Re: Computing Machines
In fact, many important ideas behind digital computing were worked out by Gottfried Leibniz (1646 - 1716). He not only came up with differential calculus around the same time as Newton, he did much important work in binary arithmetic and symbolic logic. Notes Wikipedia:
"In 1679, while mulling over his binary arithmetic, Leibniz imagined a machine in which binary numbers were represented by marbles, governed by a rudimentary sort of punched cards."
His contributions, and the fascination with same among those in Princeton, are described in Dyson's new book.
Leibniz was, in a word, one smart dude. And as with (Fig) Newton, there is a cookie with his name on it.
techie
3/25/2012 11:29:06 AM
User Rank Basic Coder
Re: Great Reading Material
Thats simply awsome. Loved it.
tinym
3/23/2012 2:16:11 PM
User Rank OS Polymath
Re: Great Reading Material
I read about Eliza (the machine). There were several episodes of Numb3rs that investigated potentially sentient computers, one was like Eliza and was eventually found to be a fraud. The potential for true A.I. is both a wonder and fear in our society. I really like the way some of the possible issues have been portayed onscreen in movies like iRobot, The Matrix, A.I., and others.
I'm a big fan of My Fair Lady, I know much of Miss Dolittle. I did not know about the origins of the chatbot, thanks for sharing. I'm going to have a look at Parry.
Re: Great Reading Material
Weizenbaum in the early '60s wrote a simplistic but v. convincing program called Eliza. It appeared able to converse intelligently with people. All it actually did was look for certain words and phrases and, modeled on a Rogerian psychotherapist, reflect back to the person conversing with it what they had typed in:
-- I hate my mother.
-- Tell me more about your mother.
-- She bothers me.
-- She bothers you?
-- Yeah, she's always picking on me.
-- And you don't like that?
-- No, I don't.
-- Tell me more.
... and so forth.
Not pariticularly deep, but quite convincing. People were fascinated with this program, and they'd gladly converse with it for long periods of time. Sometimes, they asked Weizenbaum to leave the room, because they wished to have more privacy in their interactions with Eliza (named after E. Doolittle in My Fair Lady, a working class woman who gets taught upper-class manners and speech). Weizenbaum looked at transcripts of these interactions and realized people truly believed this machine understood them as human beings, that it really had a mind. And this bothered him. Worse, others began to suggest that Eliza, perhaps with some tweaking and further development, be enlisted to provide actual (and cheap) therapeutic services to troubled people. This worried him even more. And as he thought about it, he realized how profound a problem he had discovered, that people are so quick to endow dumb machines with humanity and trust them with making decisions that require the most human understanding and compassion possible - including making war. And more. The result was his now-famous book.
Today, Eliza exists all over the web as chatbots offering to help visitors to sites find things and even to provide therapy. Like, here and here and here.
Someone once wrote a version of Eliza called Parry, rigged with a paranoid personality, and they put it into conversation with Eliza the therapy bot. You can imagine the results.
tinym
3/22/2012 10:55:53 PM
User Rank OS Polymath
Re: Great Reading Material
I like that one! I've seen some interesting music before but I'm pretty sure this takes the cake. Thanks for sharing.
This book sounds very interesting and written after Turing's paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence. The pair have had quite an impact on science fiction :D
From the sound of it, Weizenbaum's book is still applicable today with all the mobile devices connecting people in a very disconnected way.
Re: Great Reading Material
Thanks for the pointer, Ms. M. I happen to have seen that site before. A programmer friend of mine is a big fan.
Here is another of my favorite sight gags, namely musical notation gone wacky:
http://www.impactlab.net/2007/03/24/out-of-control-musical-scores/
I am not sure what the connection to IT is, but there's gotta be one somewhere in here. I suppose it's funny to see such a highly technical "language" put to such whimsical use(s).
Getting back to computer books, the other important in my life has been Joseph Weizenbaums's Computer Power and Human Reason, from 1976 but still relevant and still one of the most lucid books I have ever read. Amazing prose. It's a critique of AI and a warning that we ought not to hand over too much decision making to computers because even if they appear to have human qualities, they always will be missing some very important ones like compassion and any understanding of what it is to be human.
Toby
3/22/2012 8:42:55 AM
User Rank Management GUI
Computing Machines
@John: Interesting comic content for sure. Someone should commission him to do a comic for how a Microprocessor works etc... that would get the kids reading and learning. I appreciate the work Turing did and the conceptual leap he made but he built on the shoulders of a giant. Recently visiting the Science museum in London I spent a long time examining Charles Babbage's analytical engines. These are great chunks of machinery stuffed full of brass wheels, governers, weights and dials. It took a while to get my head around what he actualy did and how he did it. He took the abstract idea of a mathematical formula and turned it into gears and pulleys....and then built it. He was a great engineer/dreamer and, his machines have the distinction of being beautifully crafted works of art.
tinym
3/22/2012 12:35:05 AM
User Rank OS Polymath
Re: Great Reading Material
Now that you've managed to lengthen my reading list, I'd like to share a little comic I think everyone here will appreciate.
Clever comics and computing go together like the letters x, k, c, and d. My favorite is the Tech Support Cheat Sheet.
Google Chrome rivals the best versions of Firefox. It's my primary browser now (except when I'm working from my iPad).
Henrisha
3/21/2012 11:47:00 PM
User Rank Basic Coder
Re: 2 Computer Books Worth Reading
@John, great recommendations! I think it's a bit of a coincidence that you mentioned the Google Chrome comic by Scott McCloud. If I'm not mistaken, he's also the artist who came up with the 24-hour comics day. I own several collections of 24-hour comics and thoroughly enjoyed the concept, so you could say I'm a fan of Scott's. Heading over to the Google Comics after this--it would be interesting to learn more about the browser in an entertaining medium.
Re: Great Reading Material
The Chrome comic is a hoot, but smart and informative, too.
Turing's Cathedral is shaping up as one of the best books about computing I have ever read. Not that I have a great many, but enough to know the wheat from the chaff.
It helps, of course, that author Dyson's father, Freeman Dyson, has long been associated with the Institute for Advance Study and the family has long lived in Princeton. George's sister if Esther Dyson, a noted computer industry analyst, though her book, of maybe a decade ago, sank like a rock.
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