Language.</p> <p>If you&#8217;re asking what I see as being the best ultimate outcome for our whole species&#8212;well, that&#8217;s a much more difficult question, though I&#8217;ve certainly thought about it. Yes, there are things we want now&#8212;but how what we want will evolve after we&#8217;ve got those things is, I think, almost impossible for us to understand. Look at what people see as goals today, and think how difficult it would be to explain many of them to someone even a few centuries ago. Human goals will certainly evolve, and the things people will think are the best possible things to do in the future may well be things we don&#8217;t even have words for yet.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="If you mean: what do I personally want to do all day? Well, I&#8217;ve been fortunate that I&#8217;ve been able to set up my life to let me spend a large fraction of my time doing what I want to be doing, which usually means creating things and figuring things out. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> If you mean: what do I personally want to do all day? Well, I’ve been fortunate that I’ve been able to set up my life to let me spend a large fraction of my time doing what I want to be doing, which usually means creating things and figuring things out. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="just-curious" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=just-curious">Just Curious...</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives" data-position="normal" data-date="2018-04-03 20:22:05"> <p class="date">April 3, 2018</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.space.com/40175-2001-50th-with-stephen-wolfram.html' target='_blank'>Interview by Harrison Tasoff, Space.com</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2018/04/03/works-of-science-fiction-make-many-predictions-what-differentiates-the-things-that-wont-happen-from-those-that-havent-happened-yet/">Works of science fiction make many predictions. What differentiates the things that won’t happen from those that haven’t happened yet?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>In the course of my life, for example, probably the thing that has most dramatically changed is computers. And what&#8217;s perhaps interesting about that is there are many things that happened as a result that were not readily predictable.</p> <p>There are details [in the movie] like the fact that they don&#8217;t have the idea of multiple windows. So they put every different function in a different screen. That&#8217;s something which isn&#8217;t going to happen that way just because people figured out a better way to do it.</p> <p>People at one time thought there would be cities in the deep ocean. That hasn&#8217;t happened, and my guess is it won&#8217;t happen. But it&#8217;s not that there&#8217;s something physically impossible about it; the main reason is because people don&#8217;t care.</p> <p>I think space in the last 50 years is an example of &#8220;it turned out we didn&#8217;t care that much&#8221;. And that&#8217;s maybe turning around, again for very random reasons.</p> <p>If you asked the question, &#8220;Is there something that is driving space exploration today?&#8221; the answer is: it&#8217;s a bunch of people who grew up in a certain generation, who made enough money to waste some of it trying to build rockets. And I think it&#8217;s great. </p> <p>In the late &rsquo;50s and early &rsquo;60s, the driving thing was the Cold War and intercontinental ballistic missiles. That caused things to happen quite quickly at that time. After that, it was like &#8220;who cares?&#8221; Yes, it&#8217;s kind of interesting science, but the typical person doesn&#8217;t really care about exploring the moons of Jupiter. [Whereas] the typical person does care about going on their social network and doing social media for some number of hours per day.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="In the course of my life, for example, probably the thing that has most dramatically changed is computers. And what&#8217;s perhaps interesting about that is there are many things that happened as a result that were not readily predictable. There are details [in the movie] like the fact that they don&#8217;t have the idea of multiple windows. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> In the course of my life, for example, probably the thing that has most dramatically changed is computers. And what’s perhaps interesting about that is there are many things that happened as a result that were not readily predictable. There are details [in the movie] like the fact that they don’t have the idea of multiple windows. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives" data-position="normal" data-date="2018-04-03 20:26:16"> <p class="date">April 3, 2018</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.space.com/40175-2001-50th-with-stephen-wolfram.html' target='_blank'>Interview by Harrison Tasoff, Space.com</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2018/04/03/given-the-differences-between-this-wave-of-space-enthusiasm-and-that-of-the-cold-war-do-you-think-well-see-things-more-like-the-space-travel-depicted-in-2001-a-space-odyssey/">Given the differences between this wave of space enthusiasm and that of the Cold War, do you think we’ll see things more like the space travel depicted in <em>2001: A Space Odyssey</em>?