Alan Turing Quotes

[T]he m-configuration may be changed.

Potremmo anche immaginare una macchina calcolatrice che viene fatta lavorare con una memoria basata sui libri. Non sarebbe molto facile, ma immensamente preferibile a un singolo lungo nastro. Per pura ipotesi supponiamo che le difficoltà implicite nell'uso di libri come memoria siano superate, cioè che si riesca a sviluppare gli artifici meccanici necessari per trovare il libro giusto, aprirlo alla pagina giusta e così via, imitando l'azione delle mani e degli occhi umani. Non si può girare una pagina molto velocemente senza strapparla, e se gli spostamenti dovessero essere numerosi e veloci, l'energia richiesta sarebbe molto grande. Se muovessimo un libro ogni millisecondo e ciascuno fosse mosso di dieci metri e pesasse 200 grammi, e se ogni volta l'energia cinetica fosse dispersa senza recupero, dovremmo consumare 10^10 watt, pari a circa la metà del consumo di energia della nazione. Per avere una macchina davvero veloce, allora, dobbiamo tenere la nostra informazione, o almeno una parte di questa, in una forma più accessibile di quella che può essere ottenuta con i libri. Sembra che questo risultato possa essere ottenuto solo al prezzo di sacrificare compattezza d economia, cioè tagliando le pagine dal libro e presentando ciascuna a un meccanismo di lettura separato. Alcuni dei metodi di memorizzazione che sono sviluppati ai giorni nostri non si allontanano molto da questo modello.

Do you know why people like violence? It is because it feels good. Humans find violence deeply satisfying. But remove the satisfaction, and the act becomes hollow.

Let us now assume, for the sake of argument, that these machines are a genuine possibility, and look at the consequences of constructing them. To do so would of course meet with great opposition, unless we have advanced greatly in religious toleration from the days of Galileo. There would be great opposition from the intellectuals who were afraid of being put out of a job. It is probable though that the intellectuals would be mistaken about this. There would be plenty to do, trying to understand what the machines were trying to say, i.e. in trying to keep one’s intelligence up to the standard set by the machines, for it seems probable that once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers. There would be no question of the machines dying, and they would be able to converse with each other to sharpen their wits. At some stage therefore we should have to expect the machines to take control, in the way that is mentioned in Samuel Butler’s “Erewhon”.

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.

We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.

O corpo fornece alguma coisa para o espírito cuidar e usar.

"A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human." ~ Alan Turing

It is possible to invent a single machine which can be used to compute any computable sequence. If this machine <math>\mathcal{U}</math> is supplied with a tape on the beginning of which is written the S.D of some computing machine <math>\mathcal{M}</math>, then <math>\mathcal{U}</math> will compute the same sequence as <math>\mathcal{M}</math>.

"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"." ~ Alan Turing

There is a remarkably close parallel between the problems of the physicist and those of the cryptographer. The system on which a message is enciphered corresponds to the laws of the universe, the intercepted messages to the evidence available, the keys for a day or a message to important constants which have to be determined. The correspondence is very close, but the subject matter of cryptography is very easily dealt with by discrete machinery, physics not so easily.

Machines take me by surprise with great frequency.

Sometimes it's the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine.

The machine is supplied with a "tape" (the analogue of paper) running through it, and divided into sections (called "squares") each capable of bearing a "symbol".

La opinión tan generalizada de que los científicos proceden siempre de un hecho bien demostrado a otro hecho bien demostrado, y nunca se dejan influir por una conjetura no probada, es bastante errónea. A condición de que quede bien claro qué son hechos probados y qué son conjeturas, no existe ningún peligro. Las conjeturas son de suma importancia, porque sugieren posibles vías de investigación.