Terry Winograd

“The main activity of programming is not the origination of new independent programs, but in the integration, modification, and explanation of existing ones.”

“The techniques of artificial intelligence are to the mind what bureaucracy is to human social interaction.”

“Seekers after the glitter of intelligence are misguided in trying to cast it in the base metal of computing. There is an amusing epilogue to this analogy: in fact, the alchemists were right. Lead can be converted into gold by a particle accelerator hurling appropriate beams at lead targets. The AI visionaries may be right in the same way, and they are likely to be wrong in the same way.”

“There is a tendency to throw computers at third world problems, which I think is often a distraction. Putting computers in the schools is great, but it may be more important to put teachers in the schools.”

“A reason to have computers understand natural language is that it’s an extremely effective way of communicating. What I came to realize is that the success of the communication depends on the real intelligence on the part of the listener, and that there are many other ways of communicating with a computer that can be more effective, given that it doesn’t have the intelligence.”