Alan Turing, the Inventor of Software 371
Roland Piquepaille writes "BusinessWeek celebrates its anniversary with a series of articles about the great thinkers and innovators from the past 75 years. The series stars with a profile of Alan Turing, "Thinking Up Computers." In case you forgot, Turing is the man who created the concept of a "universal machine" which would perform various and diverse actions when given various sets of instructions. In other words, he laid out in the 1920s the foundations of software. You'll find the introduction of Turing's profile, plus more details, photographs and references in this overview."
Ah, but is it a real article... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Ah, but is it a real article... (Score:5, Insightful)
Turing was also... (Score:3, Insightful)
So, any time someone says gays are just a bunch of promiscuous, stupid sinners, ask them if they've ever heard of Alan Turing...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Turing was also... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Turing was also... (Score:5, Informative)
What Turing Worked For and Against (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, it was death by a thousand cuts while the nation that owed so much to him mostly looked on and let him be humiliated and kept from his work.
Also keep in mind folks, that Turing, while thought of a theoretician, was arguably even more important as an operations guy. He led the effort to confront Churchill with the initial absurdly low levels of funding at Bletchley Park (the British code-breaking center), he played a key role in getting the staffing figured out and codes to the right places, and so on. IIRC, he was not averse to picking up a soldering iron and stepping into the physical work of *building* the computers.
Of course, this isn't even getting into his late in life interest in things like how to use a computer to replicate patterns in nature like the spots on the side of a cow. Work that was leading him decades ahead of anybody else to the concepts we now know as fractals and chaotic phenomena.
We'll never know what we've lost, but at least we're getting better at admitting who people like him were.
But then, when we've still got stuff like A Beautiful Mind not even mentioning that Nash was mostly gay (the real reason he lost his clearance was not for mental illness but because he was found in bed with a young man) we've clearly got a long way to go.
Rustin
Re:What Turing Worked For and Against (Score:3, Interesting)
Um, actually, then and there it was. Keep in mind that Britain was still desperately broke while the U.S. was rolling in cash. Meanwhile Parliment was in the hands of Big Government socialists.
For this and other reasons, doing leading edge computer work in Britain meant working closely under the same sorts of government dimwits who were making him miserable in the first place.
Meanwhile, in the good old U.S.A., muc
Re:Suicide not a certainty (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, come on. How does a computer scientist (for lack of a term broad enough to cover Turing) accidentally eat an apple laced with KCN? AFAIK cyanide isn't a common fixture of most computer/math research labs, and Turing as a (dabbling but competent) chemist would certainly have the common sense to not let a cyanide spill go uncleaned.
I mean, think about it. What would you do if your government arrested you and said, "Hey bub, you read too much porn and we think porn-reading is a mental illness, so we'
Re:Turing was also... (Score:5, Informative)
AFAIK he was robbed by one of his lovers and when he reported it to the police and they found out the relationship between the two they arrested Turing on charges of Lewd and Immoral Acts. This lead to a persecution that destroyed any chance of his working again, and eventually his life.
Hell of a way to treat a man who saved hundreds, maybe thousands of lives by breaking the Enigma cypher.
Who knows how much more advanced our understanding of AI's might be if it wasn't for institutionalised homophobia?
Re:Turing was also... (Score:2)
Re:Turing was also... (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe you' dlike to see somthing like this:
BusinessWeek celebrates its anniversary with a series of articles about the great gay and straight thinkers and innovators from the past 75 years. The series stars with a profile of Alan Turing, "Thinking Up Computers." In case you forgot, Turing is the gay man who created the concept of an "universal machine" which would perform various and diverse actions when given various sets of instructions. In other words, he laid out in the 1920s the foundations of software. You'll find the introduction of Turing's profile, plus more details, photographs and references in this overview."
Alan Turing's being gay was certainly an important part of his life. After all, the persectution he suffered contributed to his death. But to have to label him right off the bat everytime his name is uttered is absurd.
