Tracing Quotations
Albert Einstein? Cell Phone Critics? Pranksters? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: A friend sent me a link to a message on a website with the title: “The day that Albert Einstein feared may have finally arrived”. The message showed eight pictures of groups of people looking intently at cell phone screens. The people were ignoring one …
Continue reading “I Fear the Day That Technology Will Surpass Our Human Interaction”
Albert Einstein? Victor Salva? Sean Patrick Flanery? Jeff Goldblum? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: There’s a quote attributed to Albert Einstein which I like a lot, but I’m not sure if it’s really his: It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. Can you please tell me if it was said or …
Continue reading “It Has Become Appallingly Obvious That Our Technology Has Exceeded Our Humanity”
Carl Sagan? Lewis Thomas? Douglas Adams? Stephen Fry? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Suppose humanity decided to deliberately send a message out into space. What should be included in that message which might someday be read by a hypothetical alien civilization? In fact, the U.S. launched two robotic interstellar probes in 1977, Voyager 1 …
Paul Krugman? Herman Kahn? Steven D. Levitt? Stephen J. Dubner? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Predicting the technological future is enormously difficult. Will society ever have flying cars, home robots, or cities on Mars? The opinions of enthusiasts, skeptics, and experts are highly variable. The record of most prognosticators has been poor. Apparently, during the …
Henry David Thoreau? Winston Churchill? Marshall McLuhan? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Automation has been occurring for centuries, but the modern age has taken the trend to new extremes. The culture of humanity has shifted dramatically because of the tools created by technology. Here are two versions of a pertinent adage: (1) People have become …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: People Have Become the Tools of Their Tools”
Margaret Fuller? Thomas Carlyle? Henry James Sr.? William James? Ralph Waldo Emerson? Horace Greely? Julia Ward Howe? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: A famous nineteenth-century thinker once delivered a grand affirmation of the universe: “I accept the universe.” Another well-known intellectual heard about this pronouncement and attempted to puncture the elevated tone of the avowal: …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: “I Accept the Universe” “Gad! She’d Better!””
Winston Churchill? Ernest Rutherford? Henry Tizard? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: When access to money is restricted it becomes more difficult to accomplish tasks. Deeper and more creative thought is required to make progress. Here are four versions of a pertinent expression: (1) We have not got any money, so we have got to think.(2) …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: We Have Not Got Any Money, So We Have Got To Think”
Richard Feynman? Steven Weinberg? Barnett Newman? John D. Barrow? Philip Kitcher? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The philosophy of science critically examines the foundations and methods of empiricism. Practitioners of science are sometimes indifferent or hostile to this analysis. Apparently, a scientist once presented the following derisive analogy: The philosophy of science is as …
Charles Baudelaire? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Technophiles have welcomed recent advances in artificial intelligence in the domain of art. Yet, many artists and connoisseurs have been unsettled or openly hostile. One commentator attempted to provide historical perspective by claiming that the famous French poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire denounced the emerging technology of …
Ilya Sutskever? Blaise Agüera y Arcas? Yann LeCun? Blake Lemoine? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Apparently, a top researcher in artificial intelligence (AI) controversially suggested in early 2022 that contemporary digital neural networks employed in AI systems might be “slightly conscious”. Would you please help me to find a citation? Reply from Quote Investigator: Ilya …
Continue reading “It May Be That Today’s Large Neural Networks Are Slightly Conscious”