"The future doesn't just happen. We are building it, and we are building it all the time." — Hannah Fry

We're living in an age where new technology offers gigantic upsides - artificial intelligence has the potential to diagnose cancer, catch serial killers and reduce prison populations.

Because, ultimately, we can't just think of algorithms in isolation. We have to think of the failings of the people who design them - and the danger to those they are supposedly designed to serve.

So my favorite online dating website is OkCupid, not least because it was started by a group of mathematicians.

A century ago the Spanish flu confounded scientists and devastated whole regions, but while today's society has air travel and an enormous, heterogeneous population, we also have antibiotics, fantastic communication networks and, perhaps most crucially, more data than ever.