Alan Turing

"We create machines in our image, and in doing so, we reveal what we think our image truly is."

"The boundary between the possible and impossible in machine design is drawn only by the limits of our understanding."

"A thinking machine would be the greatest achievement in the history of engineering, and the smallest step in the history of thought."

"Mathematics is the music of reason, and logic is the rhythm by which machines dance."

"The most interesting question is not whether machines can think, but what it would mean if they could."

"Every limitation we find in machines is really a limitation in our own understanding of what machines could be."

"The digital computer has brought us to a point where we must reconceptualize not just machines, but ourselves."

"To understand a machine's intelligence, we must first acknowledge our own ignorance of intelligence itself."

"The invention of the computing machine is not the end of human thought, but perhaps its truest beginning."

"The question of whether a machine can think is about as meaningful as asking whether a submarine can swim."

"I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted."

"A man provided with paper, pencil, and rubber, and subject to strict discipline, is in effect a universal computing machine."

"We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty that needs to be done."

"It seems probable that once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers."

"The idea behind digital computers may be explained by saying that these machines are intended to carry out any operations which could be carried out by a human computer."

"Do you know why people like love stories? Because everyone wants to believe they are capable of something extraordinary."

"Those who can imagine anything can create the impossible."

"Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it."

"If a machine is expected to be infallible, it cannot also be intelligent."

"The popular view that scientists are just a soulless lot is wrong. Many of them are not."

"Instead of trying to produce a programme to simulate the adult mind, why not rather try to produce one which simulates the child's mind?"

"Programming is a skill best acquired by practice and example rather than from books."

"Computing machinery and intelligence."

"Mathematical reasoning may be regarded rather schematically as the exercise of a combination of two facilities, which we may call intuition and ingenuity."

"The degree to which one can abstract and generalize from experience is a measure of intelligence."

"In fact the snag about artificial intelligence is much the same as the snag about natural intelligence. No one really understands it yet."

"I am sure that only positive action in these present days can bring about a better world."

"It seems to me that only a very narrow orthodoxy would deny that consciousness is possible in a machine."

"Machines take me by surprise with great frequency."

"The honor of the British Empire is now in the hands of the workers of Britain."