AI  Quotations

Source : AI Quotes and Humour : Copyright © 2001-2003 Michel Pasquier. All rights reserved : Intelligent System Laboratory, School of Computer Engineering, Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, Assoc Prof. Michel Pasquier (Director)

AI AND COMPUTING QUOTATIONS

• AI is anything in software that we don't know how to do yet. -- Anon

• All our knowledge is symbolic. -- Goethe

• Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -- A.C. Clarke

• Artificial Intelligence is better than natural stupidity. -- J. McCarthy

• Artificial Intelligence is no match for natural stupidity. -- Anon

• Artificial Intelligence is the art of making computers that behave like the ones in movies. -- B. Bulko

• Because we do not understand the brain very well we are constantly tempted to use the latest technology as a model for trying to understand it. In my childhood we were always assured that the brain was a telephone switchboard. Sherrington, the great British neuroscientist, thought that the brain worked like a telegraph system. Freud often compared the brain to hydraulic and electro-magnetic systems. Leibniz compared it to a mill, and I am told some of the ancient Greeks thought the brain functions like a catapult. At present, obviously, the metaphor is the digital computer. -- J.R. Searle

• Brute-forcing intelligence using any kind of evolutionary algorithm is a hideously immoral act, immoral on the scale of entire worlds; it's what Nature did to us." -- E.S. Yudkowsky

• Bug? That's not a bug, that's a feature. -- T.J. Wendel

• The computer industry has frequently borrowed from mythology: sprites in computer graphics, demons in artificial intelligence, and trolls in the marketing department. -- J. Meyer

• Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. -- P. Picasso

• Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. -- E. Dijkstra

• Deducktive reasoning: if it walks like a duck and sounds like a duck and looks like a duck then it must be a duck! -- Anon

• The essential quality of a proof is to compel belief. -- Fermat

• An expert problem solver must be endowed with two incompatible qualities: a restless imagination and a patient pertinacity. -- H.W. Eves

• I'm sorry Dave; I can't let you do that. -- HAL 9000 (in 2001, A Space Odyssey, by A.C. Clarke)

• I bet the human brain is a kludge. -- M. Minsky

• If brute force doesn't work, you're not using enough brute force. -- Anon

• If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in. -- E. Dijkstra

• If your facts are wrong but your logic is perfect, then your conclusions are inevitably false. Therefore, by making mistakes in your logic, you have at least a random chance of coming to a correct conclusion. -- Ch. Davies

• If the human mind were simple enough to understand, we'd be too simple to understand it. -- E. Pugh

• In general we are least aware of what our minds do best. -- M. Minsky

• The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance. -- R.R. Coveyou (Oak Ridge National Lab)

• An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. -- A. Camus

• It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship god but to create him. -- A.C. Clarke

• Just as Los Angeles has been called twelve suburbs in search of a city, AI might be called twelve topics in search of a subject. -- N. Nilsson

• The KISS principle: Keep it simple, stupid. -- Anon

• Knowledge is power. -- F. Bacon

• Laws of computing: (1) Any given program, when running, is obsolete. (2) Any given program costs more and takes longer each time it is run. (3) If a program is useful, it will have to be changed. (4) If a program is useless, it will have to be documented. (5) Any given program will expand to fill all the available memory. (6) The value of a program is inversely proportional to the weight of its output. (7) Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the programmer who must maintain it. -- Anon

• Law of cybernetic entomology: There is always one more bug. -- Lubarsky

• The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. -- L. Wittgenstein

• Logic, n.: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion -- thus: Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man. Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds; therefore -- Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second. This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed. -- A. Bierce (The Devil's Dictionary)

• Logic is a system whereby one may go wrong with confidence. -- Ch. Kettering

• A machine may be deemed intelligent when it can pass for a human being in a blind test. -- A. Turing

• Man is not a machine. Although man most certainly processes information, he does not necessarily process it in the way computers do. Computers and men are not species of the same genus... However much intelligence computers may attain, now or in the furture, theirs must always be an intelligence alien to genuine human problems and concerns. -- J. Weizenbaum

