The Influence of Alan Turing on Modern Society
Although the majority of people cannot imagine life without computers, they owe their gratitude toward an algorithm machine developed seventy to eighty years ago. Although the enormous size and primitive form of the object might appear completely unrelated to modern technology, its importance cannot be over-stated. Not only did the Turing Machine help the Allies win World War II, but it also laid the foundation for all computers that are in use today. The machine also helped its creator, Alan Turing, to design more advanced devices that still cause discussion and controversy today. The Turing Machine serves as a testament to the ingenuity of its creator, the potential of technology, and the glory of innovation.
To provide the necessary context for the design of the Turing Machine, one must study the history of its creator, Alan Turing. He was born on June 23, 1912, in the city of London. Although a very wise child,
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From TIME Magazine to Princeton University, numerous figures of fame publicly announced their support for Turing. Finally, in 2009, Prime Minister Gordon Brown formally apologized on behalf of the British government on their poor treatment of him because of his homosexuality (Biography.com Editors).
Alan Turing left an indelible mark on the world with technological inventions, extraordinary talent, and productive habits. His dedication to hard work and perseverance against the discouragement of bullying provide fantastic examples for anyone to emulate. Also, the inventions of the Turing Machine and the Bombe were the primary reasons why computers existed during the last sixty years, and were important factors in the demise of Nazi Germany. Finally, for one to truly understand why Turing was important in world history, he should envision life without modern technology and
In 1939, British Intelligence recruit Alan Turning, a mathematician/crypt analyst from Cambridge, to help win the war against the Germans. Turing leads a team of linguists and scholars to crack the "unbreakable" Nazi codes, shaped by the Enigma machine, which is used to communicate with the German military. Alan constructs a machine that would decrypt Enigmas messages at a much more substantial rate, rather than mentally solving the codes on paper. While the team finds success, Turing's announces his confined homosexuality to his newly married wife/colleague. Although there are violent and alcoholic actions illustrated and sexual themes portrayed throughout, this movie has a very strong message on perseverance and is suitable for high school age kids.
The reason I believe that the Turing test is a great test is because it not only difficult, but it allows the interrogator to think, and that is what I believe Turing looks for his test, the state of logical thought. This would prove that the machine or anything can basically think and feel. For example, If I were to be the interrogator and asked “Are you a woman?” and they both answered me “I am” I would be mentally disturbed and would have to ask new questions to find my answer, but the main point here was the fact I was mentally disturbed and that leads to emotion, which leads that if I were to figure out who was who, I would pass the test and I would have evidence that I can undoubtedly
These projects come to live in the Research division at IBM. In 2005 Paul Horn, director of the division wanted to try to create a machine able to pass the Turing Test. No machine had done it. But researchers didn’t believe that it would get the public’s attention in the way that Deep Blue had. Horn thought of another game where it would...
One of the hottest topics that modern science has been focusing on for a long time is the field of artificial intelligence, the study of intelligence in machines or, according to Minsky, “the science of making machines do things that would require intelligence if done by men”.(qtd in Copeland 1). Artificial Intelligence has a lot of applications and is used in many areas. “We often don’t notice it but AI is all around us. It is present in computer games, in the cruise control in our cars and the servers that route our email.” (BBC 1). Different goals have been set for the science of Artificial Intelligence, but according to Whitby the most mentioned idea about the goal of AI is provided by the Turing Test. This test is also called the imitation game, since it is basically a game in which a computer imitates a conversating human. In an analysis of the Turing Test I will focus on its features, its historical background and the evaluation of its validity and importance.
Alan Mathison Turing was born in Paddington, London, on June 23, 1912. He was a precocious child and began his interests in science and mathematics at a young age, but was never concerned about other right-brain classes such as English. This continued until an important friend of his passed away and set Turing on a path to achieve what his friend could no longer accomplish. When his friend Christopher Morcom died, Turing was launched into thoughts in physics about the physical mind being embodied in matter and whether quantum-mechanical theory affects the traditional problem of mind and matter. Many say today that this was the beginnings of Turing’s Turning Machine and the test still used today for artificial intelligence, the Turing Test.
