Instruction tables will have to be made up by mathematicians with computing experience and perhaps a certain puzzle-solving ability. There need be no real danger of it ever becoming a drudge, for any processes that are quite mechanical may be turned over to the machine itself.
The original question, 'Can machines think?' I believe to be too meaningless to deserve discussion.
I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted.
Machines take me by surprise with great frequency.
If a machine is expected to be infallible, it cannot also be intelligent.
A man provided with paper, pencil, and rubber, and subject to strict discipline, is in effect a universal machine.
A computer scientist is a machine for converting coffee into urine.
The protean nature of the computer is such that it can act like a machine or like a language to be shaped and exploited.
Now that I'm losing some, I can see how tough I was -- the killer instinct, the single-mindedness, playing like a machine. Boy, that's what made me a champion.
I won't put in a load of laundry, because the machine is too loud and would drown out other, more significant noises - namely, the shuffling footsteps of the living dead.