Curious AI Quotes

Martyn Richard Jones, Galicia, 14 May 2025

Amid artificial intelligence’s clamour, the discourse ranges from the delightfully absurd to the soberingly wise. Here are some of the most outlandish and refreshingly grounded reflections on AI from voices across the spectrum.

Deep learning is going to be able to do everything.

Geoffrey Hinton (AI pioneer)

Opinion: Geoff seems to have an incredibly narrow and simplistic idea of what “everything” means.

Artificial intelligence is the new electricity.

Andrew Ng (Co-founder of Google Brain, Coursera)

Opinion: It was only a matter of time before some clown created this corker.

As much as AI is powerful, it is blind to many aspects of human life. Human-centred AI is the way forward.

Fei-Fei Li (Stanford Professor, ex-Chief Scientist at Google Cloud AI)

Opinion: Stating the obvious doesn’t make it wrong.

AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.

Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX)

Opinion: Right, it could easily be an existential threat.

AI is more profound than fire or electricity.

Sundar Pichai (CEO, Google)

Opinion: And money makes you extremely thick. What profoundness do fire and electricity have? Is this another gobshite who won’t ever explain themselves?

The development of AI raises profound questions… how do we make sure it doesn’t empower the strong to dominate the weak?

Barack Obama

Opinion: Yet another fill-in-the-blanks statement.

Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last.

Stephen Hawking

Opinion: Okay… Next!

The future we will invent is a choice we make. So let’s make it a future where technology empowers everyone.

Satya Nadella (CEO, Microsoft)

Opinion: What does that even mean?

AI can be a powerful tool, but only if we guide its development responsibly.

Will.i.am (Musician & Tech Entrepreneur)

Opinion: Stick to entertainment.

AI is going to make our lives better in the future, and doomsday scenarios are pretty irresponsible.

Mark Zuckerberg (Meta/Facebook)

Opinion: Are the scenarios messing with your revenue streams, Zucko?

It terrifies me, to be honest, the whole AI thing, but I don’t think you could ever replace what a human being can write… there’s no other human like who you are. And that’s all it should be.

Selena Gomez (American actress, singer, songwriter, producer, and businesswoman.)

Opinion: AI chat just shows how dumb much of civilisation is. Our benchmarks of talent and quality have really gone to the dogs.

 AI is not coming for your job; people who know how to use AI are coming for your job. So learn about it. It should be a tool upon which we lay our own creativity, our own humanity.

Reese Witherspoon (American actress and film producer)

Opinion: What complete and utter vacuous crap.

 Expressed concerns about AI ripping off artists, highlighting the risk of intellectual property theft in creative industries.

Paul McCartney (Everyone knows)

Opinion: He’s right. Using AI to rip off real artists sucks!

 It’s the people that use it that are the problem more than the thing itself. We have to be better at using it.

Paul Giamatti (Actor)

Opinion: Aye!

I think it’s a tool, it’s about how we use it ethically. Just like how Photoshop was once used for inappropriate things, people realised it, and eventually, it passed. AI is very similar.

A.R. Rahman (composer, producer and musician)

Opinion: Clown, it’s nothing like Photoshop.

 People are looking at it all wrong. Judge my output-not my input. (On AI and creativity, emphasising the value of the final work over the process.)

James Cameron (filmmaker)

Opinion: Whatever…

The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race… It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete, and would be superseded.

Stephen Hawking (no, not the man from Dorking)

Opinion: He’s not here to defend his statement, so I won’t knock it.

With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. You know all those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, and he’s like, yeah, he’s sure he can control the demon? Doesn’t work out.

Elon Musk (the battery man)

Opinion: So close to the truth that it burns.

Artificial intelligence will reach human levels by around 2029. Follow that out further to, say, 2045, we will have multiplied the intelligence, the human biological machine intelligence of our civilisation a billion-fold.

Ray Kurzweil (computer scientist, author, entrepreneur, futurist, and inventor)

Opinion: What complete and utter crap.

I often tell my students not to be misled by the name ‘artificial intelligence’ – there is nothing artificial about it. AI is made by humans, intended to behave by humans, and, ultimately, to impact humans’ lives and human society.

Fei-Fei Li (computer scientist)

Opinion: Of course, it’s bloody artificial. It is supposed to try and mimic human reasoning but not to be human reasoning.

Just as electricity transformed almost everything 100 years ago, today I actually have a hard time thinking of an industry that I don’t think AI will transform in the next several years.

Andrew Ng (computer scientist and technology entrepreneur)

Opinion: Same crap, different day.

Some people call this artificial intelligence, but the reality is this technology will enhance us. So instead of artificial intelligence, I think we’ll augment our intelligence.

Ginni Rometty (business executive)

Opinion: Another one who bet on a glittery shiny-shiny thing. Another busted flush!

AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there’ll be great companies.

Sam Altman (technology entrepreneur and investor)

Opinion: No, there won’t. There will be massive economic crashes, isolationist and reactionary politics, and wars for diminishing resources.

I believe AI is going to change the world more than anything in the history of humanity. More than electricity.

Kai-Fu Lee ( businessman, computer scientist, investor, and writer)

Opinion: Have you gone sour on oil?

Artificial intelligence can analyse emotions, but understanding them is a human trait.

Demis Hassabis (artificial intelligence researcher, and entrepreneur)

Opinion: Yes, and it looks a lot like guesswork. So, there you have it, a pile of crap laced with some grounded, informed and insightful opinions. What’s your call on the deal?