Famous Alan Turing Quotes & Alan Turing Facts/Biography
Alan Turing Facts/Biography
Alan Turing was a British mathematician and computer scientist born in 1912. Turing is widely considered to be one of the fathers of computer science and hence a pioneer of computer science.
The World War II code breaker is also widely considered to be one of the fathers of modern-day artificial intelligence.
It was during this time in history that Turing introduced the idea of a ‘Turing Machine’ which is a type of abstract machine which is used to represent a particular type of computer and demonstrates the basic principles behind a computer.
Turing believed that this kind of machine would be able to compute anything that is computable. And this is where his theory links to artificial intelligence. He believed that anything that is computable by a human can also be computed by a computer.
So, during the war, he was working for the government and he had his own secret group of people who worked and were developing machines to crack German military codes. These people were called the ‘Government Code & Cypher School (GC&CS).
In 1952, Turing committed suicide due to a mystery illness.
Later in 2014 it was announced that British police would restart their investigation into Turing’s death and would interview his former colleagues as part of an inquiry.
By the 1950s, it was known that computers could be used to solve complex mathematical equations involving immense calculations.
In the 1950s, American Mathematician and Philosopher John von Neumann published a paper on computer architecture that included the concept of a stored-program computer.
A stored-program means that the function of the computer is controlled by storing instructions or codes into memory and then loading them in different combinations for different operations.
Famous Alan Turing Quotes
I want a permanent relationship, and I might feel inclined to reject anything which of its nature could not be permanent. – Alan Turing
Sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine. – Alan Turing
We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done. – Alan Turing
It is more important that a machine should behave as a machine than that it should be made to look like a man. – Alan Turing
The development of computers has turned out to be much more difficult than anticipated and somewhat disappointing in its consequences. – Alan Turing
I do not consider that the use of words can accomplish much in connection with the deeper properties of things, but I think it is worth trying, because one never knows what may happen and some interesting ideas might be developed. – Alan Turing
I believe that it will be worthwhile to try to construct a universal machine. – Alan Turing
The discovery of the general, digital Turing machine is in some ways an important event. It has provided a framework in which to discuss many fundamental problems of mathematical logic and computation and become a subject for exciting new research. -Alan Turing
The whole work of theoretical computer science is utterly pointless, but as a generator of other ideas in mathematics it is very valuable, and as a practical proposition computers can only be used for doing computations that would otherwise have to be done by hand. – Alan Turing
It may be that we cannot build a machine to simulate the human brain because we are unable to make one that works. – Alan Turing
The normal adult male intelligence is certainly below that of the average eleven-year-old girl. – Alan Turing
That was the first time I heard anything that could be called a lie. – Alan Turing
The machine, which was built by E.T.Watson, J.Crick, and A.Newman, solved the problem of reading and writing (in the sense of ‘printing’) alphanumeric messages on an ordinary paper tape so that output is immediate. – Alan Turing
We are not interested in the fact that the brain has the consistency of cold porridge. – Alan Turing
I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted. – Alan Turing
Although I shall probably do no more work on mathematical logic, it is likely that it will never be quite the same again while I am alive. – Alan Turing
The machine’s capabilities are far greater than those of any single human computer, so there can be no comparison in this respect at least. – Alan Turing
If a machine is expected to be infallible, it cannot also be intelligent. – Alan Turing
It is easier to make computers do difficult things than to make them do simple things. – Alan Turing
There are some things that a computer can’t be expected to enjoy doing for ever. – Alan Turing
We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done. – Alan Turing
I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted. – Alan Turing
The normal adult intelligence is certainly below that of an eleven-year-old girl. – Alan Turing
It is more important that a machine should behave like a machine than that it should be made to look like a man. – Alan Turing
I do not consider that the use of words can accomplish much in connection with the deeper properties of things, but I think it is worth trying because one never knows what may happen and some interesting ideas might be developed. – Alan Turing
It is difficult to get the right degree of universality without occasional very unusual features such as self-modifying or indefinite-length tapes which are quite alien to ordinary language thinking and rather repulsive unless one sees their necessity. – Alan Turing
It is important to have a good knowledge of the machine, its possibilities and its limitations. One should be able to fall back on one’s own resources and not be at the mercy of the fancies of the machine. – Alan Turing
It is part of the essence of a man that he can learn and understand what is shown him, and use it practically. – Alan Turing
Some things are so unpleasant that one would prefer not to believe in them. – Alan Turing
I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted. – Alan Turing
The normal intelligence is certainly below that of an eleven-year-old girl. – Alan Turing
It would be very boring if a machine could answer all questions about human behaviour but we should not forget that it might also be very useful! – Alan Turing
The machine cannot think as well as the best chess player, but it can think better than the worst chess-player. – Alan Turing
There are some things that a computer cannot do that are worth knowing. – Alan Turing
It is difficult to see how one would make an absolutely foolproof machine and there is no need to do so. – Alan Turing
It is possible to envisage a machine which would be capable of doing something like chess-playing, but it would be of no value as far as normal people are concerned. – Alan Turing
If one could produce machines which were superior to men in all respects and had the same intelligence, then the logical consequences would be that shortly afterwards they would have no need of men. – Alan Turing
The future will see a time when our machines give us more intelligent and more capable advice than we can possibly follow. – Alan Turing
The machine can play chess much better than I can. – Alan Turing
I regard the effort to produce machines which think as utter nonsense. – Alan Turing
It is possible to foresee a day when an electronic computer will be able to answer any question that can be put to it. – Alan Turing
If one could produce machines which were superior to men in all respects and had the same intelligence, then the logical consequences would be that shortly afterwards they would have no need of men. – Alan Turing
The future will see a time when our machines give us more intelligent and more capable advice than we can possibly follow. – Alan Turing
It would be very boring if a machine could answer all questions about human behaviour but we should not forget that it might also be very useful! – Alan Turing
Some things are so unpleasant that one would prefer not to believe in them. – Alan Turing
I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted. – Alan Turing
If a machine could think about anything at all, then you might suppose that it would think about computable numbers. – Alan Turing
If a machine can play chess well enough to beat me, there is no sense in thinking whether it can think or not. – Alan Turing
I have assumed that the machine behaves like a man in all other respects (except for being able to do calculations). – Alan Turing
The only way of explaining a Man’s behaviour is by attributing motives. – Alan Turing
If a machine has no purpose, you might as well ask a man why he is built that way. – Alan Turing
Once one accepts that the brain has an organic character then it is natural to suppose that machines will be able to think and when they do so, where there are no instructions to the contrary, they will think the same thoughts as we do. – Alan Turing
When one builds a time machine, as von Neumann said, one has to remember that the time machine is being used by its commander. – Alan Turing
I have never seen anyone inventing a self-modifying program who did not carry out this last step with great care. – Alan Turing
The faster my computer answers questions the longer it takes for me to ask them. – Alan Turing
The future is like a great book in which we are all members, and nobody can tell the end, because it is always being written. – Alan Turing
Thinking is a form of science which one does mentally. – Alan Turing
There is no reason at all why a machine should resemble in any way anything that living matter does, for the contrary would be absurd; or rather it would be so much more absurd than anything we have ever thought of that I believe no words could make it more absurd than it actually is…
