Irving John Good – Quote Investigator®

Irving John Good? Arthur C. Clarke? Philip J. Davis? Reuben Hersh? Vernor Vinge? Raymond Kurzweil? Apocryphal?

Dear Quote Investigator: A prominent computer researcher in the 1950s or 1960s predicted that humanity would create a superintelligent machine sometime during the twentieth century. The researcher believed that this machine would be humanity’s last invention. Would you please tell me the name of this person and help me to find a citation?

Quote Investigator: In 1965 mathematician, cryptographer, and computer researcher Irving John Good published a speculative article titled “Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine” in the journal “Advances in Computers”. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:^[1]1965, Advances in Computers, Volume 6, Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine by Irving John Good (Trinity College Oxford), Start Page 31, Quote Page 33, Academic Press Inc., New … Continue reading

Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an “intelligence explosion,” and the intelligence of man would be left far behind.

Based on this extrapolation of ascending computer capabilities Good presented the following conclusion with an ominous proviso:

Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Continue reading The First Ultraintelligent Machine Is the Last Invention That Humanity Need Ever Make

References

References
↑1	1965, Advances in Computers, Volume 6, Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine by Irving John Good (Trinity College Oxford), Start Page 31, Quote Page 33, Academic Press Inc., New York. (Verified with scans)

Ronald Coase? Irving John Good? Charles D. Hendrix? Robert W. Flower? Bulent Gultekin? Anonymous?

Dear Quote Investigator: Collecting and interpreting data is a delicate process that is subject to conscious and unconscious biases. The selective choice of inputs and statistical tests can yield results that are misleading. Here are two versions of a comical metaphorical adage:

If you torture the data long enough, it will confess.
If you torture the data enough, nature will always confess.

Strictly speaking these statements are ambiguous. Each interpretation hinges on whether the information in the coerced confession is correct or erroneous. The usual interpretations presume that the information extracted under duress is incorrect. Thus, torturing the data is counterproductive and not revelatory.

Both of these sayings have been attributed to Nobel Prize-winning economist Ronald Coase. Would you please explore this topic?

Quote Investigator: The earliest match located by QI appeared in an address delivered on April 22, 1971 by British mathematician I. J. Good (Irving John Good) at a meeting of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. Good’s lecture was printed in “The American Statistician” in June 1972. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:^[1]1972 June, The American Statistician, Volume 26, Number 3, Statistics and Today’s Problems by I. J. Good, (Invited lecture at the 129th Meeting of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics on … Continue reading

As Ronald Coase says “If you torture the data long enough, it will confess.” When data is tortured, it is useful when possible to reserve some of the sample for testing a hypothesis after it is formulated because there is not yet any satisfactory logic for using the whole of the sample.

Interestingly, Coase stated that he employed a different phrasing for the saying as shown in the citations presented further below dated August 1977 and 1982.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Continue reading If You Torture the Data Long Enough, It Will Confess

References

References
↑1	1972 June, The American Statistician, Volume 26, Number 3, Statistics and Today’s Problems by I. J. Good, (Invited lecture at the 129th Meeting of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics on April 22, 1971), Start Page 11, Quote Page 14, Taylor & Francis, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England. (JSTOR) link