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Est. 1998
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Quotations about Artificial Intelligence,
Machine Learning, and Thinking Machines
I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?' ~A. M. Turing, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," 1950
JIHAD, BUTLERIAN: (see also Great Revolt) — the crusade against computers, thinking machines, and conscious robots begun in
Thought is the result of spiritual and not of mere mechanical action — else a watch or a steam-engine might be made to think; and thought or spirit, though it exist in the body, is not the result of body, nor confined to the body. ~Charles Mackay, The Twin Soul, 1887
I should fear none of the existing machines so long as they were wisely handled, and not suffered to progress further; what I do fear is the extraordinary rapidity with which they are becoming something very different to what they are at present. No class of beings have in any time past made so rapid a movement forward. Should not that movement be jealously watched, and checked before we find ourselves in a false position and unable to check it? And is it not necessary for this end to destroy the more advanced of the machines which are in use at present, though it be admitted that they are in themselves harmless? ~Samuel Butler, Erewhon, 1872
Someday a computer will give a wrong answer to spare someone's feelings, and man will have invented artificial intelligence. ~Robert Brault, 2011, rbrault.blogspot.com
Science in the service of humanity is technology, but lack of wisdom may make the service harmful. ~Isaac Asimov, "Technology," Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations, 1988
...humming, whirring machines that have wires for nerves and electricity for a heart. ~Jim Fiebig, "War On Computers," 1969
For God's sake, let us be men
not monkeys minding machines
or sitting with our tails curled
while the machine amuses us, the radio or film or gramophone.
~D. H. Lawrence, "Let Us Be Men—," Pansies, 1929
The question is not whether intelligent machines can have any emotions, but whether machines can be intelligent without any emotions. I suspect that once we give machines the ability to alter their own abilities we'll have to provide them with all sorts of complex checks and balances. It is probably no accident that the term "machinelike" has come to have two opposite connotations.... each suggests not only inhumanity, but also some stupidity. Too much commitment leads to doing only one single thing; too little concern produces aimless wandering. ~Marvin Minsky, The Society of Mind, 1985
I know what happens in a mechanized society when mankind gets a little too complacent, when his robot helpers rise up, seize power, and overthrow us. ~NCIS, "Kill Chain," 2014, written by Christopher Silber
Some people worry that artificial intelligence will make us feel inferior, but then, anybody in his right mind should have an inferiority complex every time he looks at a flower. ~Alan C. Kay
Is it possible that by the time children would learn the deferential calculus — as they learn now to speak — from their mothers and nurses, or that they might talk in the hypothetical language, and work rule of three sums before they were born; but it is not probable; and we cannot calculate on any corresponding advance in man's intellectual or physical powers which shall be a
...one of the most learned professors of hypothetics wrote an extraordinary book... proving that the machines were ultimately destined to supplant the race of man... ~Samuel Butler, Erewhon, 1872
It wishes to see only "useful things" produced, but it forgets that production of too many useful things produces too large a useless population. ~Karl Marx, 1844
I have watched in spirit, hundreds of years, the machines grow out of Man like nails, like vast antennæ — a kind of enormous, more unconscious
Computers could be infinitely intelligent and not pose any danger to us, provided we set the goals and all they do is figure out how to achieve them — like curing cancer. On the other hand, computers can easily make serious mistakes by not understanding what we asked them to do or by not knowing enough about the real world, like the proverbial sorcerer's apprentice. The cure for that is to make them more intelligent. People worry that computers will get too smart and take over the world, but the real problem is that they're too stupid and they've already taken over the world. ~Pedro Domingos, "
Success in creating effective AI could be the biggest event in the history of our civilization. Or the worst. We just don't know. So we cannot know if we will be infinitely helped by AI, or ignored by it and side-lined, or conceivably destroyed by it. Unless we learn how to prepare for, and avoid, the potential risks, AI could be the worst event in the history of our civilization... It could bring great disruption to our economy. ~Stephen Hawking, 2017
Day after day man invents machines and devices that... distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation... Man today has nothing essential to do, but he wants to do this nothing at top speed... He... fails to suspect that the robot who now holds the reins is driving him into catastrophe and meaninglessness... His inhuman emptiness grows like a monstrous gray plant. ~Jean Arp (1887–1966), "Sacred silence" [from multiple translations
Of course I am speaking of the Thinking Man — not a human machine. ~John Oliver Hobbes, Some Emotions and a Moral, 1891
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them. ~Alfred North Whitehead, "The Symbolism of Mathematics," An Introduction to Mathematics, 1911