• Machines take me by surprise with great frequency. -- A. Turing

• Man has made some machines that can answer questions provided the facts are profusely stored in them, but we will never be able to make a machine that will ask questions. The ability to ask the right question is more than half the battle of finding the answer. -- T.J. Watson

• More than iron, more than lead, more than gold, I need electricity. I need it more than I need lamb or pork or lettuce or cucumber. I need it for my dreams. -- Racter (a software program that writes poetry)

• Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window. -- S. Wozniak

• Nobody's gonna believe that computers are intelligent until they start coming in late and lying about it. -- Anon

• Once a computer learns by experience as well as by its original programming, and once it has access to much more information than any number of human geniuses might possess, the first thing that happens is that you don't really understand it anymore, and you don't know what it's doing or thinking about. You could be tempted to ask yourself in what way is machine intelligence any less sacrosanct than biological intelligence, and it might be difficult to arrive at an answer flattering to biological intelligence. -- S. Kubrick

• One man's constant is another man's variable. -- A. Perlis

• One should always prefer the probable impossible to the improbable possible. -- Aristotle's Dictum

• Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to. -- H.M. Jones

• Personally I rather look forward to a computer program winning the world [chess] championship. Humanity needs a lesson in humility. -- R. Dawkings

• Philosophy is a game with objectives and no rules. Mathematics is a game with rules and no objectives. -- Anon

• Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. -- R. Cook

• The question of whether computers can think is about as relevant as that of whether submarines can swim. -- E. Dijkstra

• The real problem is not whether machines can think but whether men do. -- B.F. Skinner

• Reasoning is an art and not a science. -- Wos et al.

• The solving of a problem lies in finding the solvers. -- A. Van Herpen

• The sad thing about artificial intelligence is that it lacks artifice and therefore intelligence. -- J. Baudrillard

• So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence. -- Bertrand Russell

• The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. -- F.S. Fitzgerald

• The test of negation: Don't include a sentence if its negation is obviously false. -- B. Martin

• The three laws of robotics: (1) A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. (2) A robot must obey the orders given by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law. (3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law. -- I. Asimov

• There are 10 kinds of people: those who understand binary, and those who don't." -- Anon

• This sentence is false. -- Anon

• To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer. -- Farmers' Almanac

• To err is human, and to blame it on a computer even more so. -- R. Orben

• Two plus two equals five, for extremely large values of two. -- Anon

• Variables won't; constants aren't. -- Osborn's Law

• Vehicles move through their world with consistent determination, always clearly after something that very often we cannot guess at the outset - something that may not even be there when the vehicle reaches the place it wants to get to. But it seems to be a good strategy, this running after a dream. Most of the time the chain of optimistic predictions that seems to guide the vehicles's behaviour proves to be correct, and Vehicle 14 achieves goals that Vehicle 13 and its predecessors "couldn't not even dream of." The point is that while the vehicle goes through its optimistic predicitions, the succession of internal states implies movements and actions of the vehicle itself. While dreaming and sleepwalking, the vehicle transforms the world (and its own position in the world) in such a way that ultimately the state of the world is a more favorable one. -- V. Braitenberg

RESEARCH AND SCIENCE QUOTATIONS

• All things are difficult before they are easy. -- T. Fuller

• An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction. -- Booker's Law

• As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. -- A. Einstein

• Belief is the death of intelligence. -- R.A. Wilson

• The best way to predict the future is to invent it. -- A. Kay

• A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking. -- Matz

• Enough research will tend to support your theory. -- Murphy's Law of Research

• Every clarification breeds new questions. -- A. Bloch

• The future ain't what it used to be. -- A.C. Clarke

• Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please. -- M. Twain

• The great tragedy of science: the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact. -- T. Huxley

• If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. -- B.M. Baruch

• In an experiment works, something has gone wrong. -- Finagle's First Law

• If at first you don't succeed, why go on and make a fool of yourself? -- S. Pomeory

• If it looks easy, it's tough; if it looks tough, it's damn near impossible. -- Stockmayer's Law

• If scientists knew what they were doing, it wouldn't be called research. -- A. Einstein

• I believe in an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out. -- A.H. Sulzberger

• If you cannot convince them, confuse them. -- H. Truman

• If you do not push the boundaries, you will never know where they are. -- T.S. Elliot

