双语畅销书《艾伦图灵传》第8章:水银延时线(115)
Expanding upon the ideas he had publicly announced in February 1947, this time he identified some of the reasons why the concept of 'intelligent machinery' might be perceived by such as Darwin as a contradiction in terms:
(a) An unwillingness to admit the possibility that mankind can have any rivals in intellectual power.
（1）他们不情愿承认人类智能存在竞争对手的可能性。This occurs as much amongst intellectual people as amongst others: they have more to lose.
不仅普通人会有这样的想法，知识阶层更会这样想，因为智力几乎是他们的全部资本。
Those who admit the possibility all agree that its realisation would be very disagreeable.
即使是那些承认这种可能性的人，也都认为，这种实现将会非常不愉快。The same situation arises in connection with the possibility of our being superseded by some other animal species.
有一种情况与此类似，那就是某些动物有可能比人类更加高等，虽然普遍认为这是不可能的，This is almost as disagreeable and its theoretical possibility is indisputable.
但从理论上讲，这是尚有讨论余地的。(b) A religious belief that any attempt to construct such machine is a sort of Promethean irreverence.
（2）宗教观点认为，试图建造这类机器，是一种普罗米修斯式的大不敬行为。These objections, he wrote, 'being purely emotional, do not really need to be refuted.'
对于这些观点，图灵写道，这纯粹是在闹情绪，根本不值一驳，They were like Bernard Shaw's complaint against the first Charles Darwin, that his doctrines were 'discouraging'.
就像是萧伯纳反对进化论的理由：让人不舒服。The point, however, was not to find comfort, but truth.
但是，图灵可不是追求舒服，他要追求事实。He next moved to what he considered a less 'emotional', but still erroneous objection:
接下来，他提到了不闹情绪、但同样错误的观点：(c) The very limited character of the machinery which has been used until recent times (e.g. up to 1940).
（3）在人类短暂的利用机器的历史中（在1940年之前），This encouraged the belief that machinery was necessarily limited to extremely straightforward, possibly even to repetitive, jobs.
机器扮演的角色非常有限，这使人们认为，机器只能完成那些指令明确的工作，甚至只能是重复性的工作。This attitude is very well expressed by Dorothy Sayers (The Mind of the Maker, p. 46) .. which imagines that God, having created his Universe, has now screwed the cap on His pen, put His feet on the mantelpiece and left the work to get on with itself.'
多罗西·塞耶斯的《上帝之心》（第46页）恰当地展示了这种观点："上帝创造完宇宙，便拧上钢笔的盖子，把脚搭在壁炉上，看着他的杰作自生自灭。"
