Gates working on his home computer in 1990 DALE WITTNER

Artificial Intelligence "I don't think there's anything unique about human intelligence. All the neurons in the brain that make up perceptions and emotions operate in a binary fashion." Earthly life is carbon-based, he notes, while computers are silicon-based, but he doesn't see that as a critical distinction. "Eventually we'll be able to sequence the human genome and replicate how nature did intelligence in a carbon-based system."

Being Human "Analytically, I would say nature has done a good job making child-raising more pleasure than pain, since that is necessary for a species to survive. But the experience goes beyond analytic description. Evolution is many orders of magnitude ahead of mankind today in creating a complex system. I don't think it's irreconcilable to say we will understand the human mind some day and explain it in software-like terms, and also to say it is a creation that shouldn't be compared to software. Religion has come around to the view that even things that can be explained scientifically can have an underlying purpose that goes beyond the science. Even though I am not religious, the amazement and wonder I have about the human mind is closer to religious awe than dispassionate analysis."

Gates with his daughter Jennifer

Beware of Success The Road Ahead: "Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose. And it's an unreliable guide to the future. What seems the perfect business plan or latest technology today may soon be as out-of-date as the eight-track tape player, the vacuum-tube television, or the mainframe computer." Gates on computers and televisions of the future. Audio courtesy of CNN: Larry King Live, August 21, 1995