In any case, had you read past the title and ad, you'd have come across the FIRST PARAGRAPH which reads:
The rarefied world of early 20th-century mathematics seems light years away from today's PCs and virtual-reality video games. Yet it was a 1936 paper by Cambridge University mathematician Alan M. Turing that laid the foundation for the electronic wonders now crowding into every corner of modern life. In a short and eventful life, Turing also played a vital role in World War II by helping crack Germany's secret codes -- only to be persecuted later for his homosexuality.
Before whining about gay-bias, RTFA.
Re:Turing was also... (Score:3, Insightful)
> his contributions to computer science.
It's only relevant because he was a _persecuted_ gay. Now we know that perpetrators of this particular type of discrimination can be enemies of science. There are always a set of poltically correct ways to discriminate (e.g. awards, reputation, curriculum vitae) and politically incorrect ways to discriminate (gender, age, race, etc). Sexual orientation used to be an unquestionably a
Re:Turing was also... (Score:3, Insightful)
Turing would be every bit as important historically if he were not gay.
If you're talking about Turing as a victim of discrimination, obviously his sexual orientation is relevant. But most of the time when people are talking about Turing (this article for example) they are talking about his intelectual accomplishments, and his being gay is irrelevant.
Sigh. If there is a lesson to take from the example of Turing, it ough
Re:Turing was also... (Score:3, Insightful)
> black.
I disagree. Jackie Robinson would not be remotely as important historically if he had not changed American baseball. His being black was not his contribution. It is, however, relevant to the story of his contribution.
> Turing would be every bit as important historically if he were not gay.
Turing almost certainly would have been MORE important historically had he not been a victim of discrimination. He was you
Re:Turing was also... (Score:3, Funny)
There are actually several mentions of Turing's sexual orientation within the linked article, including the horrendous treatment he received as a result of the increasingly open displays of his homosexuality he exhibited later in his life. It is a disgrace that such a key figure in the eventual overthrow of the Nazi regime (due to his contributions in cracking the Enigma code) could be subjected to such degrad
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Turing was also... (Score:5, Insightful)
I can just imagine all the articles. Joe Schmoe, a straight white man with brown hair, accomplished much in his life blah blah.
Oh noooo, it's a conspiracy against the gay! Let's all point the prejudice finger.
-Jesse
Re:Turing was also... (Score:2)
When a certian feature is common, it is not worth mentioning. When a feature is uncommon, it is worth a mention. It might not be worth a mention in a one sentence summary. It might not be the thing you mention in the first paragraph. But it certianly shouldn't be omitted. It is a very important and significant fact.
The articles do rightly mention it and don't try to hide it.
Menti
Re:Turing was also... (Score:5, Insightful)
Depends. Was he persecuted for being straight? Did he lose his security clearance, get forced to take massive doses of hormones, and be driven to suicide in spite of his contribution to the WWII war effort?
Any story that would try to talk about Turing but not even mention such details that were so critically important to his life wouldn't be complete.
Re:Turing was also... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Turing was also... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why waste ink on this almost useless fact (other than it perhaps leading to the circumstances of his death) when there's a lot more worth saying about the guy.
I just hope that if I ever doing something amazing that after my death we don't get to read:
"John Graham-Cumming invented the Banana Wumpus Driver. At age 13 he realized that he was attracted to wo
Re:Turing was also... (Score:4, Funny)
And then you stopped? Yeah, right ;-)
Re:Turing was also... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why waste ink on this almost useless fact (other than it perhaps leading to the circumstances of his death) when there's a lot more worth saying about the guy.
Perhaps because Turing was driven to suicide by an establishment which hounded and bullied him for being gay? By no stretch of the imagination is that a useless fact.
Re:Turing was also... (Score:4, Insightful)
Because its a big freaking deal. Its not like he was a mathmatician who happened to also be gay on the side. After helping immensely in WW2, and inventing programming, he was forced to admit he was homosexual.
He was imprisoned as a security risk, and forced to either spend the rest of his life in jail or take hormone injections. He chose the hormone injections. His career was over, and he wasn't allowed to continue to work on the thing he is now famous for. Its strongly suspected that the forced government injections helped drive him to suicide a few years later.