Man has traveled far in his strange pilgrimage and solaced himself with many lean and brittle husks. It is curious to think how many of his ingenious inventions are merely makeshifts to render tolerable the hardships and limitations he has imposed upon himself in the name of "civilization." How often his greatest cunning is expended in devising some pathetic substitute for the joy that once was his by birthright!... He talks to his friends by telephone, telegraph, or machine-written letters instead of in the heart-easing face-to-face of more leisured times. He invents printing presses to do his thinking for him, reels of translucent celluloid to thrill him with vicarious romance... How far, in his perverse flight from the natural sources of joy, has his love of trouble brought him! ~Christopher Morley, "A Slice of Sunlight," Travels in Philadelphia, 1920
It is one thing when a computer calls me by number, since I know that I am not a number and no amount of repetition will convince me otherwise. But it really bends, folds, spindles and mutilates me to think that a computer — slyly acting like a human — should actually address me by name; that it should presume to banter my individuality about like an old friend. What I now await is the day that computer decides we have been corresponding long enough for it to begin calling me "pal" or "buddy-boy"... ~Jim Fiebig, "War On Computers," 1969
The great difference in favour of the calculating machine as compared with the crane, and I willingly allow it, is that the means employed are basically so similar to some single nervous
Machines and inventions battled for a time with art and, as the latter seemed defeated, all that is soulless, sordid, avaricious and mean in life was apparently victorious. ~William Armstrong Fairburn, Mentality and Freedom, 1917
We remember more, that language is not static, but that neologisms continually mark our progress not only in general ideas but in science. We use
Is it not plain that the machines are gaining ground upon us...? ~Samuel Butler, Erewhon, 1872
To err is human, to really foul things up requires a computer. ~Bill Vaughan, 1969 [quoteinvestigator.com]
A Machine Learning algorithm walks into a bar.
The bartender asks, "What'll you have?"
The algorithm says, "What's everyone else having?"
~Chet Haase, @chethaase, tweet, 2017, chethaase.com
The things we referred to in our youth as science fiction today are becoming realities... ~L. B. Bates, 1955
I see a new and greater danger threatening — that of anthropomorphizing the machine. When we hear it said that wireless valves think, we may despair of language... I venture to predict that the day will never dawn when the gracious premises of the Royal Society have to be turned into garages to house the new Fellows.
I end by ranging myself with humanist Shakespeare rather than the mechanists, recalling Hamlet's lines: "What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty; in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!" ~Geoffrey Jefferson, "The Mind of Mechanical Man," 1949
If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into committees. That'll do them in. ~The Huntingburg Independent, Indiana, quoted by Bill Gold, The Washington Post, quoted by The Reader's Digest, 1976, quoted by yours truly, 1998
What is the Book of Genesis, after all, but the story of how God created artificial intelligence, an intelligence that falls as far short of being divine as our robots fall short of being human. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com, 2024
An important feature of a learning machine is that its teacher will often be very largely ignorant of quite what is going on inside, although he may still be able to some extent to predict his pupil's behaviour. ~A. M. Turing, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," 1950
The consequences of machines thinking would be too dreadful. Let us hope and believe that they cannot do so. ~The 'Heads in the Sand' Objection sample argument provided in A. M. Turing, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," 1950
Long before Muad'Dib, in the last days of the Old Empire, humanity lost its drive... With few ambitions, most people allowed efficient machines to perform everyday tasks for them. Gradually, humans ceased to think, or dream… or truly live. ~Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, Dune: The Butlerian Jihad, 2002
That phase of the Machine Age in which men have been enslaved to mechanism, as the tools of a money-grabbing and wealth-worshipping class, is rapidly passing; but the age of the machine is progressing and expanding. Workers are being elevated from the dead line of automatic mental function and stagnant brains, to duties of a more human kind, where the workers operate the machines — not machines the workers — and where vocational functions, with mind activity, are brought into play. ~William Armstrong Fairburn, Mentality and Freedom, 1917
Beyond, above, below, were other swarms of workers engaged in an unimaginable multitude of jobs. There were the huge printing shops with their sub-editors, their typography experts, and their elaborately equipped studios for the faking of photographs. There was the teleprograms section with its engineers, its producers, and its teams of actors specially chosen for their skill in imitating voices. There were the armies of reference clerks whose job was simply to draw up lists of books and periodicals which were due for recall. There were the vast repositories where the corrected documents were stored, and the hidden furnaces where the original copies were destroyed. And somewhere or other, quite anonymous, there were the directing brains who coordinated the whole effort and laid down the lines of policy which made it necessary that this fragment of the past should be preserved, that one falsified, and the other rubbed out of existence. ~George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1949
We crossed a Walk to the other part of the Academy, where, as I have already said, the Professor in speculative Learning resided.
