Claim · 1951 · event · Stated in source · Supported

Turing’s talk ‘Intelligent Machinery, a Heretical Theory’ (c. 1951) says that such machines will make mistakes at times and at times may make new and very interesting statements.

One recorded claim. The claim panel gives its qualification, the source passages with their place in each source, and how it was checked.

What it connects

Intelligent Machinery, a Heretical Theory → contests → A machine can only do what it is ordered to do

Where it appears

Antecedent texts: machine intelligence before 1965 →

Claim and evidence

Intelligent Machinery, a Heretical Theorycontests ↓A machine can only do what it is ordered to do

Machine-checkedStated in sourceSupported

Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source

Date: 1951 · event Records dated 1951 →
Role: Contesting
Register (kind of text): Nonfiction
Engagement: States the contrary. States that machines may make new statements, without here arguing against the premise that a machine does only what it is ordered to do.

Scope and limitsA contention about machines the talk proposes to build; it says the machine’s actual reaction to circumstances would prove it, if it can be proved at all.

The evidence 01

primary sourceSupports the claim

Intelligent Machinery, a Heretical Theory (AMT/B/4)

The Turing Digital Archive, King’s College, Cambridge · Publication date unknown

Archived copy, captured 2023-05-11: Intelligent Machinery, a Heretical Theory (AMT/B/4)

Cite the original source

Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.

Source excerpt

“They will make mistakes at times, and at times they may make new and very interesting statements”

Location in source Typescript pp. 2–3 (scans 8–9)

How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher

Machine-checked · 2026-11-04

Source details and check notes

Authors: Alan M. Turing
Version: Archive scans of the carbon (p. 101, AMT/B/4/6) and the typescript (p. 10, AMT/B/4/16); the concluding paragraph read on both images for this collection. The carbon carries a typed insertion and a manuscript correction nearby.
Canonical address: Open the canonical source ↗
Accessed: 2026-10-06
Language: English (en)
Archive copy: Open archived copy, captured 2023-05-11: Intelligent Machinery, a Heretical Theory (AMT/B/4). No publication date is recorded for this source. An archive copy shows only what the archive retrieved on 2023-05-11. It does not prove what the page said earlier, and it can differ from the copy checked on 2026-10-06.
Attribution: Alan M. Turing, "Intelligent Machinery, a Heretical Theory", typescript, Turing Digital Archive AMT/B/4, King’s College, Cambridge.
Reuse: No open redistribution licence asserted; archive scans are provided for research. Page images are not reproduced.. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution.
Check notes: Candidate pack passage, antecedent texts (research/prehistory). Read on the page image for the candidate pack; it could not be matched mechanically. Scan without a text layer; quotations read from the typescript page images (scans 7–9) on 2026-11-02; the carbon version was not collated for these passages. The page break falls after the second ‘at times’. 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 disputes the proposition or a premise it depends on. The record documents the text’s position, not who is right.

Date. Approximate year: the King’s College catalogue dates the lecture typescript (AMT/B/4), a lecture to the ’51 Society at Manchester, c. 1951. No lecture day is established. The wording is dated by the typescript, not by its printing in Philosophia Mathematica (September 1996).

Record ID pre-u01-turing-c1951-contests