Edsger W. Dijkstra
Asking whether a machine can think is about as useful as asking whether a submarine can swim: better to study what programs actually do.
Life
Dutch computer scientist (1930-2002), winner of the Turing Award in 1972, who taught at Eindhoven and then at the University of Texas at Austin. He devised a shortest-path algorithm (1956) and argued for rigorous, proof-based programming. For the big questions he matters for rejecting loose comparisons between machines and minds: asking whether a machine thinks seemed to him as pointless as asking whether a submarine swims.
Main works
The paper describing the shortest-path algorithm that bears his name.
He argues for structured programming, easier to understand and to prove correct.
He derives programs together with their proofs of correctness.
In his own words
« Alan M. Turing thought about criteria to settle the question of whether Machines Can Think, a question of which we now know that it is about as relevant as the question of whether Submarines Can Swim. »