Famous Quotes & Sayings

Alan Turing Quotes & Sayings

Enjoy the top 38 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Alan Turing.

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Famous Quotes By Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 1653574

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

Alan Turing Quotes 1541192

These disturbing phenomena [Extra Sensory Perception] seem to deny all our scientific ideas. How we should like to discredit them! Unfortunately the statistical evidence, at least for telepathy, is overwhelming. — Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 1638068

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

Alan Turing Quotes 508659

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. — Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 1831453

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

Alan Turing Quotes 1316055

Those who can imagine anything, can create the impossible. — Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 1852560

In attempting to construct such (artificially intelligent) machines we should not be irreverently usurping His (God's) power of creating souls, any more than we are in the procreation of children," Turing had advised. "Rather we are, in either case, instruments of His will providing mansions for the souls that He creates. — Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 771699

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. — Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 1453471

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

Alan Turing Quotes 1183285

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. — Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 721574

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

Alan Turing Quotes 1715790

The popular view that scientists proceed inexorably from well-established fact to well-established fact, never being influenced by any unproved conjecture, is quite mistaken. Provided it is made clear which are proved facts and which are conjectures, no harm can result. Conjectures are of great importance since they suggest useful lines of research. — Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 1651734

When we want to sink a convoy, we send out an observation plane first ... Of course, to observe is not its real duty, we already know exactly where the convoy is. Its real duty is to be observed ... Then, when we come round and sink them, the Germans will not find it suspicious. — Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 1757614

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

Alan Turing Quotes 1819799

I'm afraid that the following syllogism may be used by some in the future.
Turing believes machines think
Turing lies with men
Therefore machines do not think
Yours in distress,
Alan — Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 2073785

Machines take me by surprise with great frequency. — Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 1491188

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". — Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 2100752

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

Alan Turing Quotes 2111135

It seems probable that once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers ... They would be able to converse with each other to sharpen their wits. At some stage therefore, we should have to expect the machines to take control. — Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 1257525

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. — Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 1181051

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

Alan Turing Quotes 665319

Up to a point, it is better to just let the snags [bugs] be there than to spend such time in design that there are none. — Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 123660

The isolated man does not develop any intellectual power. It is necessary for him to be immersed in an environment of other men, whose techniques he absorbs during the first twenty years of his life. He may then perhaps do a little research of his own and make a very few discoveries which are passed on to other men. From this point of view the search for new techniques must be regarded as carried out by the human community as a whole, rather than by individuals. — Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 226709

Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. — Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 379251

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

Alan Turing Quotes 389779

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

Alan Turing Quotes 432104

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

Alan Turing Quotes 596214

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

Alan Turing Quotes 659847

I've now got myself into the kind of trouble that I have always considered to be quite a possibility for me, though I have usually rated it at about 10:1 against. I shall shortly be pleading guilty to a charge of sexual offences with a young man. The story of how it all came to be found out is a long and fascinating one, which I shall have to make into a short story one day, but haven't the time to tell you now. No doubt I shall emerge from it all a different man, but quite who I've not found out. — Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 660576

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

Alan Turing Quotes 1252273

Do you know why people like violence? It is because it feels good. Humans find violence deeply satisfying. But remove the satisfaction, and the act becomes hollow. — Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 688568

Codes are a puzzle. A game, just like any other game. — Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 817066

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

Alan Turing Quotes 866595

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

Alan Turing Quotes 1056038

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. — Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 1087640

Programming is a skill best acquired by practice and example rather than from books. — Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 1107386

I am not very impressed with theological arguments whatever they may be used to support. Such arguments have often been found unsatisfactory in the past. In the time of Galileo it was argued that the texts, 'And the sun stood still ... and hasted not to go down about a whole day' (Joshua x. 13) and 'He laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not move at any time' (Psalm cv. 5) were an adequate refutation of the Copernican theory. — Alan Turing

Alan Turing Quotes 81858

Finding such a person makes everyone else appear so ordinary ... and if anything happens to him, you've got nothing left but to return to the ordinary world, and a kind of isolation that never existed before. — Alan Turing