“So whether information represents one man's sentimental archive, the accumulating knowledge base of the human-machine civilization, or the mind files stored in our brains, what can we conclude about the ultimate longevity of software? The answer is simply this: Information lasts only so long as someone cares about it. The conclusion that I've come […] is that there is no set of hardware and software standards existing today, nor any likely to come along, that will provide any reasonable level of confidence that the stored information will still be accessible […] decades from now.”

Source: The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (2005), p. 329

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Ray Kurzweil40

Author, scientist, inventor, and futurist 1948

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“Philosophy is possible only because the material ensemble called “man” is endowed with very sophisticated software. But also, this software, human language, is dependent on the condition of the hardware. Now: the hardware will be consumed in the solar explosion, taking philosophical thought with it (along with all other thought) as it goes up in flames. So the problem of the technological sciences can be stated as follows: how can we provide this software with a hardware that is independent of the conditions of life on earth? That is: how can we make thought without a body possible?”

Jean-François Lyotard (1924–1998) French philosopher

Source: Thought Without a Body? (1994), p. 291

“Then we have computer science. It is true that software cannot exercise its powers of lightness except through the weight of hardware. But it is the software that gives the orders, acting on the outside world and on machines that exist only as functions of software and evolve so that they can work out ever more complex programs. The second industrial revolution, unlike the first, does not present us with such crushing images as rolling mills and molten steel, but with "bits" in a flow of information traveling along circuits in the form of electronic impulses. The iron machines still exist, but they obey the orders of weightless bits.”

Italo Calvino book Six Memos for the Next Millennium

Six Memos for the Next Millennium (1988) , "Lightness"
English translation: Patrick Creagh (1996).

“Sun is one of many US companies that file software patents regularly, the reason we file software patents regularly is the same reason that Americans buy guns. Americans buy guns, because Americans buy guns. American corporations file software patents because American corporations file software patents.”

Simon Phipps computer scientist

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“Although many philosophers used to dismiss the relevance of neuroscience on grounds that what mattered was “the software, not the hardware”, increasingly philosophers have come to recognize that understanding how the brain works is essential to understanding the mind.”

Patricia Churchland (1943) philosopher

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Steve Ballmer (1956) American businessman who was the chief executive officer of Microsoft

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Theo de Raadt (1968) systems software engineer

[OpenBSD's Theo de Raadt talks software security, Gedda, Rodney, Computerworld, http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1498222899;fp;16;fpid;0, 2004-10-09, 2007-01-10]
speaking about OpenSSH.

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“In 10 years, you'll see 99% of the hardware and software systems sold through what are fundamentally retail stores.”

Gordon Bell (1934) American computer engineer

Computer World "VAX Man" interview

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Ray Kurzweil40

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