# Quote — Robert Sheckley, Dimension of Miracles

> “Machines!” the Clerk said scornfully. “We have many of them, some exquisitely complex. But event the best of them are much like idiot savants. They do adequately on tedious straightforward tasks like building stars or destroying planets. But give them something tough, like solacing a widow, and they simply go to pieces. Would you believe it, the largest computer in our section can landscape an entire planet; but it cannot fry an egg or carry a tune, and it knows less about ethics than a newborn wolf cub. Would you want something like that to run your life?”
>
> “Of course not,” Carmody said. “But couldn’t someone build a machine with creativity and judgment?”
>
> “Someone has,” the Clerk said. “It has been designed to learn from experience, which means that it must make errors in order to arrive at truths. It comes in many shapes and sizes, most of them quite portable. Its flaws are readily apparent, but seem to exist as necessary counterweights to it virtues. No one has yet improved on the basic design, though many have tried. This ingenious device is called ‘intelligent life.’”

- Author: [Robert Sheckley](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-sheckley.md)
- Book: [Dimension of Miracles](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-sheckley/dimension-of-miracles.md)
- Page: 25
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Sheckley#Dimension_of_Miracles_(1968)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-sheckley/dimension-of-miracles/machines-the-clerk

## More from this book

> A malfunction of this type can be cured only by changing the nature of the universe, which is, of course, impractical.

p. 34 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-sheckley/dimension-of-miracles/a-malfunction-of-this.md)

> Remember, similitude need not imply exactitude.

p. 159 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-sheckley/dimension-of-miracles/remember-similitude-need.md)

> The only thing to think over was Me, of course. And the real problem about Me was, What was I supposed to do? Was I meant to be nothing but God? I had tried the God business and found it too limited. It was a job for a simple-minded egomaniac. There had to be something else for me to do—something more meaningful, more expressive of my true self. I’m convinced of it! That is my problem, and that is the question I ask of you: What am I to do with myself?

p. 53 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-sheckley/dimension-of-miracles/the-only-thing.md)