New Zealand ignores the Kiwi who saw the future coming – Oliver Hartwich

PremiumOpinionOpinion byDr Oliver HartwichNZ Herald·29 Jul, 2026 09:00 PM5 mins to readDr Oliver Hartwich is the Executive Director of The New Zealand Initiative (www.nzinitiative.org.nz).Google DeepMind co-founder Shane Legg believes artificial general intelligence could arrive within the next few years. Photo / Getty Images In 1987, on a school trip to the German countryside, my maths teacher made a prediction. Dr Müller had worked at IBM before turning to teaching in our industrial city, Essen. One day, he mused, fast data connections would let him live in a place like this without giving anything TOP