• If you steal from one author, it's plagiarism; if you steal from many, it's research. -- W. Mizner

• If your project doesn't work, look for the part you didn't think was important. -- Biondi's Law

• If you torture data sufficiently, it will confess to almost anything. -- F. Menger

• Impossible is an opinion not a fact. -- Anon

• In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct, beyond all need of checking, is the mistake. -- Finagle's Third Law

• In the midst of chaos lies creativity. -- Anon

• In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. -- J.L.A. van de Snep Schent

• Invention takes precisely 3.679 times more effort and time to complete than expected, after which it must be completely revised. -- Lynn's Law of Creativity

• It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. -- H. Truman

• It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. -- H. Melville

• It's always too early to quit. -- N.V. Peale

• Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law. -- D.R. Hofstadter

• Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly. -- Anon

• The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny ..." -- I. Asimov

• No real problem has a solution. -- Smith's Law

• Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it. -- R. Feynman

• Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance. -- Confucius

• Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing. -- W. von Braun

• A scientist builds in order to learn; an engineer learns in order to build. -- F. Brooks

• Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you will land among the stars. -- L. Brown

• Statistics are always true, unless you personally know who made them up. -- D. Chopra

• A theory is supported as long as the funds are. -- Alan's Law of Research

• The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms. -- A. Einstein

• The progress of science varies inversely with the number of journals published. -- Parkinson's Sixth Law

• The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it. -- Roman Rule

• The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. -- A. Einstein

• The time from now until the completion of the project tends to become constant. -- D. Hartree

• There are no answers, only cross-references. -- Weiner

• There is always a better way. -- C.M. Bristol

• There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge. -- B. Russell

• Whatever is reasonable is true, and whatever is true is reasonable. -- G.W. Hegel

• You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try. -- B. Sills

• We flourish by our wits -- we continually create new resources where none were discernable before. Where our ancestors saw desolate prairies we see amber waves of grain, where they saw food-destroying fungi we see life-giving antibiotics, where they saw barren beaches we see groves of silicon. Today, more than ever, we flourish by our wits. -- G. Rawlins

• We live in a Newtonian world of Einsteinian physics ruled by Frankenstein logic. -- D. Russell

TEACHING AND LEARNING QUOTATIONS

• A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. -- G.B. Shaw

• The brighter you are, the more you have to learn. -- D. Herold

• Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. -- A. Einstein

• Do not learn more than you absolutely need to get through life. -- K. Kraus

• Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten. -- B.F. Skinner

• Everyone who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching. -- O. Wilde

• Furious activity is no substitute for understanding. -- H.H. Williams

• Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement. -- F. Brooks

• He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches. -- G.B. Shaw

• Information is like money. Sooner or later you'll find a use for it. -- B. Sher

• I have an anwer. Anybody has a question? -- S. Dali

• I was six years old when my parents told me that there was a small, dark jewel inside my skull, learning to be me. -- G. Egan

• Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. -- A. Einstein

• It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters in the end. -- U.K. LeGuin

• Learn from the mistakes of others; you can't live long enough to make them all yourself. -- E. Roosevelt

• Learning is discovering that something is possible. -- F. Perls

• Learning is finding out what you already know. -- R. Bach

• Practice is the best of all instructors. -- Publilius

• The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher regard those who think alike than those who think differently. -- Nietzsche

• What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing. -- Aristotle

COMPUTER "BUMPER STICKERS"

• Calm down -- it's only ones and zeros.
• CCITT - Can't Conceive Intelligent Thoughts Today.
• Error, no keyboard - press F1 to continue.
• Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
• God is REAL, unless explicitly declared INTEGER.
• In a world without walls and fences, who needs windows and gates?
• "Intel inside" - idiot outside.
• Life would be much easier if I had the source code.
• Multitasking: Fouling up several things at once...
• On a clear disk you can seek forever.
• Pentiums melt in your PC, not in your hand.
• The secret of the universe is beeeeeeeeep NO CARRIER
• To define recursion, we must first define recursion.
• Unix for stability. Macs for productivity. Windows for solitaire.
• Your e-mail has been returned due to insufficient voltage.
• #define QUESTION ((bb) || !(bb)) - Shakespeare.