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