FORCED GOVERNMENT INJECTIONS to try to stop him from being gay, and therefore easily susceptible to communists.
I know many people are jaded by political correctness and media hype, but in this case, it is a BIG GODDAMN ISSUE that this guy was gay.
Re: His homosexuality lead to his death (Score:3, Informative)
My point here is that simply in and of itself anyones sexuality is pretty irrelivant, but the prejudice surrounding homosexuality direc
Re:Turing was also... (Score:2)
Ya, because reasoning with bigots works (Score:3, Insightful)
Who cares? Aside from the fact that Turing's sexuality is not ignored, it would be a good thing if it was. Let me guess: if it was something that the mainstream media obsessed about, you'd post comments about how homophobia in mainstream media glosses over Turing's accomplishments in favor of irrelevant discussion of his sexual preferences.
Go read Cryptonomicon [amazon.com] if you need to obsess about what everybody's sexuality is.
Re:Turing was also... (Score:4)
"Turing was also gay. This is a fact that much of the mainstream media glosses over in noting his accomplishments"
I didn't know that being gay should be considered an "accomplishment." Certainly important in an autobiographical sense but not an accomplishment. I'm not trolling or flaimbaiting, just pointing out that the tone of the parent may not be as intentioned but it's a tone that suggests an agenda nonetheless.
jeff
Alan Turing! (Score:3, Funny)
True? (Score:2, Interesting)
Has anyone else heard the rumur that apple computers logo is a tribute to Turing? Rainbow colored apple with a bite taken out of it and all? I wish I could remember where I heard that.
Re:True? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.woz.org/letters/general/86.html
Re:True? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/scrapbook/wondr
A lot of thought went into the Apple logo and what it signified. The guys over at Apple were very fond of making statements with imagery, design, and color.
Re:True? (Score:2)
On the topic of Turings death, there was a magazine article that looked into it (American Scientist I think) and raised serious doubts about the suicide theory. They concluded the death was accidental.
Re:True? (Score:2)
story is not quite right.. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually the turing machine served as the basis of the first hardware, not software. Its really the theoretical basis for the entire computing model.
I don't mean to be picky, but I have my Automata Theory final in 5 hours and I just spent all night studying for it..
Re:story is not quite right.. (Score:5, Informative)
The machine itself just interpreted the symbols on the tape, but key to Turing's insight was that although he intially said that a Turing machine might compute a single function, he realized that that single function could be a Turing machine itself (hence the "universal machine") and so the instructions could come from the tape.
This itself was fundamental because it meant that machines could compute functions of machine and lead to the Halting Problem: i.e. no machine can compute whether another machine will halt.
If you still have time before your final read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine#Unive
John.
Re:story is not quite right.. (Score:5, Interesting)
the interesting thing about turing machines though is how they are maximal and nothing additional makes the turing machine more powerful (like non-determinism, multiple tapes, two way tapes, etc) because those can all be simulated with a regular turing machine using an algorithm adjustment.
Re:progressing from PDA to TM (Score:5, Informative)
What you have understand is that Turing didn't know about push down automata (PDA) when he developed the Turing machine (TM). Turing formulated the TM as a way to show that our formal axiomatic system for mathematics was undecidable (that is, there are statements whose truth values cannot be determined algorithmically). When he designed it, the states of the machine were compared to human states of mind. Finite automata (FA) and PDAs are things that logicians and theoretical computer scientists have developed over the years as simpler models of computation. By teaching about them in an automata theory class, students are more prepared for the concepts of the TM. If I just plopped the general definition of a TM down in front of a person, they'd probably run screaming from the room or at least be horribly confused until examples of simpler devices were presented. (Also, FAs and PDAs have the nice property of recognizing regular and context-free languages, respectively, which allows a discussion of formal languages and their recognition to progress in a natural manner.)
