A
computer is the most incredible tool we've ever seen. It can be a
writing tool, a communications centre, a super calculator, 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, Feb. 1985
Computers are finite machines; when given the same input, they always produce the same output. - Greg M. Perry
Computers are in essence millions of tiny simple machines coordinated and connected together to accomplish a useful purpose. Comparing a computer with the human brain puts the computer at a disadvantage. The brain is so complex it's not even fully understood! By contrast all the technology involved in computers is obviously understood and harnessed by humans. Both computers and the human brain are very different in the way they handle instructions. For instance the brain handles millions of bits of information simultaneously. Most computers though, can handle just 64 bits of information at the same time; it just does it in millionths of a second. The computer then is able to handle the few instructions it receives much faster. - Dean Ormandy
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
Computers can figure out all kinds of problems, except the things in this world that just don't add up. - Evan Esar
Computers do what they are told. They slavishly obey any instructions given in their own programming language. This is how they do useful things like word processing and spreadsheet calculations. But, as in inevitable by-product, they are equally robotic in obeying bad instructions. They have no way of telling whether an instruction will have a good effect or a bad. They simply obey, as soldiers are supposed to do. It is their unquestioning obedience that makes computers useful, and exactly the same thing makes them inescapably vulnerable to infection by software viruses and worms. A maliciously designed program that says, "Copy me and send me to every address that you find on this hard disk" will simply be obeyed, and then obeyed again by other computers down the line to which it is sent, in exponential expansion. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to design a computer which is usefully obedient and at the same time immune to infection. - Richard Dawkins
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
Computers no longer interface with humans – they interact, and the interaction will become steadily deeper, more subtle, and more crucial to our collective sanity and ultimate survival. - Alan Cooper
It's not a fantasy to explore this question about making computers that are much, much, more powerful than the kind that we have sitting around now – in which a grain of salt has all the computational powers of all the computers in the world. - Seth Lloyd
Like the mind, the computer is useful because it produces information. Computers are also functional because they are able to produce a wide variety of responses that mimic human abilities. As the brain has been compared with the computer, the idea that the mind is a mechanical entity has become more plausible. For example, just as the computer operates on electricity, the brain is now described as an object comprised of electronically sensitive cells or neuron networks. Although the nervous system, which is the controlling agent for the body, continues to be shrouded in mystery, many investigators have found it attractive to equate the mind with the brain and to identify both with the computer. - Vicente Berdayes
Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all. - John F. Kennedy
Most people believe that computers are tools; at least this is the image conveyed by the dominant ideology. This viewpoint has two main components. First, computers are inert objects that persons control. Due to the dumb docility of these machines, computers are assumed to operate in a neutral, value-free manner. By processing data, these machines mechanically generate objective information. Second, computers simply wait to be used. Like all tools, computers do what they are told, therefore there is nothing fundamentally diabolical or sinister about these machines. In this sense, computers seem transparent – they do not have an agenda. As the clichéd defence of technology suggests, though machines can be turned to good or evil ends, computers themselves are basically amoral. If problems arise from this technology, then users are to blame. - Vicente Berdayes
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
Something else has happened with computers. What's happened with society is that we have created these devices, computers, which already can register and process huge amounts of information, which is a significant fraction of the amount of information that human beings themselves, as a species, can process. When I think of all the information being processed there, all the information being communicated back and forth over the Internet, or even just all the information that you and I can communicate back and forth by talking, I start to look at the total amount of information being processed by human beings – and their artefacts – we are at a very interesting point of human history, which is at the stage where our artefacts will soon be processing more information than we physically will be able to process. - Seth Lloyd
The computer has evolved into a partner, a tool, and an environment – not just in science fiction, but in the public consciousness as well. Computers are no longer malevolent iron brains that manufacture tyrannical and oppressive answers; they are not a way to think, they are a place from which to think. The computer is an environment in which answers can be sought, created, manipulated and developed. - David Gerrold
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
We should treat computers as fancy telephones, whose purpose is to connect people.... As long as we remember that we ourselves are the source of our value, our creativity, our sense of reality, then all of our work with computers will be worthwhile and beautiful. - Jaron Lanier
We used to have lots of questions to which there were no answers. Now, with the computer, there are lots of answers to which we haven't thought up questions. - Peter Ustinov
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
When it comes to their capacity to screw things up, computers are becoming more human every day. - Seth Lloy
You'll see more and more perfection of that – computer as servant. But the next thing is going to be computer as guide or agent. And what that means is that it's going to do more in terms of anticipating what we want and doing it for us, noticing connections and patterns in what we do, asking us if this is some sort of generic thing we'd like to do regularly, so that we're going to have, as an example, the concept of triggers. We're going to be able to ask our computers to monitor things for us, and when certain conditions happen, are triggered, the computers will take certain actions and inform us after the fact. - Steve Jobs
