Claim: Turing’s 1951 broadcast script considers machines thinking more…

Search by nameBrowse by topic

Core institutions

Document histories

Chinese AI histories

Three selected institutional histories, grouped here for navigation. The grouping implies no shared ownership, strategy or lineage.

DeepSeek Alibaba / Qwen Zhipu AI

Coverage is selective

Selected records
1965–2027
Dates after the latest check are scheduled dates

Latest source check
2026-10-26

All records

All topics

Choose an institution to see its records and dossier, or choose a topic.

Through year Show

94 people, organisations and other records · 122 relationships · 34 claims about a valueEverything recorded up to the chosen year, whether or not still in effect · Undated records included

Claim and evidence

Can Digital Computers Think?bears on ↓Control or purpose specification

Turing’s 1951 broadcast script considers machines thinking more intelligently than people, and says that even if they were kept subservient by turning off the power at strategic moments, people would feel humbled.

Machine-checked, not reviewed by an editorStated in sourceSupported

Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source

Date: 1951-05-15 · event
Role: Context
Register (kind of text): Nonfiction
Missing element: The script entertains keeping machines subservient by switching off the power, rather than asserting that control would fail.

Scope and limitsDo not substitute the stronger prediction of the Heretical Theory talk for this conditional sentence.

The evidence 01

primary sourceSupports the claim

Can Digital Computers Think? (AMT/B/5)

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

Cite the original source

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

Source excerpt

“Even if we could keep the machines in a subservient position, for instance by turning off the power at strategic moments, we should, as a species, feel greatly humbled.”

Location in source Script p. 6a (AMT/B/5/7, scan 7), paragraph on irrational opposition to the idea

Machine-checked · 2026-10-06

Source details and check notes

Authors: Alan M. Turing
Version: Annotated broadcast script; p. 6a (AMT/B/5/7, scan 7) read on the page image for this collection.
Canonical address: Open the canonical source ↗
Accessed: 2026-10-06
Language: English (en)
Attribution: Alan M. Turing, "Can Digital Computers Think?", BBC broadcast script, Turing Digital Archive AMT/B/5, 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: Read on the page image of p. 6a for this collection. The pre-1996 candidate search paraphrased the outcome as "humiliated"; the script says "greatly humbled". The scan has no text layer.

Status and meaning

Editorial status. Not reviewed by an editor. An exploratory record that no editor has accepted. This status does not say whether a person has read any linked passage. Each evidence record above shows how it was checked.

Relation. A passage of the document bears on the proposition without meeting its criterion; the record names the missing element. It is not an articulation and implies no influence.

Date. Broadcast date in the King’s College catalogue; the script is not a recording of what was said.

Record ID ts-b6-turing-1951-context

Explore the documentary record

All topics