quotations about computers
Home computers are being called upon to perform many new functions, including the consumption of homework formerly eaten by the dog.
DOUG LARSON
attributed, The Biteback Dictionary of Humorous Business Quotations
That computers are qualitative, representation-processors, making them primarily art tools, is wonderful. That we emasculate and objectify them before we've even begun is sad indeed.
STUART MEALING
Computers and Art
Computers are like motorbikes. They're easy to crash, impossible to fit all the family on and passengers you do take can only look over your shoulder.
DEAN ORMANDY
Conquering Computers
The computer is incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid. Man is unbelievably slow, inaccurate, and brilliant. The marriage of the two is a force beyond calculation.
LEO CHERNE
attributed, The World of Work: Careers and the Future
Computers are machines and thus not subject to the biases and prejudices that distort human information processing and decision making--computers are objective in some absolute sense. In addition, computers are driven by purely logical mechanisms that are open to inspection; thus, computer-generated results must be totally rational and logical--they must be the "truth." Unfortunately (or is it fortunately?), the most utter rubbish and prejudice-saturated nonsense is as easily generated from logical mechanisms as by any other means. The use of a logical basis in no way guarantees correct and true conclusions. In fact, quite the contrary is the case. Simple classical logic is singularly ineffective in the empirical world of incomplete and poor quality information.... Thus, computers are, in general, no more infallible than you, or I, or the persons who programmed them.
DEREK PARTRIDGE
Artificial Intelligence and Business Management
Computers make it easier to do a lot of things but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done.
ANDY ROONEY
"A Few Words from Andy Rooney: A Face of America Commentary"
Computers are composed of nothing more than logic gates stretched out to the horizon in a vast numerical irrigation system.
STAN AUGARTEN
State of the Art: A Photographic History of the Integrated Circuit
The iron machines still exist, but they obey the orders of weightless bits.
ITALO CALVINO and PATRICK CREAGH
Six Memos for the Next Millennium
Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.
ISAAC ASIMOV
attributed, The Definitive Guide to Managing the Numbers
Programs are detailed because computers are machines. Machines do not have intelligence. A computer blindly follows your instructions, step by step. If you do not give detailed instructions, the computer can do nothing.
GREG M. PERRY
Sams Teach Yourself Beginning Programming in 24 Hours
When it comes to their capacity to screw things up, computers are becoming more human every day.
SETH LLOYD
Programming the Universe
The similarities between humans and computers are more numerous than the differences.
P. A. SCOTT
Global Ergonomics
What a computer is to me is the most remarkable tool that we have ever come up with. It's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.
STEVE JOBS
Memory and Imagination: New Pathways to the Library of Congress
I understand the link between the commands I type and the actions the computer performs can be reduced to a predictable input/output network, albeit a massively complex one. And thanks to this knowledge, I do not attribute magical qualities to the machine. I don't get angry at it. I don't try to read its mood, interpret the emotional subtext of its communications with me, or start to sulk if it takes too long to boot up. I don't take it personally--most of the time.
BERNARD BECKETT
Falling for Science
These machines have no common sense; they have not yet learned to "think," and they do exactly as they are told, no more and no less. This fact is the hardest concept to grasp when one first tries to use a computer.
DONALD KNUTH
preface, The Art of Computer Programming
As science fiction writers began to get their first glimmerings of the kind of power that computers might someday control, their immediate reaction was one of panic. Even through the 1960s, this view of computers as powerful gods did not change; it only became more sophisticated. For instance, Arthur C. Clarke wrote a short story that began with every telephone on earth ringing at the same time. Over the course of the next few hours, there were an extraordinary number of plane crashes and accidents. The punch line of the story was that the communications network that linked every machine on the planet into one vast consciousness had finally "awakened." The ringing of the phones was the birth cry of the baby and the crash of the planes was its first attempt to play. And so on. The idea was this: When the consciousness wakes up, watch out.
DAVID GERROLD
InfoWorld, Jul. 5, 1982
The computer will not make a good manager out of a bad manager. It makes a good manager better faster and a bad manager worse faster.
EDWARD M. ESBER
attributed, In Search of Stupidity
The danger of computers becoming like humans is not as great as the danger of humans becoming like computers.
KONRAD ZUSE
Hersfelder Zeitung
Computers make excellent and efficient servants, but I have no wish to serve under them.
D.C. FONTANA
"The Ultimate Computer", Star Trek
A computer is the most incredible tool we've ever seen. It can be a writing tool, a communications center, a supercalculator, a planner, a filer and an artistic instrument all in one, just by being given new instructions, or software, to work from. There are no other tools that have the power and versatility of a computer. We have no idea how far it's going to go. Right now, computers make our lives easier. They do work for us in fractions of a second that would take us hours. They increase the quality of life, some of that by simply automating drudgery and some of that by broadening our possibilities. As things progress, they'll be doing more and more for us.
STEVE JOBS
Playboy, Feb. 1985