Entrepreneur and philanthropist Peter Thiel on liberty and scientific progress
I first met Peter Thiel—co-founder of PayPal, angel investor in Facebook, founder of the hedge fund Clarium Capital Management, adviser to the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and self-described libertarian—at a party in his San Francisco home last September. Perhaps 100 digerati wandered through Thiel’s sleek Marina District townhouse, chatting amiably over wine and canapés in rooms filled with up-to-the-minute abstract art.
reason: Bill Joy, the former chief scientist at Sun Microsystems, declared in his famous article “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us” that we have to relinquish artificial intelligence, biotech, and nanotechnology because they’re just too dangerous for human beings to handle. Is there some truth to that?
Thiel: I think it’s not even wrong. It’s one of those things that’s so far off the mark that it is not even wrong.
clipped from: reason.com