Esther Dyson

Background

About Esther Dyson

NOTE: I'll be very busy doing final edits on my book through mid-July, and I won't respond to much that is not urgent to ME. Sorry! However, I will keep posting with new insights I get from working on the edits. CURRENT: I have now embarked on a new project: a book called "In Defens of Limits: Human time and AI scale." While the book won't be out (from MIT Press) until early 2027, I'm also publishing a Substack every other Tuesday - In the pool with Esther" at https://estherdyson.substack.com - which I will mostly write from the *perspective* of that book (which has taught me a lot), but about things too recent to be included. Indeed, there's a lot going on! Précis: In this age of AI, where people talk of longevity, eternity and exponential growth, humans can find meaning in the very shortness of their own lives and roles and institutions. In a world of infinity, you could never do enough. But in a lifetime, the goal is to use that time to some particular, finite end – and then to pass the mission along to a successor. We exist within infinity, but each of us is only a small part of the whole. In the world we actually live in, it is possible to declare completion and find satisfaction… if we know when enough is enough. The purpose of this book is not so much to provide a new view of our fast-changing, rhyming-history world, but a clear set of lenses through which to see it. From 2013 to 2024, I was founder and funder (active full-time but reporting to CEO Rick Brush) of Wellville, a nonprofit project dedicated to demonstrating the value of long-term investment in health and equity. The benefits accrue over time and not always to the funders/ investors directly, but for all of us, healthy human bodies and minds are the key to our collective future. I spend the other 50% of my time (LOL) exploring new space, health and IT start-ups and technologies, writing about them and (with full disclosure) actively investing in some of them. I love what I do and I love all the travel it entails! My board seats include Avanlee Care, BAMF Health, PressReader. Also nonprofits: ExpandED Schools, Long Now Foundation, The Commons Project. Education: Harvard BA, Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center completion certificate.[Re LinkedIn: I find it a valuable tool, but I respond only to personal messages that prove that the writer is writing to me rather than to an address book.]