To keep the story short, Ari progresses from “being awkward with Dante” to “discovering he cares for Dante” and finally realizing that he has fallen in love with the boy. Before coming to his final realization, however, he needed to brace what society has in store for him. As a result of Dante’s homosexuality, he got beat up by some neighborhood boys. Since Ari realizes he cares for Dante, he goes ahead to take revenge and gets into trouble with his parents and other people. Now, we will transition Ari’s viewpoint to Turing’s. Turing was born part Jewish, a religion that does not tolerate homosexuality. In 1952, Turing was put on trial for having a homosexual affair with another male, Arnold Murray. Back in 20th century Britain, homosexuality was a crime, and both were put on charge for gross indecency. Resulting from his conviction, Turing was given two choices: imprisonment or probation. It is at this crossroad that our two individual stories conjoin; if you decide to take the fury of society head on, you will succeed in your battle with the population. If you back down, however society will get the best of you and rob you of your true desire. At this point, both people have encountered the same conflict that society had for them. The main difference between the two, however, is the methodology the two used to resolve the
His efforts went unacknowledged; his invention of the computer wasn’t celebrated until someone else took credit for it; he never got the respect he deserved. The Imitation game is basically an arena of social conflict as well as social change when looking at sexuality, deviance, even gender. Just remember this movie was based on a true story. Alan Turing is a war hero that saved lives, simply due to the fact that the British government thought it was morally wrong that a man could ever love another man he died. Rest in peace, Mr. Turing who shall forever be celebrated. The movie was heart moving. Undeniably the best feature film I have seen that depicts the biography of Alan Turing perfectly, though this is just a matter of
Alan Mathison Turing was born on June 23rd of 1912 in London (source 1 xv) to father, Julius Turing, (source 1 5) , and mother Ethel Stoney (source 1 6) . Alan was born into the Turing family with an older brother, John Turing, who was 4 years his senior (source 1 8) . The Turing family was not poor, but money was constantly rationed due to the constant travel that Julius Turing committed to as an Indian Civil Service Officer which made Julius a lacking father figure to his two sons (source 1 5) . Consequently, due the lack of parental guidance in his life, Alan tended to be a problematic child “who could learn anything but be taught almost nothing” (source 5) , and Alan was known to be strongly opinionated and sarcastic (source 1 14) . Nevertheless,
Alan Turing being the protagonist of this film undergoes many scenes of conflict which makes the film more appealing to the audience by allowing them to either relate to him or sympathise for him. There are many scenes where Turing is advised to keep his gender preference under the radar or even black mailed to keep quiet under the threat of telling authorities that he is a homosexual. There is a scene where Turing finds the Soviet Spy in Bletchley Park who turns out to be John Cairncross. Cairncross catches Turing before he spreads the secret and says "if you tell them my secret I'll tell them your's". Another example of black mail is when Stewart Menzies, who is in on Cairncross's undercover work, finds out of Turing's knowledge and blackmails Turing in the same way Cairncross did. These examples of the protagonist being seen in conflict makes the film more appealing to the audience by making the character seem more relatable as everyone in life come across different types of conflict and it is appealing to see how other people overcome their
Using philosophical works, I look to show the shortcomings of the Turing Test and the importance of emotional intelligence through self-motivation, self-awareness and intentionality. In Ex Machina, Nathan, the creator of Ava, used a modified Turing Test to evaluate her capabilities. As Nathan put it, “Ava was a mouse in a mousetrap. And I
In the movie called “The Imitation Game” is about Alan Turing that tried to break the Morse code of the Nazi Germany which was unbreakable because the Morse code have to put the enigma to translate so we can read it. Alan Turing was mathematician who work for Britain government to break the Enigma code of Nazi German to won the war. This code was unbreakable code because each unique code have special meaning it all most impossible since Enigma have 159 quintillion possibility setting. Alan was a very clever man because he think out of the box to break solve this puzzle which no one didn’t think of before. He think that if their people can’t break code but if we used a machine to help them to break this code and won the war.
Since the beginning of time, humans have thought and made many inventions. Repeatedly the newer one is better than the older. Our minds have created many remarkable things, however the best invention we ever created is the computer. computers are constantly growing and becoming better every day. Every day computers are capable of doing new things. Even though computers have helped us a lot in our daily lives, many jobs have been lost because of it, now the computer can do all of the things a man can do in seconds! Everything in the world relies on computers and if a universal threat happens in which all computers just malfunction then we are doomed. Computers need to be programmed to be able to work or else it would just be a useless chunk of metal. And we humans need tools to be able to live; we program the computer and it could do a lot of necessary functions that have to be done. It is like a mutual effect between us and he computer (s01821169 1).
The history of the computer dates back all the way to the prehistoric times. The first step towards the development of the computer, the abacus, was developed in Babylonia in 500 B.C. and functioned as a simple counting tool. It was not until thousands of years later that the first calculator was produced. In 1623, the first mechanical calculator was invented by Wilhelm Schikard, the “Calculating Clock,” as it was often referred to as, “performed it’s operations by wheels, which worked similar to a car’s odometer” (Evolution, 1). Still, there had not yet been anything invented that could even be characterized as a computer. Finally, in 1625 the slide rule was created becoming “the first analog computer of the modern ages” (Evolution, 1). One of the biggest breakthroughs came from by Blaise Pascal in 1642, who invented a mechanical calculator whose main function was adding and subtracting numbers. Years later, Gottfried Leibnez improved Pascal’s model by allowing it to also perform such operations as multiplying, dividing, taking the square root.
The fist computer, known as the abacus, was made of wood and parallel wires on which beads were strung. Arithmetic operations were performed when the beads were moved along the wire according to “programming” rules that had to be memorized by the user (Soma, 14). The second earliest computer, invented by Blaise Pascal in 1694, was a “digital calculating machine.” Pascal designed this first known digital computer to help his father, who was a tax collector. Pascal’s computer could only add numbers, and they had to be entered by turning dials (Soma, 32). It required a manual process like its ancestor, the abacus. Automation was introduced in the early 1800’s by a mathematics professor named Charles Babbage. He created an automatic calculation machine that was steam powered and stored up to 1000 50-digit numbers. Unlike its two earliest ancestors, Babbage’s invention was able to perform various operations. It relied on cards with holes punched in them, which are called “punch cards.” These cards carried out the programming and storing operations for the machine. Unluckily, Babbage’s creation flopped due to the lack of mechanical precision and the lack of demand for the product (Soma, 46). The machine could not operate efficiently because technology was t adequate to make the machine operate efficiently Computer interest dwindled for many years, and it wasn’t until the mid-1800’s that people became interested in them once again.
Computer technology not only has solved problems but also has created some, including a certain amount of culture shock as individuals attempt to deal with the new technology. A major role of computer science has been to alleviate such problems, mainly by making computer systems cheaper, faster, more reliable, easier to use.