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Named source · 1843

Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage — Note G Quotes by Ada Lovelace: Context & Meanings

1 quotation linked to Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage — Note G by or associated with Ada Lovelace, with source notes, explanations and related topics.

English wording

Translator-authored note

Ada King, Countess of Lovelace — Translator and note author · French for Menabrea’s memoir; Note G itself authored in English → English

This quotation comes from commentary authored in English by the translator and appended to the translated work; it is not translated wording from the underlying foreign-language memoir.

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The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform.
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“The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform.”

Ada Lovelace
Meaning & context

Lovelace cautions readers not to attribute independent origination to Babbage’s proposed machine, distinguishing programmed operations from the human knowledge used to specify them.

Source details

Ada Lovelace, Note G to her 1843 translation of Luigi Menabrea’s “Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage.” The claim concerns the proposed Analytical Engine in its historical design context and is not generalized into a factual limit on modern AI systems.