As humanity goes online, it's becoming an extremely advanced, large-scale processing unit. Luis von Ahn More Quotes by Luis von Ahn More Quotes From Luis von Ahn If you get asked to do something that would take place down the road (say you get asked to speak at a conference that's a year away) and you wouldn't want to do it if it were taking place next week, then don't do it. This advice has helped me evaluate the opportunities that I truly want to dedicate my time to and those that I don't. Luis von Ahn opportunity next-week years Basically, I want to make all of humanity more efficient by exploiting the human cycles that get wasted. Luis von Ahn human more humanity want When I found out that I had won the MacArthur Fellowship, I had been a professor at Carnegie Mellon for a week. I probably shouldn't be saying this on TV, but I stopped worrying about tenure. Luis von Ahn saying about fellowship week Am I a slacker? I can be a slacker. When I was in college, most people got summer jobs for college or did research during college. I went home and watched TV the whole day for three months; it was really awesome. Luis von Ahn day research home people Science fiction has done a really good job of scaring us into thinking that computers shouldn't get too smart, because as soon as they get really smart, they're going to take over the world and kill us, or something like that. But why would they do that? Luis von Ahn good science world thinking I put a lot of weight on feelings and am weirdly in touch with them, which is not typical for an engineer. Luis von Ahn engineer touch weight feelings I have multiple ideas per day, all the time. The vast majority of these are completely idiotic. Usually, I just sit on the idea for several months. And if I have not decided that it's idiotic, then it's... might be a good idea. Luis von Ahn day good time ideas I definitely play some games, like Nintendo D.S. or the Wii, and some computer games. Luis von Ahn some like games play Game design is a funny thing. There are people out there who are really good at it, but it's not clear that they can teach it. It's a very intuitive process. It's an art. Luis von Ahn good funny people art My first computer was a Commodore 64. I got it as a present from my mom when I was eight years old, and all I wanted to do with that computer was play games. Luis von Ahn present old mom play The basic idea of Games With a Purpose is that we are taking a problem that computers cannot yet solve, and we are getting people to solve it for us while they are playing a game. Luis von Ahn computers game problem people Our team at Duolingo is really cohesive, but this did not just happen. I made a concerted effort to hire people who are going to play nice. Luis von Ahn effort team nice people
