In their paper on “The History of Artificial Intelligence,” Chris Smith, Brian McGuire, and others offer a helpful overview of Alan Turing’s contributions to Artificial Intelligence. To begin with, Alan Turing, born in 1912, was an English mathematician, who is also known as the father of modern computer science. He was known for his skills in mathematics and computer science. After graduating from university, he published a paper called “ On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungs problem”, in which he presented his creation “ The Turing Machine”. The Turing machine is a computer that has “the ability to read and write symbols to a tape using those symbols to execute an algorithm” ( Smith et al, 2006). Moreover, Turing played a huge role in the Allies winning the Second World War.
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw18791/Alan-Turing
During the Second World War, he joined the Government Code and Cipher school as a cryptanalyst, where he was assigned “to build a machine capable of breaking codes like Enigma, which was used by the Germans” ( Smith et al, 2006). He managed to create a machine called “the bombe”, in which he was able to crack the settings of Enigma and supply the English government with encoded information of the Germans. Eventually, Enigma was cracked, and the Allies had access to so many German messages, which saved them from losing to Germany. Years later, he became known for “ The Turing Test”.
https://www.nrps.org.uk/photo_16087375.html
The Turing Test
After the Second World War, Turing began to investigate the computer’s ability to think, feel or even remember as human beings do. He came up with “ the Turing Test”, which is a method that was based on the “Imitation game”. “ The Turing Test” consisted of an interrogator and two participants, one of the participants was a human, and the other participant was a machine, in which the interrogator had to tell the human and the machine apart based on questions and answers ( Smith et al, 2006). The purpose of the test was to see if machines can operate like humans in terms of thinking and communicating.
Alan Turing in Speak
Alan Turing was so influential, a character in the novel, Speak, by Louisa Hall was based on him. Speak is a novel that is centered around Artificial Intelligence and its role in people’s lives. It revolves around five points of view across time and space, which play a role in the invention of an AI doll. One of these points of view is Alan Turing, who is a mathematician and codebreaker. He is the first person to come up with the idea of a computer since he always envisioned machines that can communicate and think. Moreover, We see him writing sincere letters to his best friend’s mother, in which he expresses his concerns about Christopher’s condition.
Discussion questions:-
- After knowing that Alan Turing in speak is based on the real Alan Turing, how does his real-life information change your reading on the character in the novel?
- Do you think at some point in the future, through the evolution of AI, people will start building romantic relationships with computers?
- Do you believe in the concept of the “AI takeover”, in which artificial intelligence will become the dominant “race” on earth, erasing the human race? If so, can we blame Alan Turing for that?
This is the full essay where my information was retreived:- https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/csep590/06au/projects/history-ai.pdf
Fun fact: In 2014, a movie adaptation was made based on Alan Turing’s life called “ The Imitation game”.
References:-
Smith, C., McGuire, B, et al. (2006). The History of Artificial Intelligence. University of Washington.
Well done, Leen. This post was really informative and I learned a lot. Most of my information about Alan Turing did, in fact, come from his character in the movie “The Imitation Game”, so this post really helped in giving me a clearer and more accurate perspective on who he was!
To answer your second question, I believe that, yes, some people might try building romantic relationships with computers in the future, but I am not so sure that this so-called ‘relationship’ will succeed. Resorting to a human-computer relationship might seem like a good idea for people who are ‘done with humans’ but, is it really practical? I mean, the person will be able to have a good conversation and talk about their memories and feelings, but what about the other, more physical, needs that a human requires? Will a robot, no matter how advanced, be able to fulfill them? Overall, I believe that people will definitely try this human-robot romantic relationship and that it might even become a trend for a while. This relationship might even work temporarily, but I really doubt that it will last or work in the long run.
I first knew about Alan from the Imitation Game, and I always saw it as a biography of his of sorts, and I really love the depth you went into about him here.
There is a lot to uncover about what is fact and fiction about Alan Turing from the few pieces of literature we have on him.
In response to your first question, I think it makes me feel for Alan a lot more than I did for the rest of the characters in the book. Knowing a bit about his background already, it made me feel for him a lot more, and I could see the struggle he went through in those letters, regardless of them being fiction or not.
And I don’t believe Alan would be the one to take the blame if an AI takeover did occur. He was way ahead of his time, and even with that, I feel like if he were alive today he would be astounded and excited by how far we have come in the AI world.
AI will always require humans to input knowledge no matter how far we go with its evolution, and we can see it in the novel itself when the characters put in any sort of information, only then could the AI be better and have more knowledge.
So for the sole reason of AI depending on humans to keep it running, I believe it is unlikely that bots will take over in the future. But if they do, I guess we’ll find out who is to blame when the bots are released into the world.