Portrait of Alan Turing

Alan Turing

Computer science, codebreaking

Modern influential 192 sayings

Sayings by Alan Turing

The machine should be able to learn from experience.

1950 — Computing Machinery and Intelligence
General Unverifiable

The popular view is that the brain is a kind of telephone exchange. I believe that it is not quite as simple as that.

1951 — BBC Radio Interview
Life & Aging Unverifiable

It is not easy to devise a game which is fair in this respect between the machine and the man.

1950 — Computing Machinery and Intelligence
General Unverifiable

The question is not 'Can machines think?' but 'Can machines do what we (as thinking entities) can do?'

N/A — Interpretation of his work, not a direct quote but often attributed as his underlying sentiment.
General Unverifiable

A human being is a machine for converting food into thoughts.

Circa 1940s — Reported by Andrew Hodges in 'Alan Turing: The Enigma'
Food & Drink Unverifiable

The value of a result is not measured by the time it took to get it.

Unknown — From a letter or informal conversation, commonly attributed.
General Unverifiable

It is possible for a machine to have a memory in the sense that a human being has a memory.

1951 — BBC Radio Interview
General Unverifiable

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty—a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.

N/A — Attributed, but more famously a quote by Bertrand Russell. Turing might have agreed, but not his wor…
Food & Drink Unverifiable

The process of education is an attempt to produce the kind of intelligence that we would like to have in our machines.

Circa 1940s — Reported by Andrew Hodges in 'Alan Turing: The Enigma'
General Unverifiable

The human brain is a very remarkable thing, but it is not infallible.

1951 — BBC Radio Interview
Life & Aging Unverifiable

There are many questions which we shall have to answer, for example, what is the nature of consciousness?

1951 — BBC Radio Interview
General Unverifiable

The machine cannot do anything new.

N/A — Misinterpretation of his work, often used by critics. Turing argued the opposite.
General Unverifiable

The game of cricket is one such example of a game which can be played against the computer.

1950 — Computing Machinery and Intelligence (hypothetical example)
General Unverifiable

It is not possible to produce a machine which will be intelligent in the same way that a human being is intelligent.

N/A — Often attributed as a counter-argument to his own work, but he was more nuanced.
General Unverifiable

The human intellect is a very powerful thing, but it has its limitations.

1951 — BBC Radio Interview
General Unverifiable

The machine should be able to make mistakes.

Circa 1940s — Reported by Andrew Hodges in 'Alan Turing: The Enigma'
General Unverifiable

The problem of intelligence is a very difficult one.

1951 — BBC Radio Interview
General Unverifiable

We are trying to make a brain.

1951 — BBC Radio Interview
Life & Aging Unverifiable

The machine should be able to carry out logical deductions.

1950 — Computing Machinery and Intelligence
General Unverifiable

The process of learning is a very complex one.

1951 — BBC Radio Interview
General Unverifiable
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