The original question, ‘Can machines think?’ I believe to be too meaningless to deserve discussion.
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”.
Mathematical reasoning may be regarded...
A man provided with paper, pencil, and rubber, and subject to strict discipline, is in effect a universal machine.
Programming is a skill best acquired by practice and example rather than from books.
Codes are a puzzle. A game, just like any other game.
Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition.
No, I’m not interested in developing a powerful brain...
If a machine is expected to be infallible, it cannot also be intelligent.
We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all purely intellectual fields.
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.
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.
Machines take me by surprise with great frequency.
We are not interested in the fact that the brain has the consistency of cold porridge.
Unless in communicating with it one says exactly what one means, trouble is bound to result.
Mathematical reasoning may be regarded rather schematically as the exercise of a combination of two facilities, which we may call intuition and ingenuity.
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.
My little computer said such a funny thing this morning.
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.
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.