Mon, 04 Jul 2005
Electronic Brains
Mike Hally, Electronic Brains: stories from
the dawn of the computer age, www.granta.com
This was originally a radio series broadcast by the BBC and this
book is an enlargement of the script into a series of stories that
cover the USA, UK, Russia, and Australia. As we go through there is
a quest to see who was first.
It's not just about the machines though. There is a fair bit of
context as well to give us a greater feel for what was happening and
we make our way around the world following the realpolitik of the
World Wars and the Cold War and the personalities who range from
inspired dreamer to cut throat business people -- as it ever was.
One of the interesting things is the juxtaposition of the clueless
of that time with the globalists of today: if you miss out on a technology
boat, it hardly matters because of the movement of bits between
various parts of the world. If your homegrown companies are all taken
over by a foreign behemoth, who should worry? Yes, well, we don't deal
with the Alfred E. Newmans (Mad magazine!) of the world further
except to say ... oh, you know, what Will Robinson's robot said.
So anyway, there is a fair balance of the clueless and the
cluefull in the book and it all makes very entertaining reading.
The only thing I found annoying was the dismissal of Turing as
being too aiery-faery (not a quote from the book) to be of relevance
to these wrench-whirlers. Perhaps he wasn't a direct influence on
the mechanical work but his thoughts and dreams of intelligent
machines almost certainly were, even if indirectly. Another thing
I get tired of is the constant reference these days to his sexuality.
Is this the tabloid mind at work? What possible relevance does it have?
Some people will say "well, he committed suicide because of it, and
thus a great career was brought short". Except that he left no evidence
of his state of mind, only a portion of apple soaked in cyanide.
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pre Dec 04 reviews are here