Vinton Cerf: ‘I refuse to take responsibility for those who abuse my beautiful internet’

Vinton Cerf is the most elegant man in the office. He wears an impeccable three-piece wool suit and proudly displays gold cufflinks, which depict the solar system. At 82, he looks like a character from one of Amor Towles’ novels: a gentleman with distinguished style. With his lively eyes and neatly trimmed white beard, no one would guess that he’s one of the most important computer scientists in contemporary history.

Cerf was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1943. Along with Robert Kahn, Lawrence Roberts, and Tim Berners-Lee, he’s one of the fathers of the Internet — the global network of interconnected devices that allows data to be transmitted, in order to share information and services worldwide. His creation — the foundational networking protocols, which have just turned 50 — has changed society, the way in which we communicate and interact, and even how we think. For half a century, Cerf has dedicated himself to improving the network used by billions of people.

He receives EL PAÍS in his office at Google’s facilities in Reston, Virginia, just outside Washington. He has worked there for two decades, acting as the chief internet evangelist. The office isn’t very big, but considering that the tech giant’s layout is mostly open-concept, the fact that he has his own space is already a mark of distinction.

Question. How does it feel to be considered one of the fathers of one of the greatest discoveries in modern history?

Answer. Well, it wasn’t a discovery: it was an invention.

Q. Given how it has developed, it certainly made history.

A. I have the privilege of having been [involved] from the beginning. That is to say, I experienced everything, including the initial period in the early 1960s, when packet switching was first conceived [a method that divides data into small fragments to send them independently along the most efficient route. Upon reaching the final node, they’re reassembled to form the complete message]. I’ve had the privilege of living through that entire period up to 2026, having observed the Internet develop for over 50 years. I’m grateful, because nothing can be done on this scale without a lot of help.

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Cerf’s humility isn’t false modesty. When asked about the eureka moment behind his breakthrough, he recounts in meticulous detail the small steps taken by a dozen scientists before reaching the pivotal point: the creation of the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), the basic architecture for transmitting digital information that, half a century later, remains the foundation of internet communications.

Q. What did you learn during that period of time?

A. Lesson number one: if you want to do something big, seek help… especially from people who are smarter than you. I’ve been very lucky in that regard. There’s something else I’ve learned: you’ll never get help unless you learn to sell your ideas, so that other people want to do what you want to do. This is essential for doing something on this scale. Now, we’re seeing [the technological revolution] happening again — not only with artificial intelligence, but also with space. The hot topics of 2026 have a lot in common with the hot topics of the 1960s, because I lived through those, too.

Q. What was the origin of your invention?

A. It was motivated by a problem that the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) was facing. In the late 1960s, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) — under the Pentagon — was supporting artificial intelligence research. They were actively funding nearly a dozen universities to conduct this research. Some of the universities — Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, and MIT — were requesting new computer equipment from DARPA every year [at the time, computers were extremely expensive and enormous, each one the size of a building]. The government said it couldn’t afford to buy a new computer every year for each of them and encouraged them to build a network and share their resources. So, the decision to build a network was an economic one.

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Every week, Cerf goes to his office, where — in addition to a whiteboard — there’s a coat rack with a red superhero cape hanging from it. “My colleagues gave it to me,” he says. There’s also a large green plush crocodile and a replica of a spaceship that looks like it came straight out of Star Wars.

Q. Where do you get the energy to keep doing research?

A. You can’t stop getting old, but you can stop growing. I’ve tried to maintain my youthful sense of curiosity, wonder, and awe. People feed it. I ask questions and get answers. I’m at Google, which is like being on a giant university campus full of very smart people who’re doing interesting things and are willing to talk to you.

Q. How do you imagine the world 50 years from now?

A. It’s a long leap, though I like the question, because I’ll be dead before then. So, I won’t be embarrassed if I’m wrong. First of all, the internet will become, essentially, ubiquitous. Any object that can have a computer will be able to connect. I’m sure that the internet will be built throughout the solar system. I can say that with confidence, because I know we’ve had working prototypes on Mars since 2004. And we’ll be on the upcoming Artemis missions to support that [space] program. I’m pretty sure that computing will become virtually invisible.

Q. Will we be able to eradicate diseases?

A. I think that, in 50 years, we’ll almost certainly have understood how the human body or biology works well enough to cure almost any disease. I expect that people will live to be 100, they’ll be healthy, and then, there’ll be a kind of precipitous decline [in illnesses]. I don’t think we’ll have brain transplants, but we’ll almost certainly have robots everywhere to help us. And we’ll need them, because the demographics of our population will be radically different. By the end of this century, there will be a very large elderly population and a much smaller proportion of young people. Therefore, work will have to be replaced by robotics, something I’m sure we’ll manage to do.

Q. What do you think about AI? There are more and more voices warning about the risks and the massive loss of jobs.

A. We can look back to 1850, when the steam engine appeared, or even earlier, when we started making waterwheels, or weaving and sewing machines, and so on. As a result of these advances, the nature of the work changed. That was a problem. Given the history of industrial revolutions, we know perfectly well that some jobs will disappear and others will emerge. So, I’m not too worried about it.

Q. Do you think AI will ever surpass human intelligence? And, if so, what role will humans continue to play?

A. Humans have this wonderful capacity to imagine. And we still don’t know to what degree artificial intelligence is capable of imagination. If we look at how it works, we realize that it’s designed to respond the way we believe a human would respond.

Q. But it is not human.

A. These systems are capable of organizing, analyzing, and producing results with very good logical reasoning, but they do make mistakes from time to time. You have to make sure that you check the original sources. That’s why it’s important for the systems to show which sources are being used.

Q. About 25 years ago — upon winning the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research — you said that “communication stimulates democracy.” The internet has extended communication to unimaginable levels, certainly, but today, democracy seems to be under pressure.

A. Internet access has a role to play in democracy because it provides very democratic access to information. For many centuries, there was more information than any one person could possibly assimilate. Now we have the internet, social media, and AI, which can help us choose. However, decades ago, there weren’t so many sources of information: people had a kind of shared understanding of what was known. Today, information sources are so fragmented that it’s difficult to distinguish between facts and counterfactual information. This makes it harder to promote democracy, because we no longer have a common understanding of the facts. And this relates to the provenance of information: we need clues to figure out where to find good quality information.

Q. The internet has grown, and the new digital world has advanced, but significant challenges have also emerged: disinformation, manipulation of users, misuse of personal data, and the erosion of privacy. What are your thoughts? How can we combat these issues?

A. First of all, I refuse to take responsibility for the people who abuse my beautiful internet. If no one were on the internet, it would be perfect, wouldn’t it? Any powerful technology is often subject to abuse by someone who finds a way to use it harmfully, or to gain some advantage others don’t see.

Q. So, how do we address these kinds of abuse?

A. I only know of three ways to deal with problems like this. The first is to try to design the technology in a way that inhibits the ability to abuse it. Technically, this is usually a very good approach, but it doesn’t always work. There’s another approach: it’s called “post-hoc enforcement.” If we catch someone misusing it, there will be consequences. It’s like speeding and getting a ticket. The third approach is to say: “don’t do that, it’s wrong.” Moral persuasion and social norms — if widely adopted in society — can truly be powerful.

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