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>I think the answer is yes. When we&#8217;ll see that, I don&#8217;t know.</p> <p>I don&#8217;t know what will cause the everyday person to really experience space. Other than that they see cool pictures sent back from a spacecraft. I think that space today is definitely a spirit of adventure-type activity, as much as anything.</p> <p>Insofar as space becomes a ubiquitous platform, things will emerge that we don&#8217;t expect, and one of them, or several of them, may turn out to be really important. </p> <p>Let me give you an example with computers. Nobody expected word processors.</p> <p>In the 1960s, the concept that you would use computers to do word processing was absurd. Because, how did you use those computers? Well, they were expensive things, they cost millions of dollars each. They were used by specific operators; no ordinary person sat in front of the computer and did anything. You ran your job. It did a big computation and got results.</p> <p>The idea you would waste the time of a computer, sitting, waiting for you to type a key and edit text was absurd. And the fact that word processing was the earliest large-scale application of computers was a weird, unexpected thing.</p> <p>But that came out because computers had become a ubiquitous enough platform, and cheap enough, that you could do something as silly as word processing. The question is, if space becomes cheap enough that any old person can launch a payload into space, what will that then mean? </p> <p>What is the analog of word processing for space?</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="I think the answer is yes. When we&#8217;ll see that, I don&#8217;t know. I don&#8217;t know what will cause the everyday person to really experience space. Other than that they see cool pictures sent back from a spacecraft. I think that space today is definitely a spirit of adventure-type activity, as much as anything. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> I think the answer is yes. When we’ll see that, I don’t know. I don’t know what will cause the everyday person to really experience space. Other than that they see cool pictures sent back from a spacecraft. I think that space today is definitely a spirit of adventure-type activity, as much as anything. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> </div> </div> <div class="project current-events future-perspectives" data-position="normal" data-date="2018-05-14 20:28:51"> <p class="date">May 14, 2018</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.etf.com/sections/features-and-news/blockchain-future-futures' target='_blank'>Interview by Lara Crigger, ETF.com</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2018/05/14/what-sort-of-applications-could-smart-contracts-have-in-the-financial-markets/">What sort of applications could smart contracts have in the financial markets?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>In the world of finance, it&#8217;s already happened a bit. For the last, I don&#8217;t know, 30 years, options [contracts] have been expressed in essentially an algorithmic way.</p> <p>But mortgages haven&#8217;t. So, if you take this multipage mortgage document and express it in computable form, then you can take 10,000 and do systematic analysis on them.</p> <p>That&#8217;s a rather sterile example. But there are plenty of other examples; say, whether you&#8217;ll deliver 10,000 pounds of grade-A bananas to this site at this time.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="In the world of finance, it&#8217;s already happened a bit. For the last, I don&#8217;t know, 30 years, options [contracts] have been expressed in essentially an algorithmic way. But mortgages haven&#8217;t. So, if you take this multipage mortgage document and express it in computable form, then you can take 10,000 and do systematic analysis on them. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> In the world of finance, it’s already happened a bit. For the last, I don’t know, 30 years, options [contracts] have been expressed in essentially an algorithmic way. But mortgages haven’t. So, if you take this multipage mortgage document and express it in computable form, then you can take 10,000 and do systematic analysis on them. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="current-events" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=current-events">Current Events</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives" data-position="normal" data-date="2018-05-29 20:36:55"> <p class="date">May 29, 2018</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://gigaom.com/2018/05/29/voices-in-ai-episode-45-a-conversation-with-stephen-wolfram/' target='_blank'>Interview by Byron Reese, Gigaom.com</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2018/05/29/what-do-you-think-the-future-is-going-to-be-like-in-10-years-20-50-100/">What do you think the future is going to be like, in 10 years, 20, 50, 100?