I guess that my point is that the way we are taught mathematics (and that's what the theory of computation is) does not always coincide with the order in which the ideas were developed, no matter how natural the order they are taught in might seem. (For another example, consider that most calculus texts develop differentiation before integration, which is historically backward. The only text that I know of that presents calculus in the historically-correct order is Tom M. Apostol's Calculus. However, in his Mathematical Analysis, he follows the traditional order of differentiation first.)
John von Neumann (Score:3, Insightful)
It's usually John von Neumann who is given credit for inventing the modern concept of the "stored program" in the mid 40's. So if I had to pick a single person to label the inventor of software, I think I would probably choose him. Turing could perhaps be labelled a father of computing.
But then again, those are all just subjective labels.
Give Credit Where It's Due (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, (Score:2)
Aristoteles (Score:2, Insightful)
Universal machine? yes. Software? nope. (Score:5, Informative)
History of computers. (Score:5, Informative)
History of computers [thefreedictionary.com]
As I learned it (Score:2)
Re:As I learned it (Score:3, Informative)
That's a lie. Ada was rich, and to keep her paying for Babbage's project, he had to make her feel like she was accomplishing something. He figured out the Bernoulli program himself, explained it to her, and let her write it out.
Then in the 20th century, that lie was reinvigorated by educators wanting to supply girls with technical role-models.
Re:As I learned it (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Universal machine? yes. Software? nope. (Score:3, Informative)
"programming" as such. What Turing created was the concept of algorithm execution, which until then nobody had come up with.
Algorithm execution is where the data and the sequence of instructions for manipulating that data are all part of your input. Jacquard's loom was more along the lines of just the data being in his punched cards, while the sequence of events that occurred was built into the loom, and only de
Re:Universal machine? yes. Software? nope. (Score:5, Informative)
While Jacqard certainly has a major place in the history of computers, his looms can not be said to been computers in the sence we use today as they could "solve" only one problem - how to make fabrik.
No, the true inventor, if such a word can be used, of the true programable, mulitpurpose computer is one of Great Britans great geniuses from the early 1800s - Charles Babbage [wikipedia.org]. In 1835 he presented a design for a programable, mechanical computer - the Analytical engine [wikipedia.org]. It was to be powered by steam, and would been 30 meters long (roughtly 100') and 10 meters wide (roughtly 30'). It would use cards simular to those invented by Jacqard for input, while output was via a mecanical printer (rather simular to the printingpresses employed by newspapers), a curveplotter and a bell. Unlike modern, binary machines it would use base 10 in it's calculations.
Ada Lovelace, as someone else pointed out, was the first programmer for the analytical engine. It would have employed a launguage very simular in most respects to modern assembler, including the possibility to branch and loop.
More on his analytcal engine can be found here [fourmilab.ch].
Inventor of software? (Score:2, Interesting)
Turing a genius? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ada Lovelace (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ada Lovelace (Score:5, Informative)
Ada added notes to Babbage's design of a calculation machine when she translated all his writing. In her notes, she wrote down mathematical steps for getting from point A to point B through the machine - basically describing the states that the machine would be in as it ran. Her writing is very similar to modern programming languages, but also very similar to algebra. While she was probably the first to write a series of algebraic expressions specifically for use on a mechanical calculation machine, she wasn't the first to write the expressions in specific order.
In the end, she couldn't actually program because Babbage never built his machine. Instead, he started taking Ada to the racetrack. She became addicted to gambling and alchohol and died rather young. That whole part is usually left out of the "Ada was the first programmer" stories.
Turing was gay and mistreated by society (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Turing was gay and mistreated by society (Score:4, Insightful)
-Jesse, in a ranting mood.
article doesn't mention (Score:2)
The end to his story is extremely tragic (although this must all be taken with a pinch of salt) - apparently, had Turing's involvement in the war effor been known, he would have been saved the indignity of the trials and medical procedures that were foisted upon him. Given that he arguably won the war for us, that doesn't seem unreasonable. Unfortunately
Remember Lady Ada (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Remember Lady Ada (Score:3, Informative)
Originally there were attempts such as primitive recursive functions, but they were shown to
not (Score:2, Informative)
Nice try, but Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage are recognised as the inventors of modern computing and programming. I suggest reading a bit about the architecture of the analytical, difference and related "engines" that he designed: they should remarkable similarity to a von neumann / harvard architecture (i.e. central processing units, memory banks, ALUs, etc).
