# A Machine May Pursue an Imitation of Our Purpose by Norbert Wiener > "If we use, to achieve our purposes, a mechanical agency with whose operation we cannot efficiently interfere once we have started it, because the action is so fast and irrevocable that we have not the data to intervene before the action is complete, then we had better be quite sure that the purpose put into the machine is the purpose which we really desire and not merely a colorful imitation of it." > **— Norbert Wiener**, *1960, “Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation,” Science 131(3410)* ## Sources and Context - **Published paper, p. 1358:** [“Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation,” *Science*](https://www.cs.umd.edu/users/gasarch/BLOGPAPERS/moral.pdf) — Wiener's warning concerns a fast, effectively irreversible agency whose specified objective may only imitate the human purpose. This is an early statement of the problem now called AI alignment; the historical terminology remains his. ## 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/Christopher Nolan's Odyssey at the Threshold of Machine Succession|Christopher Nolan's Odyssey at the Threshold of Machine Succession]] - **Article:** [[articles/We Were Never Going to Make It|We Were Never Going to Make It]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Alignment Problem|Alignment Problem]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation|Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation]] ## Share on Social Media ``` "If we use, to achieve our purposes, a mechanical agency with whose operation we cannot efficiently interfere once we have started it, because the action is so fast and irrevocable that we have not the data to intervene before the action is complete, then we had better be quite sure that the purpose put into the machine is the purpose which we really desire and not merely a colorful imitation of it." — Norbert Wiener, 1960, “Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation,” Science 131(3410) https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-norbert-wiener-imitation-human-purpose ```