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>What we will see is an increasing mirror on human condition, so to speak. That is, what we are building are things that essentially amplify any aspect of the human condition. Then it, sort of, reflects back on us. What do we want? What are the goals that we want to have achieved? It is a complicated thing because certainly AIs will in some sense run many aspects of the world. Many kinds of systems, there&#8217;s no point in having people run them. They&#8217;re going to be automated in some way or another. Saying it&#8217;s an AI is really just a fancy way of saying it&#8217;s going to be automated. Another question is, well what are the overall principles that those automated systems should follow? For example, one principle that we believe is important right now, is the &#8220;be nice to humans&#8221; principle. That seems like a good one given that we&#8217;re in charge right now, better to set things up so that it&#8217;s like, &#8220;Be nice to humans&#8221;. Even defining what it means to be nice to humans is really complicated. </p> <p>I&#8217;ve been much involved in trying to use Wolfram Language as a way of describing lots of computational things and an increasing number of things about the world. I also want it to be able to describe things like legal contracts and, sort of, desires that people have. Part of the purpose of that is to provide a language that is understandable both to humans and to machines that can say what it is we want to have happen, globally with AIs. What principles, what general ethical principles, and philosophical principles should AIs operate under? We had the Asimov&#8217;s Laws of Robotics, which are a very simple version of that. I think what we&#8217;re going to realize is, we need to define a Constitution for the AIs. And there won&#8217;t be just one because there aren&#8217;t just one set of people. Different people want different kinds of things. And we get thrown into all kinds of political philosophy issues about, should you have an infinite number of countries, effectively, in the world, each with their own AI constitution? How should that work?</p> <p>One of the fun things I was thinking about recently is, in current democracies, one just has people vote on things. It&#8217;s like a multiple-choice answer. One could imagine a situation in which, and I take this mostly as a thought experiment because there are all kinds of practical issues with it, in a world where we&#8217;re not just natural language literate but also computer language literate, and where we have languages, like Wolfram Language which can actually represent real things in the world, one could imagine not just voting, I want A, B, or C, but effectively submitting a program that represents what one wants to see happen in the world. And then the election consists of taking X number of millions of programs and saying &#8220;OK, given these X number of millions of programs, let&#8217;s apply our AI Constitution to figure out, given these programs how do we want the best things to happen in the world&#8221;. Of course, you&#8217;re thrown into the precise issues of the moral philosophers and so on, of what you then want to have happen and whether you want the average happiness of the world to be higher or whether you want the minimum happiness to be at least something or whatever else. </p> <p>There will be an increasing pressure on what should the law-like things, which are really going to be effectively the programs for the AIs, what should they look like. What aspects of the human condition and human preferences should they reflect? How will that work across however many billions of people there are in the world? How does that work when, for example, a lot of the thinking in the world is not done in brains but is done in some more digital form? How does it work when there is no longer&#8230; the notion of a single person, right now that&#8217;s a very clear notion. That won&#8217;t be such a clear notion when more of the thinking is done in digital form. There&#8217;s a lot to say about this.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="What we will see is an increasing mirror on human condition, so to speak. That is, what we are building are things that essentially amplify any aspect of the human condition. Then it, sort of, reflects back on us. What do we want? What are the goals that we want to have achieved? <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> What we will see is an increasing mirror on human condition, so to speak. That is, what we are building are things that essentially amplify any aspect of the human condition. Then it, sort of, reflects back on us. What do we want? What are the goals that we want to have achieved? <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives" data-position="normal" data-date="2019-03-04 16:32:36"> <p class="date">March 4, 2019</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/axf32h/i_am_stephen_wolfram_founder_ceo_of_wolfram/eht73ay/' target='_blank'>Reddit AMA</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2019/03/04/do-you-see-working-from-home-to-be-a-more-common-and-expected-thing-in-the-future/">Do you see working from home to be a more common and expected thing in the future?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>I have to say that I&#8217;ve been &#8220;working from home&#8221; for most of my working life (i.e. 40+ years). I&#8217;ve had some fine offices to go to, but somehow I always end up reverting to working at home. It&#8217;s not that I don&#8217;t like people, but somehow I find I&#8217;m more productive at home. Back in the day (~1980) I worked at home by having a dumb terminal connected to an acoustic coupler continuously dialed up to a computer. [Remarkably, it glitched only about every 6 months&#8230;]</p> <p>At my company, perhaps half our people work at home, scattered around the world. (And some seem to travel randomly from place to place 馃檪 ) I&#8217;m not sure if it works well for everyone, but for the kind of get-things-done people we like, it seems to work well.