Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

The "Time flies..." quote is commonly ascribed to Groucho Marx.

But, according to QuoteInvestigator.com[0], that is not correct:

QI has traced the core of the quotation to the work of an early researcher in artificial intelligence, Anthony Oettinger, who was trying to get a computer to manipulate the English language.

(Lots more detail at the link[0]).

[0] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/04/time-flies-arrow/




Which is another interesting detail of artificial intelligence: this attribution is basically the Mandela Effect.

Groucho Marx SHOULD have written that joke. It's good, the punch word is at the end, it's the kind of logic-mocking braintwist Groucho was exceptional at making, and yet he didn't write it. So we ascribe it to him anyway, because that's who SHOULD have written it. Thus is intelligence: we try to make things make sense, and we try to relate things to the big areas of 'sense' we already have in our minds. We have a space for Groucho and for humor, but who's Oettinger and where can we watch his comedy routines? What, he doesn't do comedy routines? And so, sense beats reality…




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: