Quote of the day by Alan Turing: 'We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done' key guidance on the road to building AI

Date:
Mon, 20 Jul 2026 22:00:00 +0000

Description:
The legendary computer scientist outlined the foundations for many of the technologies we use today

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Alan Turing is widely revered
as one of the most important scientific and technological figures in modern history. Following his work on cracking the Enigma Machine during the Second World War, Turing published his thoughts on the future of machine
intelligence and specifically on the pathway that we can one day take to achieve proficient AI. "We may hope that machines will eventually compete
with men in all purely intellectual fields. But which are the best ones to start with?... We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done." Alan Turing, October 1950 Eating machines
Turing concluded his seminal 1950 study ' Computing Machinery and
Intelligence ' with musings on how to fulfill what he saw as achieving the great promise of machine intelligence in the future. Quote of the day This article is part of TechRadar Pro's QOTD project to provide an insight into
the minds of the brightest and most recognized figures in the technology industry today and in years gone by. Read the full series here . The pioneering mathematician and computer scientist suggested, in his concluding passage, that even though you may hold some vision for the future, or long-term ambitions, it's key to solve the immediate challenges you face now. True progress isn't achieved in one leap, but through a series of smaller and seemingly less significant steps. Latest Videos From Watch full video here:

In the context of his paper, Turing suggested that scientists in the future need not strive to achieve human-like intelligence in machines, but build the very first iterations of what he described as "thinking machines" so that
this work can be iterated on in the future. Beyond the Turing Test When the study was published, the term "artificial intelligence" was not in widespread use , with scientists instead opting for terms like cybernetics or machine intelligence. You may like Quote of the day by Steve Jobs: "What a computer
is to me is the most remarkable tool that we have ever come up with. It's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds" how technology has augmented us all Quote of the day by Netscape founder Marc Andreessen: 'We believe any deceleration of AI will cost lives' a full-throated defense of the AI buildout Quote of the day by Sam Altman: "It also takes a lot of energy to train a human"

What followed over the next decades was a cascading series of breakthroughs including the birth of neural networks in the 80s and the transformer architecture in 2017 that have led to today's widely used large language models and generative AI services.

Although true human-like intelligence is still some distance away, we've advanced to such an extent that many have even claimed the Turing Test where somebody cannot tell the difference between interacting with a human and AI has already been beaten . Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features
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