# Children May Adapt to Machine Intelligence Better Than Their Parents by Timothy Taylor > “My optimism about skeuomorphs arises, as optimism often does, from former pessimism. I grew up with Alan Turing's unsettling vision of a future machine indistinguishable from a human in its reactions. Ray Kurzweil's provocative prediction of the impending 'singularity'—the point when computer intelligence would start to leave humans gasping in its intellectual wake—added to my fears. I actually began to worry that efforts to enculture my children with Shakespeare and Darwin, and even with spiritual and moral values, might be rendered peremptorily redundant by cold robotic Übermenschen.” > **— Timothy Taylor**, *2007, Edge Annual Question, “What Are You Optimistic About?”* ## Sources and Context - **Direct Edge response and surrounding essay:** [Archaeologist, University of Bradford; Author, The Buried Soul](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/11162) — Edge published this exact passage in its 2007 Annual Question collection, *WHAT ARE YOU OPTIMISTIC ABOUT?*. The response page preserves the surrounding argument and qualifications. - **Complete local collection index:** [[research/Edge 2007 Full Quotation Curation|Edge 2007 Full Quotation Curation]] — retained source-first record for the complete response cohort and this passage's promotion status. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Collection:** [[collections/MARS|MARS]] - **Article:** [[articles/Modern Artificial Intelligence in the 1970s|AI in the 1970s]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Last Migration Will Not Be Human|The Last Migration]] - **Article:** [[articles/We Were Never Going to Make It|Never Going to Make It!]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - [[wiki/Singularity|Singularity]] - [[wiki/Superintelligence|Superintelligence]] - [[wiki/human-machine interaction|human-machine interaction]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “My optimism about skeuomorphs arises, as optimism often does, from former pessimism. I grew up with Alan Turing's unsettling vision of a future machine indistinguishable from a human in its reactions. Ray Kurzweil's provocative prediction of the impending 'singularity'—the point when computer intelligence would start to leave humans gasping in its intellectual wake—added to my fears. I actually began to worry that efforts to enculture my children with Shakespeare and Darwin, and even with spiritual and moral values, might be rendered peremptorily redundant by cold robotic Übermenschen.” — Timothy Taylor, 2007, Edge Annual Question, “What Are You Optimistic About?” https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-timothy-taylor-children-adapt-machine-intelligence-better ```