

Stephen Wolfram: I Like to Build Alien Artifacts - KeepTalking
http://theeuropean-magazine.com/729-wolfram-stephen/730-technology-and-human-nature

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tzs
Interesting question and answer near the end:

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The European: In contrast to Google or Facebook, you are not dealing with
personal data at the moment, but the thrust seems to be going in that
direction. How might that change WolframAlpha, and what new challenges does it
raise?

Wolfram: We know that we can do scarily well at computing things about people.
When you look up someone on the web, it’s noisy and messy. But by combining
different data sources – particularly in the United States, where many sources
are publicly available – we can pretty much nail a precise report about a
particular person. For the time being, we have decided not to do it because
the bad appears to outweigh the good. I feel somewhat squeamish about it. My
guess is that it will eventually happen, but it’s not a trail I want to blaze.

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gfodor
Made it about 3 sentences in before closing the tab in disgust as Wolfram's
ego interjects when asked about Turing, and he claims that Turing got
distracted and so failed to create concrete computation, so that task was
"left to me." Ugh.

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powertower
Wolfram has never come across as egotistical to me.

Every single time I read the comments in a post about Wolfram, there is always
some nitpicking going on, on words and phrases that don't mean anything
special, being blow out of proportion.

I don't know where all this resentment is coming from for this man, but I
guess some people just see what they believe, as opposed to believing what
they see... Or I've just missed something completely.

~~~
qq66
He's an unusual combination of incredibly intelligent (among a handful in the
world), but also incredibly boastful and supercilious. Unlike in basketball,
where the biggest trash talkers are often the top players, among
intellectuals, the biggest boasters are usually complete phonies. Wolfram is
the exception -- he is indisputably the "real deal" while also sparing no
opportunity to rub everyone's face in it.

His work is brilliant and insightful -- just treat it as work on its own
merits and try not to think too much about the sanctimonious tone behind it.

