AI in the News” Are Those That Composing Rules and Turned Loose

The Electronic Paul Revere. James J. Hag- tronic brain of the ElectroData division of gerty, Jr. Collier’s. February 3, 1956: pages the Burroughs Corporation. ... The com- The articles collected for this special 82–85. “Lexington is the home of Mas- puter is ‘instructed’ in simple melody- sachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lin- edition of “AI in the news” are those that composing rules and turned loose. Dou- coln Laboratory, whose scientists have de- might have appeared had I compiled this glas Bolitho and Dr. Martin Klein, who set veloped a superintelligent electronic ‘brain’ collage in 1956. Please note that: (1) an the machine to music, emphasized that which reduces to a bare minimum the hu- excerpt may not reflect the overall tenor of their accomplishment was ‘an experiment man element in the complex problem of the article, nor contain all of the relevant of mathematical importance only.’ It is tracking and destroying an attacking air- information; and, (2) all items are offered not apt to put composers out of business, plane. Operating at a speed far beyond the “as is” and the fact that an article has they said, since ‘no computer will ever capabilities of human intelligence, the al- been included does not imply any possess the esthetic gifts which are respon- most unbelievable Semi-Automatic Ground endorsement whatsoever. sible for art.’“ Environment machine — or SAGE, as it is Gambling Robot Wins High. Science News more popularly known — can sight the ap- – Jon Glick, Webmaster, AI TOPICS Letter. August 18, 1956: page 102. “A gam- proach of an attacker, compute its course, speed and altitude, ‘scramble’ an intercep- bling robot that has been successfully beat- tor to meet it, and guide the fighter to the netics* (automatic controlling devices, au- ing the majority of its human opponents is kill. … SAGE handles all these steps auto- tomatic factories). As is now well known, in operation at the Bell Telephone Labora- matically with the single exception of the cybernetics points to a frightening new tories, Murray Hill, N.J. Nicknamed SEER, scramble order, which is still sent by direct- industrial revolution in which human la- the electronic computer has won 5,218 line telephone.” bor will largely be replaced by robot calcu- times and lost only 4,577 times against vis- lating and operating apparatus. *From the itors and employees at the Laboratories. She Tamed the Thinking Machine. Greek kubernetes — ‘steersman.’” The odds against getting this large a lead Louise Levitas. Science Digest. March 1956: by chance alone, D.W. Hagelbarger of the Intelligence Amplifier. TIME. May 7, pages 53–55. [Condensed from This Week Laboratories said, are about 10,000,000,000 1956: page 70. “Computer experts are fas- Magazine.] “Univac, one of the so-called to one. In addition to penny-matching to cinated by the question: Will thinking ma- ‘thinking machines’ whose lightning cal- the enjoyment of those who want to culations with simple arithmetic are al- chines ever be as intelligent as the human match man against machine, the device ready scaring the average thinker, is now brains that create them? Dr. W. Ross Ashby has a serious purpose. It is a forerunner of getting a college education. The lady in of Britain, a mathematically minded psy- computers that some day might be capable charge of this civilizing process — you chiatrist, believes that the machines can at of adjusting to a changing environment. might call her a machine-tamer — is Dr. least ‘amplify’ human intelligence just as This would result in a machine that could Grace Murray Hopper, an ex-mathematics the engine of a bulldozer amplifies the do more than routine jobs.” professor from Vassar. … Computers have muscle power of the man who controls it. been set to playing chess, predicting the In Automata Studies,* Dr. Ashby explains Homage to Orwell. Editorial. The Nation. weather and national elections, translating how an intelligence amplifier might be October 6, 1956: page 278. “No sooner did into eight languages at once, guiding Nike constructed.” [*1956. C.E. Shannon and J. we get rid of one nightmare about the fu- missiles against figurative enemy aircraft, McCarthy, eds. Princeton Univ. Press.] ture than another besets us. It was some- and recently the government rented an what reassuring to learn recently from Mr. Union Warned By TUC Against Au- IBM computer to take charge of the Anthony West, with the tentative concur- tomation Fears. Reuters; appearing in The records of 119 million Social Security card- rence of Mr. Kingsley Amis, that Airstrip Christian Science Monitor. May 29, 1956: holders. To close some of the gap between One, the setting of Nineteen Eighty-Four, is page 6. “Leaders of Britain’s Trades Union man and the formidable computers, to actually a paranoiac version of George Or- Congress, representing 8,000,000 workers, make it possible for almost anyone to feel well’s preparatory school and not a projec- have warned their members not to let cozy with a Univac, has now become Dr. tion of certain trends in modern society. good industrial relations be upset by ‘the Hopper’s purpose. … Last fall [her] innova- Even with this explanation, the nightmare exaggerations of the science fiction writ- tion, called a ‘Compiler,’ was officially in- remains; but it is humanized, domesticat- ers’ on automation. ‘The first business troduced to users of the Univac. With the ed, made less terrifying. Unfortu- nately, must be to get the facts -– and that is just Compiler, Dr. Hopper created a new job scientists are less prone than novelists to what the TUC has been seeking to do,’ a for herself and a new department at Rem- project private fantasies as to society’s fu- congress half-yearly report stated. The ington Rand –- research devoted ‘teaching’ ture shape and pattern. What, then, is one trade union leaders have been worried by the Univac new skills. … In fact, thanks to to make of Automex, the new think-ma- the pointblank resistance of many British Dr. Hopper’s invention, the machine has chine devised by the Westinghouse Re- become something of a smart aleck. It now workers to new techniques and machines search Laboratories? Automex has a ‘built- answers to call-words written in plain En- which they regard as ‘robots’ liable to de- in intelligence,’ a remarkable capacity for glish. It spots and traces contradictions in prive them of their jobs.” ‘dispassionate judgment in distinguishing the work of careless programmers; it is al- “Brain” Computes New Tune for TV. The between success and failure’ as well as the ways ready to point out human error.” New York Times. July 3, 1956: page 51. ability to distinguish between right and Math Made Malleable. Newsweek. March “The first ballad to be composed by an wrong. … From Big Brother to Automex is 5, 1956: page 94. “Norbert Wiener is the electronic computer will be played July 15 quite a step; already Orwell seems a bit M.I.T. mathematics professor who has pio- in a science show on television. The tune old-fashioned. But the real difference, of neered the science which he calls cyber- was composed by the Datatron, an elec- course, is that Automex is not a fantasy.”