World-renowned theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson shared a lifetime’s worth of wisdom about the future while dining with 30 members of Princeton Envision.
Dyson urged Americans to plan more on a macroscale and to be careful about misestimating the impact of solar energy and robots. For the short term, he advised students to see the value of ignorance, be wary of the Ph.D. system, and pursue what they love.
“I have the big advantage of having grown up in a town that was 2,000 years old, surrounded every day by monuments of the past,” said Dyson, referring to his hometown Winchester, England. “So we naturally thought in terms of a thousand years — a thousand years backward into the past and a thousand years forward into the future. And that is somehow lacking in the United States.”
His words seemed to resound with the members of Envision, a student group focused on building the long-term future through the advancement of rapidly developing technologies, including nanotechnology, nuclear fusion, genetic engineering, space development, virtual and augmented realities, and artificial intelligence.
When asked about technology with the greatest future impact, Dyson called solar energy “not a game changer” and “grossy overrated” by its proponents for economic reasons. Instead, he predicted that artificial intelligence would be the technology to fundamentally change the global economy and outcompete humans for jobs. Dyson then called for humanitarianism as a solution.
“Machines are convenient slaves — they work 24 hours a day, they never complain, they don’t get tired, and you don’t have to pay them,” said Dyson. “How do you compete against that? But where humans will be essential, of course, is in helping other humans. We are social animals and we need each other.”
Dyson has a long and accomplished career. He worked on quantum electrodynamics with physicist Richard Feynman, designed safe nuclear reactors producing medical isotopes for research hospitals, and contributed to pure mathematics, statistical mechanics, biology, and solid-state physics. Dyson also has a lifetime appointment at the Institute of Advanced Study. Additionally, Dyson authored several books and dreamed of concepts such the Dyson tree, a genetically engineered plant that can grow inside a comet, and the Dyson sphere, a structure that encompasses a star and captures its entire power output.
When asked about the root of his success, Dyson gave some unusual advice: He emphasized the value of ignorance.
“My most important and best work was done when I was at Cornell University at 23 years old. I was more ignorant then than I’ve ever been since. My best work was done when I was most ignorant. Best to learn as little as possible, then do as much as possible, and then learn afterwards.”
Despite holding numerous awards and teaching positions, Dyson never completed his PhD and critiqued the system as narrowing.
“I think the PhD system is thoroughly bad for the health. It destroys a lot of young people. I lost three of my young associates because of the PhD system. One committed suicide and two of them ended up in mental institutions. So it’s really destructive — what the PhD system does is keep you from doing anything useful for about ten years and wastes the best years of your life.”
After the dinner, Dyson had a one-on-one conversation with Envision Vice President Claire Adair ‘19, in which she asked about “how to build intentionality in one’s own pursuits.”
Dyson’s response was simple. While proud of his work, he attributed his success to a love of physics instead of an external obligation to accomplish something noble. Eventually, he said, somebody else could have done what he did in physics, but only he could have raised his children.
“A musician doesn’t make music because he will change the world,” Dyson said. “He makes music because it’s beautiful.”
The event took place 5:30 p.m. Friday at Mathey Private Dining Room.
