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Machines are worshipped because they are beautiful and valued because they confer power; they are hated because they are hideous and loathed because they impose slavery.
BERTRAND RUSSELL, Sceptical Essays
The fact is, that civilisation requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.
OSCAR WILDE, The Soul of Man Under Socialism
We are survival machines -- robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.
RICHARD DAWKINS, The Selfish Gene
I visualize a time when we will be to robots what dogs are to humans, and I'm rooting for the machines.
CLAUDE SHANNON, The Mathematical Theory of Communication
Machines smart enough to do anything for us will probably also be able to do anything with us: go to dinner, own property, compete for sexual partners. They might even have passionate opinions about politics or, like the robots on Battlestar Galactica, even religious beliefs. Some have worried about robot rebellions, but with so many tort lawyers around to apply the brakes, the bigger question is this: Will humanoid machines enrich our social lives, or will they be a new kind of television, destroying our relationships with real humans?
FRED HAPGOOD, Discover Magazine, June 2008
You do not need to be Alan Greenspan to understand that the more things a machine can do, the bigger the market.
FRED HAPGOOD, Discover Magazine, June 2008
The machine has no feelings, it feels no fear and no hope ... it operates according to the pure logic of probability. For this reason I assert that the robot perceives more accurately than man.
MAX FRISCH, Homo Faber: A Report
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