Alan Turing — "I don't think that human beings are the be-all and end-all of creation."
I don't think that human beings are the be-all and end-all of creation.
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from Alan Turing
"The main problem with artificial intelligence is that it is too easy to make a machine that can do what we want it to do, but too hard to make a machine that can do what we don't want it to do."
"I have had a number of conversations with people who are convinced that machines cannot think. I have not been convinced by their arguments."
"We are building a brain."
"Hyperboloids of wondrous light. Rolling for age through Space and Time Harbour there Waves which somehow Might Play out God's holy pantomime."
"We are not interested in the fact that a machine can solve a problem, but in the fact that it can solve a problem that we cannot."
Details
Attributed, reflecting his open-mindedness about other forms of intelligence.
Date: Unknown
GeneralVerification
Unverifiable
Found in 1 providers: grok
1 source checked
Understanding this quote
What it means
Humans aren't the ultimate purpose or crowning achievement of existence. The universe isn't built around us, and we're not necessarily its most sophisticated product. This challenges anthropocentrism — the deeply held belief that humanity sits at the center of all meaning and creation. Other forms of intelligence, consciousness, or life could be equally valid, more complex, or more significant than we are.
Relevance to Alan Turing
Turing spent his career proving machines could think — his 1950 paper 'Computing Machinery and Intelligence' asked whether a computer could fool a human into believing it was one. He believed machine intelligence was genuinely possible, not merely simulated. As someone persecuted by his own government for his sexuality, Turing also knew firsthand that society wrongly elevated certain humans above others, reinforcing his skepticism of human supremacy.
The era
Turing lived through World War II, when human beings demonstrated extraordinary capacity for both ingenuity and mass murder — the Holocaust and atomic bomb forced a reckoning with what humanity actually was. Meanwhile, computing was just emerging, and mainstream society still assumed intelligence was uniquely human. Turing's claim pushed against both religious creationism and secular humanism, challenging comfortable assumptions at exactly the moment humans felt most powerful and most destructive.
AI-generated insights based on extensive research and information for context. Factual errors? Email [email protected].