No one can predict the future. No one can control the events in their life. But everyone can make choices, and those choices add up to who we are and what we will become.
I hope you think carefully about each choice, even the small ones. Ten years from now, I hope you will be proud of your decisions. The sum of the decisions you make along the way, not the final results they produce, will define your character and the respect you deserve.
The world is changing in unpredictable ways. We are unleashing powerful, new technologies that hold great promise and even greater perils. Over the next decade, we will be approaching the point where humanity is taking evolution into its own hands. We now have the power to change our DNA and redesign the human species. We will eventually be creating smart machines that have the potential to think and act without us. They may even possess their own consciousness. And the world itself is faced with existential threats, from climate change to catastrophic war.
Who will we become? What type of world will we find ourselves in? I am counting on you to help lead the way forward, act responsibly, and push everyone around you to face the hard problems and come up with solutions to problems we don’t even know exist yet.
Even more important, we need to talk openly about the dangers and confront them, so that we can engage the brightest minds and find the right path. I hope you do not back down from this responsibility and can inspire others to do the same. No matter how costly the price of action, the price of inaction is far greater.
