Alan Turing - Machines Quotes

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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.

Alan Turing
Machines take me by surprise with great frequency.

Alan Turing
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.

Alan Turing
I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?'

Alan Turing
The view that machines cannot give rise to surprises is due, I believe, to a fallacy to which philosophers and mathematicians are particularly subject. This is the assumption that as soon as a fact is presented to a mind all consequences of that fact spring into the mind simultaneously with it. It is a very useful assumption under many circumstances, but one too easily forgets that it is false. A natural consequence of doing so is that one then assumes that there is no virtue in the mere working out of consequences from data and general principles.

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

Alan Turing
We do not wish to penalise the machine for its inability to shine in beauty competitions, nor to penalise a man for losing in a race against an aeroplane. The conditions of our game make these disabilities irrelevant.

Alan Turing
If one wants to make a machine mimic the behaviour of the human computer in some complex operation one has to ask him how it is done, and then translate the answer into the form of an instruction table. Constructing instruction tables is usually described as "programming."

Alan Turing
We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all purely intellectual fields. But which are the best ones to start with? Many people think that a very abstract activity, like the playing of chess, would be best. It can also be maintained that it is best to provide the machine with the best sense organs that money can buy, and then teach it to understand and speak English.

Alan Turing
In other words then, if a machine is expected to be infallible, it cannot also be intelligent.

Alan Turing
Instruction tables will have to be made up by mathematicians with computing experience and perhaps a certain puzzle-solving ability. There need be no real danger of it ever becoming a drudge, for any processes that are quite mechanical may be turned over to the machine itself.

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

Alan Turing