Richard Hamming Quotes

Life is possible only by the deficiencies of our imagination and memory.

For many people the reason why they're idiots is not necessarily that their brain doesn't work well, it's that they got in a terrible pattern.

Suppose there are some things that we don't understand about the universe, but if you understand human intelligence and you understand the gaps in our abilities to think about things, maybe we can engineer in a computer more advanced intelligences that can help augment our ability to think.

One usually thinks people to be more dangerous than they are.

I feel like people can feel when something is natural. I think they can tell.

Some people do not become thinkers simply because their memories are too good.

I think that tri [to Ram Bahadur Bomjon] was the first time I'd even seen something that made me think, or really feel: "Ah, I don't know what's really going on in the world - I think I do, and it feels like I do, but whatever is really going on is, de facto, beyond the scope of my comprehension - the best we can do is look for hints." I'd known that intellectually before but that was the first time I really believed it viscerally.

Programming is how we talk to the machines that are increasingly woven into our lives. If you aren't a programmer, you're like one of the unlettered people of the Middle Ages who were told what to think by the literate priesthood. We had a Renaissance when more people could read and write; we'll have another one when everyone programs.

People cannot do what they cannot think, and they cannot think what they cannot say.

I don't think enough people have accepted that the machines have already taken over. They are patiently waiting for us to catch up with them. Our world is now interdependent with the machines, and more entrepreneurs should be working on the symbiosis between the two entities.

People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the other way around.

The world which we perceive is a tiny fraction of the world which we can perceive, which is a tiny fraction of the perceivable world.

The original question, 'Can machines think?' I believe to be too meaningless to deserve discussion.

I think that the artificial-intelligence people are making a lot of noise recently, claiming that artificial intelligence is making huge progress and we're going to be outstripped by the machines. But, in my view, this whole field is based on a misconception. I think the brain is analog, whereas the machines are digital. They really are different. So I think that what the machines can do, of course, is wonderful, but it's not the same as what the brain can do.

Don't think of people in the mass. That gives you a blurred view.

I think that the artificial-intelligence people are making a lot of noise recently, claiming that artificial intelligence is making huge progress and we're going to be outstripped by the machines.

People think it's funny when a dumb person can't do things the same way they can.

I think it's very easy for people who are not deep in the technology itself to make generalizations, which may be a little dangerous. And we've certainly seen that recently with Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking, all saying AI is just taking off and it's going to take over the world very quickly. And the thing that they share is none of them work in this technological field.

Like people including Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have predicted, I agree that the future is scary and very bad for people. If we build these devices to take care of everything for us, eventually they'll think faster than us and they'll get rid of the slow humans to run companies more efficiently.

Our senses enable us to perceive only a minute portion of the outside world.

Do you think that people ever really do believe they will die, that the world will just go along as always without them? I wonder if we aren't all a little surprised at the moment of crossover, if we don't look back over our shoulders saying, Now hold on.

There is so much closed-mindedness, there is so much closed-off thought, there is so much bigotry and prejudice within knowledge that it, I think, is stunting the actual intelligence growth of our population. Not our capabilities but our actual intelligence growth because all of the stigma that's attached to people that don't have formal educations as opposed to those who do. But the people that have formal educations have been programmed and indoctrinated in many cases, not in all the disciplines.

I think people need to understand that deep learning is making a lot of things, behind-the-scenes, much better. Deep learning is already working in Google search, and in image search; it allows you to image search a term like "hug."

Somehow, AI is playing an important role of breaking up the ice of complacency. We have a comfortable life, we just don't want to take risks. AI is threatening too many comfortable jobs to make people think about taking risks again.

I think it's crazy for us to think that people don't understand what's being foregrounded in their lives at a given point in time.