Not to undervalue Alan Turing's contribution though, but he was really breaking more substantial ground in the theory of computability; which reall
Turing (Score:5, Informative)
It's a bit sickening that already posts on this thread are making gay-bashing remarks about him. The history of how he was discarded by the British Government, believed to be partly at the instigation of the US government, is a sad story of how intolerance helped the British lose their early lead in computing. If he had been born forty years later, he'd probably be running an equivalent of Apple,Oracle, Sun or Microsoft, and no-one would care about what he did in his spare time.
Re:Turing (Score:2)
The british later did an excellent job of leading the way in computing with the LEO"
There is no doubt in my mind that, genius as Turing was, Britain had plenty more computing epertise available (BTW, I know Pinkerton was from the US), the failure of British computing was purely commercial in the sense that LEO marketed "The commonwealth".
Intolerance comes in when you think about US corporation reluctance to purchase
The Bombe (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, the real father of programmable computing was Tommy Flowers [c2.com], who seems to have been largely forgotten.
Dunstan
Almost right (Score:4, Informative)
Actually it was the 30's (especially given that he was born in 1913, so even at the end of the 20's he was still a teenager).
But at that same time in the thirties, the German Conrad Zuse wasn't just 'thinking it up' but doing it. Unfortunately, by being in the wrong country at the wrong time, he still is rarely credited.
Revisionist History (Score:3, Interesting)
IMHO, he invented the first programming language.
Details here [vt.edu]
Young Turing (Score:3, Funny)
I think you are referring to the "Young Turing" movie "biography" starring Yahoo Serious. This details Turing's life growing up in Australia where he rassles crocodiles and invents shoelaces and joins a rock and roll band. Later, when he grows up, he invents computing when he figures out how to crack RIAA encryption in order to download the latest "Wyld Stallyns" tune
A small point omitted in the article (Score:5, Interesting)
Turing was an amateur chemist in addition to being a world-class mathematician. His choice of suicide method was intended to lessen the impact it would have on other members of his family, in particular his mother. By eating a cyanide laced apple, it has been speculated that he wanted to make his death look like an accident. His mother would think that he had been performing some chemistry experiment, and then forgot to thoroughly wash his hands before eating the apple. Having one's son die is bad enough, but for it to be a suicide is doubly worse.
On the more dramatic side, if one were so inclined, it could be said that his method of suicide was rather symbolic. Turing had partook in what was in his day forbidden. For this, he had been "cast out" of his chosen profession and what he loved to do -- in some sense, his Eden. As a final gesture before leaving this world, he ate a piece of forbidden fruit that was symbolic of this fact.
It's a tragedy that the ignorance and intolerance of first half of the 20th century could have driven such a brilliant man to suicide. If it weren't for Turing, much of what we take for granted today may be a lot different or may not even exist at all. Hopefully the world has wisened over the last 50 years.
Re:A small point omitted in the article (Score:3, Interesting)
At a wild guess I would say that the apple idea came along due to Northern Europeen painters who knew mostly apple trees.
Re:A small point omitted in the article (Score:3, Interesting)
Biographies and a correction (Score:2, Informative)
Derek Jacobi starred in a 1986 play about Alan Turing and also the excellent 1996 television adaptation. Videos can be purchased.
The site linked by the slashdot article incorrectly identifies a photograph of an Enigma machine. It shows the cryptographic device manufactured by the Germans to encode and decode messages. This is not a device invented by Turing. He had
Turing more than a genius (Score:5, Informative)
Definitely one of the handful of brightest minds of the 20th Century and one of the people most individually responsible for the victory of the Allies after WWII. His subsequent treatment was vile and deplorable, but hey, how is that new in the military? Check out those prisoners... mmm, mmm, mmm... that's some good stuff. Considering the hypocrisy involved in the British Military going after a homosexual for being a security risk, well, I'll just leave off here.