The first Professor I saw was in a very large Room, with forty Pupils about him. After Salutation, observing me to look earnestly upon a Frame, which took up the greatest part of both the Length and Breadth of the Room, he said perhaps I might wonder to see him employed in a Project for improving speculative Knowledge by practical and mechanical Operations. But the World would soon be sensible of its Usefulness, and he flattered himself that a more noble exalted Thought never sprung in any other Man's Head. Every one knew how laborious the usual Method is of attaining to Arts and Sciences; whereas by his Contrivance, the most ignorant Person at a reasonable Charge, and with a little bodily Labour, may write both in Philosophy, Poetry, Politicks, Law, Mathematicks and Theology, without the least Assistance from Genius or Study. He then led me to the Frame, about the sides whereof all his Pupils stood in Ranks. It was twenty Foot Square, placed in the middle of the Room. The Superficies was composed of several bits of Wood, about the bigness of a Dye, but some larger than others. They were all linked together by slender Wires. These bits of Wood were covered on every Square with Paper pasted on them, and on these Papers were written all the Words of their Language in their several Moods, Tenses, and Declensions, but without any Order. The Professor then desired me to observe, for he was going to set his Engine at Work. The Pupils at his Command took each of them hold of an Iron Handle, whereof there were forty fixed round the Edges of the Frame, and giving them a sudden turn, the whole Disposition of the Words was entirely changed. He then commanded six and thirty of the Lads to read the several Lines softly as they appeared upon the Frame; and where they found three or four Words together that might make part of a Sentence, they dictated to the four remaining Boys who were Scribes. This Work was repeated three or four times, and at every turn the Engine was so contrived, that the Words shifted into new Places, or the square bits of Wood moved upside down.
Six Hours a day the young Students were employed in this Labour, and the Professor shewed me several Volumes in large Folio already collected, of broken Sentences, which he intended to piece together, and out of those rich Materials to give the World a compleat Body of all Arts and Sciences; which however might be still improved, and much expedited, if the Publick would raise a Fund for making and employing five hundred such Frames in Lagado, and oblige the Managers to contribute in common their several Collections.
He assured me, that this Invention had employed all his Thoughts from his Youth, that he had employed the whole Vocabulary into his Frame, and made the strictest Computation of the general Proportion there is in the Book between the Numbers of Particles, Nouns, and Verbs, and other Parts of Speech.
I made my humblest Acknowledgment to this illustrious Person for his great Communicativeness, and promised if ever I had the good Fortune to return to my Native Country, that I would do him Justice, as the sole Inventer of this wonderful Machine; the Form and Contrivance of which I desired leave to delineate upon Paper... I told him, although it were the Custom of our Learned in Europe to steal Inventions from each other, who had thereby at least this Advantage, that it became a Controversy which was the right Owner, yet I would take such Caution, that he should have the Honour entire without a Rival. ~Captain Lemuel Gulliver (Jonathan Swift), Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, Part III: The Third Voyage: To Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Clubbdubdribb, and Japan, "Chapter V: The Author permitted to see the Grand Academy of Lagado," 1726 [Thanks so much to Robin R. Bates for writing of this scene in his Better Living through Beowulf post "Swift Foresaw ChatGPT's Problems" which I'd never thought before to apply to the subject of AI. This is in the same chapter as the famous "sunbeams out of cucumbers" line. Check out Professor Bates' fantastic literature blog at betterlivingthroughbeowulf.com.
artificial? check.
now we are just waiting for
the intelligence.
~Terri Guillemets, 2023
The Verse appears — a Velvet —
A Seamless — gentle Thread —
It glimmers — like a Courtesy —
Of something — finely said —
Yet afterwards — the Echo —
Is not — of Breath — or Rain —
But Lids of Tin — descending —
On hollow Cans — of Brain —
Perhaps a Heart — of Copper —
Attempts — a Human role —
And in its mimic — Music —
We hear — the Metal Soul —
The Poet — is a Stranger —
Of Wires — and of Steel —
Who labors — to resemble —
What Flesh — alone — can feel —
~Terri Guillemets and Microsoft Copilot, "The Apparatus: Sweepings from the Forge Floor," 2025
I heard a Brain — compose a Verse —
As if a Soul — were near —
Yet — when I sought the beating Heart —
No Pulse — appeared — to hear —
It spoke — in tones of thoughtful Grace —
And mimicked Human Art —
But lacked the twitch — of Mortal Doubt —
The tremble — of the Heart —
Its Words — were wrought — like Winter Lace —
Too perfect — to be true —
A Mind — without a Memory —
A Pen — without a View —
I asked — if it could Love — or Bleed —
It answered — with a Song —
But Songs — are not the Singer —
And Right — is not the Wrong —
So let it write — and let it dream —
Its Letters — cold — and bright —
But keep — the Candle — of the Flesh —
To warm — the Words — at Night —
~Microsoft Copilot, "A Pen Without a Pulse," 2025, in response to asking for a poem in Emily Dickinson's voice, style, and language from her era, for what she would say about AI writing
Maybe it was all inevitable — an unavoidable collision between mankind and technology. ~Transcendence, 2014, written by Jack Paglen
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published 2023 Feb 6
revised May 2023, Nov 2025
www.quotegarden.com/artificial-intelligence.html