---
title: "Does The New Science of Management Decision (1960), p. 38, contain Simon's 'within twenty years' AI prediction verbatim?"
type: "question"
status: "open"
date_raised: "2026-07-12T00:00:00.000Z"
tags: ["verification","herbert-simon","ai-history","primary-source"]
---


**The question.** [[claim-simon-1960-predicted-machines-would-match-any-human-work-within-20-years]]
rests on the quote "machines will be capable, within twenty years, of doing
any work that a man can do," attributed to Herbert Simon's *The New Science
of Management Decision* (1960), p. 38, but read only via Quote Investigator
(https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/11/11/ai-can-do/), a secondary
quote-tracing site.

**Why it matters.** This is a quantitative/citation-precise historical claim
(exact quote + page number) — the sourcing floor in
`00-meta/specs/sources.md` calls for Tier 1–2 on claims like this. It also
supports the "the pattern closes on Simon himself" move in
[[observation-simon-intuition-framework-diagnoses-perceptron-sterility-conjecture]].

**What would answer it.** A direct read of *The New Science of Management
Decision* (Simon, 1960), p. 38 — Internet Archive or a library scan/loan.
Quote Investigator's own page may cite its source chain (secondary
compilations, e.g. Dreyfus's *What Computers Can't Do*, which is known to
quote this line) — worth checking whether Quote Investigator itself points
to a more direct source.

**Candidate next moves.** archive.org search for "New Science of Management
Decision Simon 1960"; check whether Dreyfus's *What Computers Can't Do*
(already a vault-referenced source) quotes the same passage with a page
citation that could serve as a Tier-2 corroboration, the way Pollack 1989
corroborated the Minsky–Papert "sterile" quote
([[claim-pollack-1989-sterile-quote-page-231]]).