Machines Quotes

“People are more difficult to work with than machines. And when you break a person, he can't be fixed.”
― Rick Riordan, The Battle of the Labyrinth

“Let’s get to know each other. My name’s William, William More, but you can call me Willy. I’m an engineer-chemist who graduated from MIT. So . . . but you’re all alike to me . . . of course, you would be . . . you’re robots. And all your names are that sort of, um . . . codes, technical numbers . . . I need some marker where I can pick you out. Well, well, to you I’ll call . . .,” and Willy pondered for a moment, “Gumball, yes, Gumball! Do you mind?” “No, sir, actually no,” CSE-TR-03 said, agreeing with its new given name. “Ah, that’s wonderful. And then you’re Darwin,” Willy said, accosting the second robot. “Look what a nice name—Darwin! What do you say, eh?” “What can I say, sir? I like it,” CSE-TR-02 agreed too. “Yes, a human name with a past . . . You and Gumball . . . are from the same family, the Methanesons!” “It turns out thus, sir,” Darwin confirmed its family belonging. “And you’re like Larry. You’re Larry. Do you know that?” More addressed the next robot in line. “Yes, sir, just now I learned that,” the third robot said, accepted its name as well.”
― Todor Bombov, Homo Cosmicus 2: Titan: A Science Fiction Novel

“While an elderly man in his mid-eighties looks curiously at a porno site, his grandson asks him from afar, “‘What are you reading, grandpa?’” “‘It’s history, my boy.’” “The grandson comes nearer and exclaims, “‘But this is a porno site, grandpa, naked chicks, sex . . . a lot of sex!’” “‘Well, it’s sex for you, my son, but for me it’s history,’ the old man says with a sigh.” All of people in the cabin burst into laughter. “A stale joke, but a cool one,” added William More, the man who just told the joke. The navigator skillfully guided the flying disc among the dense orange-yellow blanket of clouds in the upper atmosphere that they had just entered. Some of the clouds were touched with a brownish hue at the edges. The rest of the pilots gazed curiously and intently outwards while taking their seats. The flying saucer descended slowly, the navigator’s actions exhibiting confidence. He glanced over at the readings on the monitors below the transparent console: Atmosphere: Dense, 370 miles thick, 98.4% nitrogen, 1.4% methane Temperature on the surface: ‒179°C / ‒290°F Density: 1.88 g/cm³ Gravity: 86% of Earth’s Diameter of the cosmic body: 3200 miles / 5150 km.”
― Todor Bombov, Homo Cosmicus 2: Titan: A Science Fiction Novel

“Yesterday, I asked a robot, Gumball I think, do you know Murphy’s law of gravitation? It answered, ‘No, sir, I know only Newton’s and Einstein’s laws of gravitation; I don’t know Murphy’s law.’ I replied, ‘Eh, Gumball, the slice always falls with the buttered side to the floor. That’s Murphy’s law.’” Everyone burst into laughter.”
― Todor Bombov, Homo Cosmicus 2: Titan

“So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking, and then they thought that, too.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

“Nothing lasts forever, not even the best machines. And everything can be reused.
- Hephaestus”
― Rick Riordan, The Lost Hero

“Machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don’t hate: only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers, don’t fight for slavery, fight for liberty! You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure! Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power. Let us all unite! Let us fight for a new world, a decent world . . .”
― Charles Chaplin

“Mastering the technology to create effigies of our ourselves, will be our downfall.”
― A.R. Merrydew

“The power of one man’s imagination is infinite. The disinterest of the human race in facing the obvious, is exponentially far greater.”
― A.R. Merrydew

“I see you made it Jack,’ he started to say, noticing a silver sphere roll across the loading bay floor. It stopped just short of his shoes before it exploded.”
― A.R. Merrydew, The Girl with the Porcelain Lips

“Androids with Artificial Intelligence have no heart or soul. They will make our perfect masters.”
― A.R. Merrydew