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="I have to say that I&#8217;ve been &#8220;working from home&#8221; for most of my working life (i.e. 40+ years). I&#8217;ve had some fine offices to go to, but somehow I always end up reverting to working at home. It&#8217;s not that I don&#8217;t like people, but somehow I find I&#8217;m more productive at home. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> I have to say that I’ve been “working from home” for most of my working life (i.e. 40+ years). I’ve had some fine offices to go to, but somehow I always end up reverting to working at home. It’s not that I don’t like people, but somehow I find I’m more productive at home. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives software-technology" data-position="normal" data-date="2019-03-04 16:35:22"> <p class="date">March 4, 2019</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/axf32h/i_am_stephen_wolfram_founder_ceo_of_wolfram/eht6e9x/' target='_blank'>Reddit AMA</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2019/03/04/do-you-think-there-will-ever-be-a-treatment-for-math-disorders-such-as-dyscalculia-and-how-do-you-think-software-may-be-able-to-assist-this-effort/">Do you think there will ever be a treatment for math disorders such as Dyscalculia, and how do you think software may be able to assist this effort?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>When I was a kid I used to claim I was &#8220;math challenged&#8221; (well, I used different words because I spoke British English then). That was why I started building computer tools to help me &#8230; and eventually built Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha, etc.!</p> <p>Even before I&#8217;d built those tools, I was using computers to do math &#8230; and me+computer did really well at math relative to other people, even though me on my own would have done fairly horribly&#8230;..</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="When I was a kid I used to claim I was &#8220;math challenged&#8221; (well, I used different words because I spoke British English then). That was why I started building computer tools to help me &#8230; and eventually built Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha, etc.! Even before I&#8217;d built those tools, I was using computers to do math &#8230; <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> When I was a kid I used to claim I was “math challenged” (well, I used different words because I spoke British English then). That was why I started building computer tools to help me … and eventually built Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha, etc.! Even before I’d built those tools, I was using computers to do math … <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="software-technology" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=software-technology">Software Technology</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives" data-position="normal" data-date="2019-03-04 22:30:20"> <p class="date">March 4, 2019</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/axf32h/i_am_stephen_wolfram_founder_ceo_of_wolfram/eht9vs8/' target='_blank'>Reddit AMA</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2019/03/04/about-mobile-technology-do-you-think-that-smartphones-will-suppress-desktop-computing-what-is-the-future-of-mobile-vs-desktop-computing-in-business-what-do-you-think-about-programming-in-mobile-in/">About mobile technology, do you think that smartphones will suppress desktop computing? What is the future of mobile vs desktop computing in business? What do you think about programming in mobile in the future?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>For myself, I really like having a keyboard that I can type fast on. Our Wolfram Cloud app runs fine on a smartphone, and lets you bring up a notebook and do programming. In a few emergency situations I&#8217;ve used this, and it&#8217;s worked better than I expected. But I can&#8217;t see myself forsaking a keyboard for serious work.</p> <p>I guess the real question is: can things be reduced to point-and-click and/or menus, etc., or is more linguistic communication necessary. I strongly believe that for any form of rich expression, one needs linguistic communication. For natural language, it&#8217;s conceivable to use voice. We&#8217;ve done some experiments on voice-based Wolfram Language programming, but we haven&#8217;t figured it out. (OK, there is one case of that I&#8217;ve seen: I visited a group of 11-year-olds who&#8217;d learned Wolfram Language and were actually able to fluently speak it to each other&#8230; and were pretty disappointed that I couldn&#8217;t immediately understand what they were saying&#8230;)</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="For myself, I really like having a keyboard that I can type fast on. Our Wolfram Cloud app runs fine on a smartphone, and lets you bring up a notebook and do programming. In a few emergency situations I&#8217;ve used this, and it&#8217;s worked better than I expected. But I can&#8217;t see myself forsaking a keyboard for serious work. