Quote Investigator on May 4, 2010* —
"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."
See as well Oettinger in 1963.
"And that was the state of the art."
— Adapted from Stephen Sondheim
* Cf. this journal on that date.