“I had a close encounter with an alien last week. He returned to visit us and was amazed we were still here.”
― A.R. Merrydew

“Science Fiction, is an art form that paints a picture of the future.”
― A.R. Merrydew

“The demise of the human race rests mainly on the shoulders of stupidity, and the abuse of power in the hands of those we have elected.”
― A.R. Merrydew

“Pythagoras has had me going round in circles for years.”
― Anthony Merrydew”
― A.R. Merrydew

“If you could travel back in time, you would miss out on all of the mistakes you made. You would undoubtedly be someone very different. Long live my past and my mistakes.”
― A.R. Merrydew

“This generation will witness social and economic changes in our societies, that will be irreversible, thanks to AI.”
― A.R. Merrydew

“As for myself: I had come to the conclusion that there was nothing sacred about myself or any human being, that we were all machines, doomed to collide and collide and collide. For want of anything better to do, we became fans of collisions. Sometimes I wrote well about collisions, which meant I was a writing machine in good repair. Sometimes I wrote badly, which meant I was a writing machine in bad repair. I no more harbored sacredness than did a Pontiac, a mousetrap, or a South Bend Lathe.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

“The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.”
― B.F. Skinner, Contingencies of Reinforcement; A Theoretical Analysis

“The study of thinking machines teaches us more about the brain than we can learn by introspective methods. Western man is externalizing himself in the form of gadgets.”
― William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch: The Restored Text

“In a properly automated and educated world, then, machines may prove to be the true humanizing influence. It may be that machines will do the work that makes life possible and that human beings will do all the other things that make life pleasant and worthwhile ”
― Isaac Asimov, Robot Visions

“As nature has uncovered from under this hard shell the seed for which she most tenderly cares - the propensity and vocation to free thinking - this gradually works back upon the character of the people, who thereby gradually become capable of managing freedom; finally, it affects the principles of government, which finds it to its advantage to treat men, who are now more than machines, in accordance with their dignity.”
― Immanuel Kant, An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?

“We don't value craftsmanship anymore! All we value is ruthless efficiency, and I say we deny our own humanity that way! Without appreciation for grace and beauty, there's no pleasure in creating things and no pleasure in having them! Our lives are made drearier, rather than richer! How can a person take pride in his work when skill and care are considered luxuries! We're not machines! We have a human need for craftsmanship!”
― Bill Watterson, There's Treasure Everywhere

“The original question, 'Can machines think?' I believe to be too meaningless to deserve discussion.”
― Alan Turing, Mechanical Intelligence: Collected Works of A.M. Turing

“Youth is only being in a way like it might be an animal. No, it is not just like being an animal so much as being like one of these malenky toys you viddy being sold in the streets, like little chellovecks made out of tin and with a spring inside and then a winding handle on the outside and you wind it up grrr grrr grrr and off it itties, like walking, O my brothers. But it itties in a straight line and bangs straight into things bang bang and it cannot help what it is doing. Being young is like being like one of these malenky machines.”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“This is BATL.
War in miniature.
War as a game.
War under glass.”
― Brian Van Norman, Against the Machine: Evolution

“As soon as something incredible happens, and I think I can take on the world, then boom, a warhead drops a payload on me.”
― H. Meadow Hopewell, Rage Against the Machine

“Progress is made by the improvement of people, not the improvement of machines.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Blood of the Mantis

“But neither money nor machines can create. They shuttle tokens of energy, but they do not transform. A civilization based on them puts people out of touch with their creative powers.”
― Lewis Hyde, Alcohol and Poetry: John Berryman and the Booze Talking

“In her mind the U.S. was nothing more and nothing less than a país overrun by gangsters, putas, and no-accounts. Its cities swarmed with machines and industry, as thick with sinvergüencería as Santo Domingo was with heat, a cuco shod in iron, exhaling fumes, with the glittering promise of coin deep in the cold lightless shaft of its eyes.”
― Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao