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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
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Alan Turing predicts a future where machines are widely accepted as capable of thought.

In this quote, Alan Turing expresses his belief that by the end of the century, society will have evolved to a point where the concept of machines possessing the ability to think will be commonplace and accepted, rather than met with skepticism. He suggests that advancing technology and changing perspectives on intelligence and consciousness will lead to a significant shift in how humans view the capabilities of machines.

Themes

MachinesThinkingFutureTechnologyIntelligence

In practice

Example use cases

In a technology conference discussing AI advancements.

More from Alan Turing

Mathematical reasoning may be regarded rather schematically as the exercise of a combination of two facilities, which we may call intuition and ingenuity.
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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.
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Machines take me by surprise with great frequency.
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Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.
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I am not very impressed with theological arguments whatever they may be used to support. Such arguments have often been found unsatisfactory in the past. In the time of Galileo it was argued that the texts, 'And the sun stood still... and hasted not to go down about a whole day' (Joshua x. 13) and 'He laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not move at any time' (Psalm cv. 5) were an adequate refutation of the Copernican theory.
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It seems probable that once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers… 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.
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