Larry Ellison: “Any technology can be misused”

August 25, 2025

Ellison argues that we should be very careful with respect to banning technology:

“Any technology can be misused. Airplanes can be misused, and airplanes have been misused. That doesn’t mean we should ban the building of airplanes. Technologies are neither good nor bad… Overwhelmingly technologies have been used to make us richer, smarter, live longer, and have better lives. But every technology can be misused, including the oldest, most-basic technology.”

He gives fire as an example:

“Fire is an amazing technology. The first cave entrepreneur who discovered fire said, ‘This is great. It’s cold in the winter; we can use fire to heat the cave. We can use fire to cook our food. We can build a big fire at the mouth of the cave to keep the bears out of the cave. This is a fabulous technology.’… Then there was this one guy in the cave who said fire was very dangerous: ‘People will be burned at the stake. It’ll be used for torture. Very bad. We’ve got to ban and stop fire now.’ And again, my point is that any technology can be misused.”

Ellison concludes:

“My point is that any technology can be misused… We don’t ban airplanes because they might be misused. We don’t ban fire because it might be misused… We should punish the people who misuse the [technology]. And in a democracy we can do that.”