Turing's work on AI was so revolutionary that the entire field pretty much languished for a couple decades after his death until people finally started to pick up where he left off.
Don't forget Church! (Score:2)
Turing's contributions were obviously profound but Lisp fans demand that Alonzo Church's contributions be given similar recognition.
the Test of time (Score:2)
More than a practical test, it continues to illustrate the inherent limits on such tests and concepts.
Re:the Test of time (Score:4, Insightful)
The idea of identifying gender, rather than human or not human, is actually much more subtle than might be at first realised. He of course meant this to be extended as we all nowadays quote the test, but the original idea is subtly elegant... He was tackling the problem from the other direction: forget a computer pretending to be "intelligent", but what do we mean by "thinking" - If a man can "pretend" to be a woman, as per his test, what does that prove? That he is a woman?! Of course not... Thus was does it mean to be a woman, etc etc - Turing was a genius with amazing insight and perception.
What a loss.
Enigma/Bletchley Park (Score:2, Informative)
turing archive (Score:5, Informative)
How about Lady Ada Byron ? (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/love.ht
"When inspired Ada could be very focused and a mathematical taskmaster. Ada suggested to Babbage writing a plan for how the engine might calculate Bernoulli numbers. This plan, is now regarded as the first "computer program.""
Still open (Score:2, Interesting)
Turing left a bunch of still new ideas unexplored. Just look at his 48's paper Intelligent Machinery> [alanturing.net].
Recurrent connectionism was the starting point, and P machines have not even been explored.
What's in a sig?
This guy should be the hero of gay rights. (Score:5, Insightful)
Children in school would learn about how the man who cracked Enigma and might have literally saved WW2 was eventually driven to commit suicide....
While no gay person I know has even heard of Turing. I never heard about him until college.
I think its another case of people not giving a damn about geeks...
Re:This guy should be the hero of gay rights. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This guy should be the hero of gay rights. (Score:3, Insightful)
Being gay and famous isn't heroic.
Gay ?? Onion spoof (Score:4, Funny)
Alan Mathison Turing was one of the great, gay pioneers of the computer field.
He inspired the now common terms of "The Turing Machine" and "Turing's Test.", and preferred the company of men to women. As a mathematician he applied the concept of the algorithm to digital computers, and liked to kiss and hold other men.
The homosexual's research into the relationships between machines and nature created the field of artificial intelligence. His intelligence and foresight made him one of the first to step into the information age. His sexual preference was for men.
The 3 Pioneers of Computing were ... mad (Score:4, Informative)
Turing developed a model for computers (the Turing machine). He developed the proof of the Halting problem. That is, given a program and a input to that program, you cannot generally determine if the program will terminate execution.
As you're probably already aware, Turing was arrested and imprisoned for homosexuality. After he was released, he undertook a multi-month project to extract cyanide from the pits of apples. After he had sufficient quantities, he drank it and died (aged early 40s).
Kurt Godel was responsible for developing the mathematical proof of undecidability. Given a system with the capabilities of "simple" arithmetic, he showed that there are propositions (i.e. statements) you can make within the system which can be neither proven nor disproven. This is equivalent to Turing's "halting problem".
Godel was paranoid, and believed that people were trying to poison him. He only ate what his wife cooked. When she died, he stopped eating and starved himself to death.
Emil Post was an American mathematician (Columbia Ph.D., i think) who developed a proof of undecidability many years before Godel. In addition, he developed a model for computation which is similar to Turing's machine (it uses a pre-loaded queue to both hold the input string, and to hold the results of intermediate computations). He developed a proof of undeciability based upon his machine model (the "Post Correspondence Problem").
Post was a manic-depressive for most of his life. He lost an arm in an accident as a child. He had a hard time holding jobs after receiving his Ph.D. due to his depression. In the 50's he was treated for depression using Electro-Shock therapy (for interested readers... for a real shock go look up the 1948 or 1949 Nobel prize for Medicine :-). After one of his "treatments", he suffered a heart attack and died.
