 I'm working on a book-length project that's called The Extinction of Experience. And the broad theme is to look at the many ways we mediate our lives. In small ways, from the way that we no longer look at someone at the grocery store, check-out line, because we're too busy texting someone on our phone, to large ways, the way that we're using simulation, for example, to train our doctors and our pilots, and even to control Wall Street. And so to look at some of the drawbacks and some of the benefits of all these ways we mediate our lives. Well, I think that in this day and age we tend to be extremely enthusiastic about our technologies, and for good reason. But I get a sense sometimes that we have a great deal of information about our world, but not as much firsthand experience of it. So the question I really want to look at is, in many aspects of life, are we encouraging information over experience, and what are the distinctions between those two? Is information the same thing as knowledge? Is teaching our kids using computers as skillful as teaching them using their hands? And looking at some of the, again, the benefits and drawbacks, I think we're generally very optimistic culture about technology. So in some sense I want to look at some of the unintended consequences. But the story is a little broader than technology, because it's about human experience. What does it mean to be human in this day and age? So today you hear a lot about algorithmic serendipity. The fact that you can use your smartphone and Google will find someone nearby at a bar that you want to hang out with. But I think that this misunderstands what true serendipity is, and that is something that only happens in face-to-face contact, for example, or isn't something that can be programmed by an algorithm. So because we're embodied creatures, we sweat, we flinch, we get nervous, these are all things that over centuries of our evolutionary development have become very important for us. And I fear that some of those skills are deteriorating because we're always looking at screens or we're relying on our technologies to do for us what we used to have an ability to do intuitively.