# Future Machines Are Our Mind Children by Hans Moravec > “I consider these future machines our progeny, “mind children” built in our image and likeness, ourselves in more potent form. Like biological children of previous generations, they will embody humanity’s best hope for a long-term future. It behooves us to give them every advantage, and to bow out when we can no longer contribute.” > **— Hans Moravec**, *Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind preview, 1997–1998* ## Sources and Context - **Primary source:** [Hans Moravec’s author-hosted preview of Robot](https://frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/book97/index.html) — verifies the wording, attribution and immediate source setting. - **Interpretive context:** Moravec’s proposal is explicitly affirmative: he interprets future machines as technological progeny and evaluates their greater capability through the analogy of children surpassing parents. The expanded passage preserves the lineage claim, his reason for hope, and the obligation he derives from it. - **Editorial treatment:** The quote begins after Moravec’s context-dependent “I’m not as alarmed as many by the latter possibility, since.” The retained words are a contiguous, grammatically complete remainder of that sentence followed by the next two complete sentences. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - **Article:** [[articles/AI Escape Is the Wrong Metaphor|AI Escape Is the Wrong Metaphor]] - **Article:** [[articles/We Cannot Un-Strike the Match|We Cannot Un-Strike the Match]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Hans Moravec|Hans Moravec]] - [[wiki/Mind Children|Mind Children]] - [[wiki/Artificial Descendants|Artificial Descendants]] - [[wiki/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - [[wiki/Machine Civilization|Machine Civilization]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “I consider these future machines our progeny, “mind children” built in our image and likeness, ourselves in more potent form. Like biological children of previous generations, they will embody humanity’s best hope for a long-term future. It behooves us to give them every advantage, and to bow out when we can no longer contribute.” — Hans Moravec, Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind preview, 1997–1998 https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-hans-moravec-future-machines-mind-children ```