Tracing Quotations
John von Neumann? R.L. Duffus? Albert Wohlstetter? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The remarkable recent advances in the field of artificial intelligence have produced feelings of excitement and foreboding. Power, hope, and danger are intertwined with technological discoveries. A famous scientist emphasized the inevitability of challenges: For progress there is no cure. Would you please …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: For Progress There Is No Cure”
Donald Barthelme? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: When I was a young child I found the number of books in my local library overwhelming. I wondered how one could find the time to read so many books? When I was a slightly older child, I concluded that there were a enormous number that you don’t …
Albert Einstein? Jerome Halprin? Abba Eban? Leonard Lyons? Sidney Greenberg? Paul Connett? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: A popular quip highlights the distinction between the adjectives clever and wise: A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it. This notion can also be expressed as follows: A clever person gets out of a …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: A Clever Person Solves a Problem. A Wise Person Avoids It”
Marvin Minsky? Herbert A. Simon? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: A top researcher in computer science in the 1960s contended that the problem of building machines with artificial intelligence (AI) would be largely solved within a generation. A statement of this type has been attributed to Marvin Minsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Would …
Jeff Bezos? Wolfgang R. Schmitt? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Business leaders in technology-based companies are often asked for ten year predictions of change. Apparently, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, once responded by spinning the inquiry. He said there was a more important question: What’s not going to change in the next 10 years? He …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: What’s Not Going To Change in the Next 10 Years?”
Peter H. Diamandis? Ankur Jain? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: One path to achieving great wealth is by building a vital new product or performing a widely needed service. Here are three versions of a pertinent adage: This saying has been ascribed to author and entrepreneur Peter H. Diamandis who founded the XPRIZE Foundation. Would …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: The Best Way To Become a Billionaire Is To Help a Billion People”
Albert A. Bartlett? William Dillinger? Paul A. Tipler? David Suzuki? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: What do the following have in common: computing power, internet communication traffic, human population, energy use? Each has experienced exponential growth. The full implications of such rapid changes are difficult to grasp. A scientist has asserted that the incomprehension of …
Arthur C. Clarke? Stanley Kubrick? Christiane Kubrick? Jeremy Bernstein? Porky Pine? Walt Kelly? Frank Interlandi? Carl Sagan? Jerome Agel? Buckminster Fuller? David Shepley? Lee Alvin DuBridge? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Astronomers have been searching for evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence for more than a century. Is humankind alone in the universe, or is humankind sharing …
Andrew Ng? Nick Bostrom? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: A top artificial intelligence (AI) researcher was asked whether he feared the possibility of malevolent superintelligent robots wreaking havoc in the near future, and he answered “No”. He illustrated his answer with the following analogy. Worrying about human overpopulation on Mars is fruitless. It is a distant …
Marvin Minsky? Joseph Weizenbaum? Pamela McCorduck? Edward Fredkin? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Within computer science the discipline of artificial intelligence (AI) is focused on analyzing and constructing entities that display advanced cognitive behaviors. These entities are designed to learn, solve problems, and achieve goals. Critics of the field contend that machines cannot embody genuine …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: The Brain Is Merely a Meat Machine”