Turing, Alan

"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."

"The question 'Can machines think?' I believe is too meaningless to deserve discussion."

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

"Computing machinery and intelligence."

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

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

"The original question, 'Can machines think?' I believe is too meaningless to deserve discussion."

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

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

"The beauty of a flower is the flower's beauty, whether or not a human perceives it."

"I'm afraid that the following syllogism may be used by some in the future: God is love, and therefore understandable by reason. God is simple, therefore God is understandable by reason."

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

"We are not interested in the fact that the brain has the consistency of cold porridge."

"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."

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

"Turing believes machines will eventually compete with men in all purely intellectual fields."

"No, I'm not interested in developing a powerful brain. All I'm after is just a mediocre brain, something like the President of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company."

"In each case the machine would have to be programmed afresh by the team of programmers."

"The digital computer is in itself a universal machine in the sense that it can, if properly programmed and supplied with an appropriate memory, be made to carry out any definite rule of thumb process."

"What we want is a machine that can learn from experience."

"The most interesting and difficult case is when n = 1 and m = 1 for this is the case of a single machine."

"Often the sheer novelty of the subject-matter is the only difficulty."

"To those who do not know mathematics it is hard to feel the reality of the abstract world."

"The engineer's approach is the right one."

"Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition."

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

"Let us fix our attention out of ourselves as much as possible; and that way, a better hope and a better world may be fashioned."

"Machines take me by surprise with great frequency."

"In fact, there are already a number of theorems which have been proved by machines, and in the near future it is quite likely that this will be done on a very large scale."

"The idea of artificial intelligence would not be misplaced in a machine which could learn from experience."