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Moravec's essay of 1979 asks whether humans should not be happy to see their culture, carried by machines, become as capable as possible, given that immortality resides only in children and culture. Copy claim link
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Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source
Date 1979-02 · publication Records dated 1979 → Wording attested 2001-07-10. Author-hosted HTML; the earliest Internet Archive capture, of 2001-07-10, is byte-identical to the copy retrieved in 2026 (dataset record of 2026-10-06). Not compared with the Analog pages. Claimed date 1976-07-21. The text is dated July 21, 1976, and marked "this version 1978"; earlier versions were not retrieved. Role Articulation Register (kind of text) Nonfiction Scope and limits Stated as a rhetorical question and an assessment ("may not be as bad as it sounds"). The essay is dated 1979-02, but its wording is attested only from 2001-07-10; under the attested-date rule the earliest-located role on W02 goes to Minsky's article of 1994, whose wording is attested from 1997-01-02.
The evidence 02 primary source Supports the claim
Today’s Computers, Intelligent Machines and Our Future ↗ Hans Moravec · 1979-02
Archived copy, captured 2001-07-10: Today’s Computers, Intelligent Machines and Our Future ↗
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Source excerpt “Since biology has committed us to personal death anyway, with whatever immortality we can hope for residing only in our children and our culture, shouldn't we be happy to see that culture become as capable as possible?” Location in source Section 5: The Future
How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher
Machine-checked · 2026-11-01
Source details and check notes Authors Hans Moravec Version Author-hosted HTML in the directory general.articles/1978, retrieved 2026-10-06 (hash matched the pre-1996 candidate search); identical to the capture of 2001-07-10. Author’s project archive, Carnegie Mellon University. Date: the page prints “July 21, 1976” and “this version 1978” (the page and the capture alike); the publication date, February 1979, is the issue of Analog (99, no. 2) in the author’s publication list. The printed issue was not inspected. Version date 1978 Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-06 Language English (en) Archive copy Open archived copy, captured 2001-07-10: Today’s Computers, Intelligent Machines and Our Future ↗ . An archive copy shows only what the archive retrieved on 2001-07-10. It does not prove what the page said earlier, and it can differ from the copy checked on 2026-10-06.Attribution Hans Moravec, "Today’s Computers, Intelligent Machines and Our Future", Analog 99 (2), February 1979. Reuse No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution. Check notes Candidate pack passage, machine succession, scale and acceleration (research/heterodox-thought). The quotation (37 words) matched the text retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-31. Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes and Unicode compatibility forms, so the source’s typography can differ. A cross-family machine check (2026-11-01, item 44) classified the record’s passage blind and reached the same stance. No human editorial review. primary source Supports the claim
Today’s Computers, Intelligent Machines and Our Future ↗ Hans Moravec · 1979-02
Archived copy, captured 2001-07-10: Today’s Computers, Intelligent Machines and Our Future ↗
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Cite the original source Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.
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Source excerpt “This may not be as bad as it sounds, since the machine society can, and for its own benefit probably should, take along with it everything we consider important, up to and including the information in our minds and genes.” Location in source Section 5: The Future
How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher
Machine-checked · 2026-11-01
Source details and check notes Authors Hans Moravec Version Author-hosted HTML in the directory general.articles/1978, retrieved 2026-10-06 (hash matched the pre-1996 candidate search); identical to the capture of 2001-07-10. Author’s project archive, Carnegie Mellon University. Date: the page prints “July 21, 1976” and “this version 1978” (the page and the capture alike); the publication date, February 1979, is the issue of Analog (99, no. 2) in the author’s publication list. The printed issue was not inspected. Version date 1978 Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-06 Language English (en) Archive copy Open archived copy, captured 2001-07-10: Today’s Computers, Intelligent Machines and Our Future ↗ . An archive copy shows only what the archive retrieved on 2001-07-10. It does not prove what the page said earlier, and it can differ from the copy checked on 2026-10-06.Attribution Hans Moravec, "Today’s Computers, Intelligent Machines and Our Future", Analog 99 (2), February 1979. Reuse No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution. Check notes Candidate pack passage, machine succession, scale and acceleration (research/heterodox-thought). The quotation (40 words) matched the text retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-31. Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes and Unicode compatibility forms, so the source’s typography can differ. A cross-family machine check (2026-11-01, item 44) classified the record’s passage blind and reached the same stance. No human editorial review. Status and meaning Editorial status. Machine-checked . Machines found this record and checked it against its sources; no person accepted it individually. Each evidence record above shows how it was checked.
Relation. A passage of the document meets the proposition’s criterion. The record documents what the text states, in its register (fiction and satire are labelled); it is not evidence that the proposition is true and implies no influence on or from another text.
Date. Issue of Analog (99, no. 2) given in the author's publication list.
Record ID ht-w02-moravec-1979-todays-computers