Computers are finite machines; when given the same input, they always produce the same output. - Greg M. Perry
Computers are in essence millions of tiny simple machines coordinated and connected together to accomplish a useful purpose. Comparing a computer with the human brain puts the computer at a disadvantage. The brain is so complex it's not even fully understood! By contrast all the technology involved in computers is obviously understood and harnessed by humans. Both computers and the human brain are very different in the way they handle instructions. For instance the brain handles millions of bits of information simultaneously. Most computers though, can handle just 64 bits of information at the same time; it just does it in millionths of a second. The computer then is able to handle the few instructions it receives much faster. - Dean Ormandy
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
Computers can figure out all kinds of problems, except the things in this world that just don't add up. - Evan Esar
Computers do what they are told. They slavishly obey any instructions given in their own programming language. This is how they do useful things like word processing and spreadsheet calculations. But, as in inevitable by-product, they are equally robotic in obeying bad instructions. They have no way of telling whether an instruction will have a good effect or a bad. They simply obey, as soldiers are supposed to do. It is their unquestioning obedience that makes computers useful, and exactly the same thing makes them inescapably vulnerable to infection by software viruses and worms. A maliciously designed program that says, "Copy me and send me to every address that you find on this hard disk" will simply be obeyed, and then obeyed again by other computers down the line to which it is sent, in exponential expansion. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to design a computer which is usefully obedient and at the same time immune to infection. - Richard Dawkins
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
Computers no longer interface with humans – they interact, and the interaction will become steadily deeper, more subtle, and more crucial to our collective sanity and ultimate survival. - Alan Cooper
It's not a fantasy to explore this question about making computers that are much, much, more powerful than the kind that we have sitting around now – in which a grain of salt has all the computational powers of all the computers in the world. - Seth Lloyd
Like the mind, the computer is useful because it produces information. Computers are also functional because they are able to produce a wide variety of responses that mimic human abilities. As the brain has been compared with the computer, the idea that the mind is a mechanical entity has become more plausible. For example, just as the computer operates on electricity, the brain is now described as an object comprised of electronically sensitive cells or neuron networks. Although the nervous system, which is the controlling agent for the body, continues to be shrouded in mystery, many investigators have found it attractive to equate the mind with the brain and to identify both with the computer. - Vicente Berdayes
Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all. - John F. Kennedy
Most people believe that computers are tools; at least this is the image conveyed by the dominant ideology. This viewpoint has two main components. First, computers are inert objects that persons control. Due to the dumb docility of these machines, computers are assumed to operate in a neutral, value-free manner. By processing data, these machines mechanically generate objective information. Second, computers simply wait to be used. Like all tools, computers do what they are told, therefore there is nothing fundamentally diabolical or sinister about these machines. In this sense, computers seem transparent – they do not have an agenda. As the clichéd defence of technology suggests, though machines can be turned to good or evil ends, computers themselves are basically amoral. If problems arise from this technology, then users are to blame. - Vicente Berdayes
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
Something else has happened with computers. What's happened with society is that we have created these devices, computers, which already can register and process huge amounts of information, which is a significant fraction of the amount of information that human beings themselves, as a species, can process. When I think of all the information being processed there, all the information being communicated back and forth over the Internet, or even just all the information that you and I can communicate back and forth by talking, I start to look at the total amount of information being processed by human beings – and their artefacts – we are at a very interesting point of human history, which is at the stage where our artefacts will soon be processing more information than we physically will be able to process. - Seth Lloyd
The computer has evolved into a partner, a tool, and an environment – not just in science fiction, but in the public consciousness as well. Computers are no longer malevolent iron brains that manufacture tyrannical and oppressive answers; they are not a way to think, they are a place from which to think. The computer is an environment in which answers can be sought, created, manipulated and developed. - David Gerrold
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
We should treat computers as fancy telephones, whose purpose is to connect people.... As long as we remember that we ourselves are the source of our value, our creativity, our sense of reality, then all of our work with computers will be worthwhile and beautiful. - Jaron Lanier
We used to have lots of questions to which there were no answers. Now, with the computer, there are lots of answers to which we haven't thought up questions. - Peter Ustinov
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
When it comes to their capacity to screw things up, computers are becoming more human every day. - Seth Lloy
You'll see more and more perfection of that – computer as servant. But the next thing is going to be computer as guide or agent. And what that means is that it's going to do more in terms of anticipating what we want and doing it for us, noticing connections and patterns in what we do, asking us if this is some sort of generic thing we'd like to do regularly, so that we're going to have, as an example, the concept of triggers. We're going to be able to ask our computers to monitor things for us, and when certain conditions happen, are triggered, the computers will take certain actions and inform us after the fact. - Steve Jobs
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