Apple CEO Cook tells graduates of MIT to infuse technology with humane values

Apple CEO Tim Cook on Friday warned graduates at MIT, a pioneer and leader in the US in fields like computers and robots, about technology’s dehumanising aspects and urged them to infuse its development with their own values.

“I’m not worried about artificial intelligence giving computers the ability to think like humans,” Cook said in his commencement speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “I’m more concerned about people thinking like computers, without values or compassion, without concern for consequence.”

Speaking to thousands of students and their families at MIT’s Cambridge, Massachusetts, campus, Cook praised the benefits of new devices and social media. But he also cautioned that the same technologies can divide people through threats to privacy or security, and said technology must be tempered with human knowledge.

“Technology is capable of doing great things, but it doesn’t want to do great things. It doesn’t want anything,” the Apple Inc chief executive said. “That part takes all of us.”

Cook’s speech did not break new ground for him as head of the world’s most valuable technology company but added some context around some of his past decisions, such as taking controversial stances to protect privacy rights and investing heavily in green technologies.