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> For myself, I really like having a keyboard that I can type fast on. Our Wolfram Cloud app runs fine on a smartphone, and lets you bring up a notebook and do programming. In a few emergency situations I’ve used this, and it’s worked better than I expected. But I can’t see myself forsaking a keyboard for serious work. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives" data-position="normal" data-date="2019-07-24 22:18:07"> <p class="date">July 24, 2019</p> <p class="asker">From: Interview by Will Carey, <em>Creative Chair</em></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2019/07/24/theoretically-would-3d-printing-ever-be-possible-on-a-molecular-level/">Theoretically, would 3D printing ever be possible on a molecular level?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>I think so. Something like this was an early objective of nanotechnology, but it was considered too difficult, and largely abandoned. Traditional synthetic chemistry tries to build molecules by applying a sequence of reactions that effectively transform the molecule. I have long thought there should be a direct way to build any molecule that&#8217;s stable. Biology does a restricted version of this using DNA and amino acids. But it&#8217;ll be extremely important when we can finally do it more generally. I&#8217;m guessing that one day we won&#8217;t just have computers; everything will be made of computers right down to the molecule scale.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="I think so. Something like this was an early objective of nanotechnology, but it was considered too difficult, and largely abandoned. Traditional synthetic chemistry tries to build molecules by applying a sequence of reactions that effectively transform the molecule. I have long thought there should be a direct way to build any molecule that&#8217;s stable. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> I think so. Something like this was an early objective of nanotechnology, but it was considered too difficult, and largely abandoned. Traditional synthetic chemistry tries to build molecules by applying a sequence of reactions that effectively transform the molecule. I have long thought there should be a direct way to build any molecule that’s stable. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives science" data-position="normal" data-date="2019-11-04 22:23:27"> <p class="date">November 4, 2019</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://physicsworld.com/a/exploring-the-computational-universe-with-stephen-wolfram/' target='_blank'>Interview by Margaret Harris, <em>Physics World</em></a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2019/11/04/what-role-do-you-think-computation-will-play-in-the-future-of-physics/">What role do you think computation will play in the future of physics?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>Physics was early in using computers to aid in working with its existing paradigms, and I would like to think that Mathematica helped with that. The biggest growth directions, I think, will be in the use of computation as a paradigm for physics. Part of this involves using computational models for physical systems. But part of it also involves understanding computational concepts like computational irreducibility, and seeing how they relate to phenomena in physics.</p> <p>It&#8217;s hard to know what might crack the problem of finding a fundamental theory of physics, but perhaps it will be computation. Certainly, the intuition that we now have from exploring the computational universe of simple programs is something completely new&mdash;and it seems potentially highly relevant to questions of fundamental physics. I&#8217;ve been thinking about these kinds of things for a long time, and I&#8217;m finally about to mount a serious project to see whether there&#8217;s a computational way to approach fundamental physics that will get further than the quantum field theory and general relativity approaches that we&#8217;ve been trying for the last hundred years. Of course, it may be the wrong century&mdash;or the wrong approach&mdash;to crack the problem. But there&#8217;s definitely a lot of interesting theoretical structure to investigate.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="Physics was early in using computers to aid in working with its existing paradigms, and I would like to think that Mathematica helped with that. The biggest growth directions, I think, will be in the use of computation as a paradigm for physics. Part of this involves using computational models for physical systems. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> Physics was early in using computers to aid in working with its existing paradigms, and I would like to think that Mathematica helped with that. The biggest growth directions, I think, will be in the use of computation as a paradigm for physics. Part of this involves using computational models for physical systems. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="science" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=science">Science</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives" data-position="normal" data-date="2019-12-06 17:27:39"> <p class="date">December 6, 2019</p> <p class="asker">From: Interview by Jeff D’Alessio, <em>The News-Gazette</em> (unpublished)</p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2019/12/06/whats-the-next-big-thing-in-your-line-of-work/">What’s the next big thing in your line of work?