Alan Perlis Quotes

The fact that you can take LEGO bricks from thirty years ago and they still snap together with the same new LEGO brick that comes out, I mean what type of product can span generations like that, there is something really special to it.

It's like swimmin' without warmin' up, yuo know what I mean? So [cackles] we use the drum machine, and we take it out.

Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.

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

If you don't know anything about computers, just remember that they are machines that do exactly what you tell them but often surprise you in the result.

You may be a puzzle, but I like the way the parts fit.

Machines already are much smarter than us at so many things. I mean, try to multiply two 10-digit numbers with each other or, you know, sift through a thousand documents. So there's lots of things that machines are better at including in mental task than us. There's many more that they're not as good at, but the direction is pretty obvious and the progress is clear.

I am all for your using machines, but do not let them use you.

I mean, I think it's hard enough to find somebody you can stand for more than ten minutes, so, like, you shouldn't narrow your options.

Be kind to me, or treat me mean I'll make the most of it, I'm an extraordinary machine

I'm Tetris, Silas. All my pieces and parts are going to fit into all of your pieces and parts.

I told [Kruesi] I was going to record talking, and then have the machine talk back. He thought it absurd. However, it was finished, the foil was put on; I then shouted "Mary had a little lamb," etc. I adjusted the reproducer, and the machine reproduced it perfectly. On first words spoken on a phonograph.

A breakthrough in machine learning would be worth ten Microsofts.

Machines are on track to be on par with human intelligence in less than 15 years.

We have reason not to be afraid of the machine, for there is always constructive change, the enemy of machines, making them change to fit new conditions.

A 'passing' test doesn't mean 'no problem.' It means no problem *observed*. This time. With these inputs. So far. On my machine.

"Legacy code" often differs from its suggested alternative by actually working and scaling.

I think that what the machines can do, of course, is wonderful, but it's not the same as what the brain can do.

It's hard to guess how smart the machines are, but a good rule of thumb is that they're always smarter than you think.

We have over 60 million machines that can take the same diskette, plug it in and immediately ah, that that software's working. And so it's created the worldwide software industry that... that is so very competitive and moving so quickly.

It's little quirks like this that could make life difficult for a chess machine.

None of the individual metal hunks of an airplane have the property of flight, but when they are attached together in the right way, the result takes to the air. A thin metal bar won't do you much good if you're trying to control a jaguar, but several of them in parallel have the property of containment. The concept of emergent properties means that something new can be introduced that is not inherent in any of the parts.

I believe more than ever, machines will put new challenges, and that means we'll have to be more creative and more human, because that's the way to make the difference.

Life is the ultimate technology. Machine technology is a temporary surrogate for life technology. As we improve our machines they will become more organic, more biological, more like life, because life is the best technology for living.