Quotes About Intelligence

And eventually even the brain might go. As the seat of consciousness, it was not essential; the development of electronic intelligence had proved that. The conflict between mind and machine might be resolved at last in the eternal truce of complete symbiosis…. But

Well, I guess [2001: A Space Odyssey] legitimized [science fiction], particularly for people who looked down on science fiction; you know, the intelligentsia. My definition of the intelligentsia: someone who's educated beyond their intelligence.

This had not endeared him to exobiologists such as Dr Perera, who took exactly the opposite view. To them, the only purpose of the Universe was the production of intelligence, and they were apt to talk sneeringly about purely astronomical phenomena, 'Mere dead matter' was one of their favourite phrases.

There was no evidence that the intelligence of the human race had improved, but for the first time everyone was given the fullest opportunity of using what brain he had.

the cipher was based on the product of two hundred-digit prime numbers, and the National Security Agency had staked its reputation on the claim that the fastest computer in existence could not crack it before the Big Crunch at the end of the Universe.

Is there intelligent life on Earth? Yours

That suggested two possibilities. It was either too unintelligent to understand him—or it was very intelligent indeed, with its own powers of choice and volition. In that case, he must treat it as an equal. Even then he might underestimate it—but it would bear him no resentment, for conceit was not a vice from which robots often suffered.

They both knew, of course, that Hal was hearing every word

Though he had a devoted coterie of fans who subscribed to his information service—in an earlier age, he would have been called a pop scientist—he had an even larger circle of critics. The kinder ones considered that he had been educated beyond his intelligence. The others labeled him a self-employed idiot. It

Hal (for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer, no less) was a masterwork of the third computer breakthrough.

I think that the people that say we will never develop computer intelligence — they merely prove that some biological systems don't have much intelligence.

he suffered from an incurable malady which, it seemed, attacked only homo sapiens among all the intelligent races of the universe. That disease was religious mania. Throughout

I HEAR YOU, FRANK. THIS IS DAVE.

Hal remained a low-grade moron.

Men's minds were too valuable to waste on tasks that a few thousand transistors, some photo-electric cells, and a cubic

In their explorations, they encountered life in many forms and watched the workings of evolution on a thousand worlds. They saw how often the first faint sparks of intelligence flickered and died in the cosmic night. And because, in all the Galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere. They became farmers in the fields of stars; they sowed, and sometimes they reaped. And

Good morning, Colonel Tooke. This is Athena. I am ready for my first lesson.

It was difficult not to think of the Central Computer as a living entity, localised in a single spot, though actually it was the sum total of all the machines in Diaspar.

The newborn Athena, suddenly knowing far more about the future than the humans who had created her, had immediately been faced with a dilemma.

it's only by not taking the human race seriously that I retain what fragments of my once considerable mental powers I still possess!

La vision, le goût, l'esprit visionnaire, l'invention véritable et le talent sont des qualités que peut aider, mais que ne remplacera jamais la plus intelligente des machines pensantes jamais conçues par l'homme.

His hypothesis was that the whales store entire incidents in that array, including sights, sounds, and even feelings, and that they

If the decades and the centuries pass with no indication that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, the long-term effects on human philosophy will be profound, and may be disastrous. Better to have neighbors we don't like than to be utterly alone. —Arthur C. Clarke

One of them was Moon-Watcher; once again he felt inquisitive tendrils creeping down the unused byways of his brain.