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>Putting computational intelligence into everything. That&#8217;s the path I&#8217;ve been on for many decades, and it&#8217;s exciting to see it coming to fruition. Personally, I also I happen to have recently made a bit of a breakthrough in a fundamental science project I&#8217;ve been interested in for 40+ years, which just might lead to something rather spectacular&#8230;.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="Putting computational intelligence into everything. That&#8217;s the path I&#8217;ve been on for many decades, and it&#8217;s exciting to see it coming to fruition. Personally, I also I happen to have recently made a bit of a breakthrough in a fundamental science project I&#8217;ve been interested in for 40+ years, which just might lead to something rather spectacular&#8230;."> Putting computational intelligence into everything. That’s the path I’ve been on for many decades, and it’s exciting to see it coming to fruition. Personally, I also I happen to have recently made a bit of a breakthrough in a fundamental science project I’ve been interested in for 40+ years, which just might lead to something rather spectacular…. </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> </div> </div> <div class="project future-perspectives" data-position="normal" data-date="2019-12-18 22:31:10"> <p class="date">December 18, 2019</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://guykawasaki.com/stephen-wolfram-remarkable-people/' target='_blank'>Interview by Guy Kawasaki, <em>Remarkable People Podcast</em></a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2019/12/18/what-do-you-want-your-legacy-to-be/">What do you want your legacy to be?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>I don&#8217;t know. It&#8217;s an interesting question. Now that I&#8217;m getting old, I&#8217;m supposed to think about questions like that.</p> <p>There are things that I&#8217;ve done&#8230; particularly, understanding the computational universe, building this computational language. These are things that, if nothing dreadfully derails, I think I can confidently say that both of these things will end up being of long-term importance. I think it&#8217;s a good question for me. For example, there are things on this side of science and thinking about the computational universe that inexorably will happen and that I can jump up and down and tell people how important it is and so on, and maybe that will make it happen some number of years earlier, but these are things which inevitably, inexorably, this is the direction that science will go in. I&#8217;ve already seen that over the last couple of decades.</p> <p>I have to sort of deconstruct what the concept of a legacy really is. That&#8217;s terrible. That&#8217;s not what one is supposed to say. There&#8217;s the genetic legacy; I&#8217;ve got four kids. Hopefully, they&#8217;ll do interesting things. Then there&#8217;s the intellectual legacy of things I&#8217;ve figured out that might not have been figured out for a lot longer in our history, although it might eventually have been figured out. Then there are things where I created things where they were created the way they were created because I happened to do them.</p> <p>When you do science, in some sense, there&#8217;s never anything you can uniquely contribute. All you can do is accelerate the process because the world is the way the world is, and eventually it&#8217;s going to be found out. When you do things like writing or creating computational language, there are things which are more creative acts, where there&#8217;s an infinite number of possibilities and the one that you happen to choose, if it ends up being something that survives, that&#8217;s something that&#8217;s more of a personal imprint on the world than something which inevitably gets discovered at some point.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="I don&#8217;t know. It&#8217;s an interesting question. Now that I&#8217;m getting old, I&#8217;m supposed to think about questions like that. There are things that I&#8217;ve done&#8230; particularly, understanding the computational universe, building this computational language. These are things that, if nothing dreadfully derails, I think I can confidently say that both of these things will end up being of long-term importance. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> I don’t know. It’s an interesting question. Now that I’m getting old, I’m supposed to think about questions like that. There are things that I’ve done… particularly, understanding the computational universe, building this computational language. These are things that, if nothing dreadfully derails, I think I can confidently say that both of these things will end up being of long-term importance. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> </div> </div> </div> </div> <footer id="footer"> <div class="inner"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/contact/">Contact</a> <span class="pipe">|</span> © Stephen Wolfram, LLC</div> </footer> <script src="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/wp-content/themes/questions/js/scripts.js"></script> </main>  <div id ="IPstripe-wrap"></div> <script src="/common/stripe/stripe.en.js"></script>  </body> </html>

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