Last Updated on July 17, 2023

When I was about 19, I was smoking a cigarette outside of Target supermarket, and an older gentleman, maybe in his seventies, came up and asked what I wanted to do with my life. I told him I wanted to do something with computers because I was interested in them. He looked at me and said there are two things you must know about computers.

1. People think that computers are going to be smarter than people. It is impossible because computers are all ones and zeros, meaning the answer is always on or off. Computers will never be able to think.
2.  Computers will always have problems because they are as bright as the information we put into them, meaning that people will always make mistakes, and so will computers. Computers are as intelligent as the information we put into them.

Those two insights changed my life forever, and they later influenced how I thought of computer algorithms and problems that weren’t easily solvable. I thanked the older man as he walked away, and he said to pass it on. Today, I did.