A CS major is about to go grocery shopping, so his non CS major roommate tells him “buy a bottle of milk, and if there are eggs, buy 6”.

An hour later, the CS major returns with 6 bottles of milk.

The roommate asks “Why did you buy 6 bottles of milk?”

To which the CS major retorts “The store had eggs”. 

“Computers have been implicated in some major industrial accidents. But we should not blame the machine. Rather, it is the fault of the people who believed that the computer could be trusted, that they had programmed the machine in such a way that it is smart enough to handle any situation that came up. Suppose a computer program helps a doctor decide on a course of treatment for a patient, and then the patient dies. Who is responsible, the doctor or the programmer?”

—Computer Scientist, Newcomb Greenleaf — Gentle Bridges: Artificial Intelligence

“Program designers have a tendency to think of the users as idiots who need to be controlled. They should rather think of their program as a servant, whose master, the user, should be able to control it. If designers and programmers think about the apparent mental qualities that their programs will have, they'll create programs that are easier and pleasanter — more humane — to deal with.”

—John McCarthy - “The Little Thoughts of Thinking Machines”, Psychology Today, December 1983, pp. 46–49. Reprinted in Formalizing Common Sense: Papers By John McCarthy, 1990, ISBN 0893915351
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