ALAN TURING

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

Machines take me by surprise with great frequency.

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.

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.

A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human.

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

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

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

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

I want a permanent relationship, and I might feel inclined to reject anything which of its nature could not be permanent.

I have such a stressful job that the only way I can get it out of my mind is by running hard.

I have had a dream indicating rather clearly that I am on the way to being hetero, though I don't accept it with much enthusiasm either awake or in the dreams.

Unless in communicating with it one says exactly what one means, trouble is bound to result.

We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all purely intellectual fields.

Instead of trying to produce a programme to simulate the adult mind, why not rather try to produce one which simulates the child's? If this were then subjected to an appropriate course of education one would obtain the adult brain.

Bell Labs Cafeteria, New York, 1943: His high pitched voice already stood out above the general murmur of well-behaved junior executives grooming themselves for promotion within the Bell corporation. Then he was suddenly heard to say: "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."

One day ladies will take their computers for walks in the park and tell each other, "My little computer said such a funny thing this morning".

There is, however, one feature that I would like to suggest should be incorporated in the machines, and that is a 'random element.' Each machine should be supplied with a tape bearing a random series of figures, e.g., 0 and 1 in equal quantities, and this series of figures should be used in the choices made by the machine. This would result in the behaviour of the machine not being by any means completely determined by the experiences to which it was subjected, and would have some valuable uses when one was experimenting with it.

No, I'm not interested in developing a powerful brain.

My little computer said such a funny thing this morning.

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

A very large part of space-time must be investigated, if reliable results are to be obtained.

The Exclusion Principle is laid down purely for the benefit of the electrons themselves, who might be corrupted (and become dragons or demons) if allowed to associate too freely.

Mathematical reasoning may be regarded.

Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.