So, in conclusion, it's rather interesting to reflect upon the fact that the foundations of computer science comes from three individuals who suffered clear psychological problems. (And they wonder why nerds work in the dark :-)
online Enigma (Score:3, Interesting)
Play with that a while, and you'll see why that was such a bitch to crack.
He'd turn in his grave (Score:3, Insightful)
He would have been delighted with a 1GHz / 1GB RAM machine and now it is just taken for granted.
What about Kleene, Post, and Church? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Turing didn't do crap. (Score:2, Informative)
Equivalence to a turing machine is used in lots of CS proofs even today.
The turing test is also still considered one of the fundamental challenges of 'weak' Artificial Intelligence.
[OT] Re:Turing didn't do crap. (Score:2, Insightful)
If you add in self-preservation as a requirement (Asimov) perhaps it would be a better test.
Re:[OT] Re:Turing didn't do crap. (Score:2, Insightful)
The turing test only works in terms of 'weak' AI - that is that actions determine intelligence, and internal state doesn't matter.
Strong AI on the other hand, says that to be intelligent, you must not only act intelligent, but also be intelligent internally.
On the other hand, the self-preservation requirement doesn't really strike me as a facet of intelligence. A suicidal person might still have the intelli
Re:[OT] Re:Turing didn't do crap. (Score:3, Insightful)
It requires human perception, which is fallible and inconsistent, to validate the quality of AI.
Worse, it requires the AI to fake human fallible and inconsistent human perception. Any test that requires an AI to wait for a bit before giving the answer to a hard numerical problem is a daft test.
The Turing test tests humanness, not intelligence. There is no reason for (artificial) intelligence to be similar to a human's at all.
Re:Turing didn't do crap. (Score:2)
Don't forget the poet Ada, who was set to be a programmer long before Turing (yes, for Babbage)
Re:Killing people the only way to "Innovate"? (Score:3, Informative)
This page [codesandciphers.org.uk] has a description of the machine.
Turing didn't invent the machine. The germans did.
Re:Killing people the only way to "Innovate"? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Killing people the only way to "Innovate"? (Score:2)
Re:Killing people the only way to "Innovate"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Name one war that was not fought for economic reasons. Even the so-called Crusades, nominally fought for religion, were an excuse to keep increasinly powerful nobility in check by making them incur such a large expense as trying to invade the middle east. Every war I can think of has economic motives despite frequent facades of other purposes. Not that there's anything wrong with that; large scale human social activity comes
Re:Killing people the only way to "Innovate"? (Score:3, Informative)
Turings universal machine was implemented in the Colossus machine (the worlds first general purpose programmable computer). It was dismanteled and the whole thing classified after the war.
After the war the
Re:Killing people the only way to "Innovate"? (Score:3, Informative)
Alan invented Enigma, a machine to decode encrypted messages from the Germans
The Germans used the Enigma to encrypt messages and it was a polish mathematician, Marian Rejewski,who worked out the first attack on the Enigma cipher.He actually designed a machine to automate the process of figuring out the scrambler setting,which is known as a Bombe.Turing refined and improved these machines but he wasnt ,by any stretch of imagination,the originator of cracking up Enigma.
Alan Turing: The Movie. (Score:5, Funny)
Starring Halle Barry as his love interest, Lady Ada Lovelace. Famous for its one-liners used during gun battles with Enigma Nazis: "Code This!" and *BLAM!* BLAM!* "You failed the Turing Test.". Directed by Jerry Bruckheimer, it features Enigma machines that blow up like the Hindenburg whenever the wrong code is entered.
Negotiations are underway with Barry Sonnenfeld's production company to bring back the giant robot spider from "Wild Wild West" to make an appearance as the very first computer bug.
Re:Alan Turing: The Movie. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Alan Turing: The Movie. (Score:3, Funny)
Turing: "Time for some Extreme Programming!" (loads shotgun with a loud ka-chink)