The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn

by Richard Hamming

After quite a few years the field of the limits of intellectual performance by machines acquired the dubious title of artificial intelligence (ai), which does not have a single meaning. First, it is a variant on the question: Can machines think? While this is a more restricted definition than is artificial intelligence, it has a sharper focus and is a good substitute in the popular mind. This question is important to you because if you believe computers cannot think, then as a prospective leader you will be slow to use computers to advance the field by your efforts, but if you believe of course computers can think, then you are very apt to fall into a first-class failure! Thus you cannot afford to either believe or disbelieve—you must come to your own terms with the vexing problem, “To what extent can machines think?”