Turing, Alan

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

"The term 'artificial intelligence' itself has gone in and out of favor for decades."

"The question of whether a machine can think is about as relevant as the question of 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."

"Computing is too important to be left to the professionals."

"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."

"Do you know what it means to find an error in a machine of this sort? It does not mean that there is something wrong with the machine."

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

"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."

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

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

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

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

"In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey."

"The popular view that scientists ever seek, or ever could seek, absolute truth has become outdated."

"Only a man's own fundamental assumptions are more interesting to him than the supposed intellectual center of the universe."

"Machines take me by surprise with great frequency."

"As soon as one knows that a thing must happen, that thing is then much more of a matter to be taken seriously."

"The majority of Londoners have never heard of him, and many young people in the services who educated there, have never heard of him either."

"Can a machine be conscious? No, because consciousness requires something that machines do not have."

"The fact is, the human mind has only been able to produce one great idea: that it is possible for it to be original."

"Many people can see no difference between a learned economist and a monkey—both are making wild guesses."

"I am not very impressed by theological arguments whatever they may be; I find that they usually involve statements which make no sense to me."

"May not machines carry out something which ought to be described as thinking but which is very different from what a man does?"

"To understand a program you must become both the machine and the program."

"This new subject will be of interest either to logicians or to engineers, but I think to both."

"The limitation is really a technological one and not a theoretical one."

"The idea of 'mechanical thought' is not new. The conservatives should rejoice, for this means man still has time to make amends."