# We Are Basically Machines of a Very Complex Type by Claude Shannon > "I believe in evolutionary theory and that we are basically machines, but a very complex type, far more so than any machine man has made yet." > **— Claude Shannon**, *Anthony Liversidge interview, Omni, August 1987* ## Sources and Context - **Primary interview transcript:** [Anthony Liversidge, ‘Profile of Claude Shannon’](https://gwern.net/doc/cs/algorithm/information/1987-liversidge.pdf), *Omni*, August 1987, reprinted in *Claude Elwood Shannon: Collected Papers*, p. xxxi. Shannon gave this answer while discussing Norbert Wiener’s proposed boundary between life and nonlife, and between humans and machines. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Article:** [[articles/We Were Never Going to Make It|We Were Never Going to Make It]] - **Article:** [[articles/A History of Machine Intelligence|A History of Machine Intelligence]] - **Article:** [[articles/Bell Labs and the Distributed Architecture of American Power|Bell Labs and the Distributed Architecture of American Power]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Human Animality|Human Animality]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Claude Shannon|Claude Shannon]] - [[wiki/Human Animality|Human Animality]] - [[wiki/Substrate-Independent Evolution|Substrate-Independent Evolution]] - [[wiki/Cybernetics|Cybernetics]] - [[wiki/Mechanistic Intelligence|Mechanistic Intelligence]] ## Share on Social Media ``` "I believe in evolutionary theory and that we are basically machines, but a very complex type, far more so than any machine man has made yet." — Claude Shannon, Anthony Liversidge interview, Omni, August 1987 https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-claude-shannon-basically-machines-complex-type ```