This is a classic article from 快猫短视频鈥檚 archive, republished as part of our 50th anniversary celebrations
The time probably will come when one electronic computer will telephone another electronic computer and say, 鈥淚鈥檓 smarter than you are!鈥� And the other computer will say, 鈥淥h, no you鈥檙e not.鈥� And the first computer will insist, 鈥淵es, I am!鈥� And the argument will go on indefinitely until the telephone company cuts both computers off.
I hazard this speculation on the strength of something that happened today on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The something was a draughts match between a computer and a couple of scientists. Who won is irrelevant. The important thing is that the computer, for all practical purposes, was holding a press conference to publicise its skill. Reporters present had to decide whether playing draughts is smarter than singing a song.
Advertisement
The draughts-playing computer was an IBM 704. In its encounters on the draughtboard, the 704 was bidding for attention against a Univac which Sperry-Rand placed some time ago in the Institute for Mathematical Sciences on the Greenwich Village campus of New York University. On 6 June the Univac had celebrated completion of its fourth year at school by singing, in a voice of metallic gaiety, 鈥淗appy birthday to me鈥�!
The real prowess of computers would seem to be sufficiently understood now to make it unnecessary to explain that neither the 704 nor the Univac is very smart. A human mathematician had to feed the 704 the right set of numbers to produce the draughts game, just as another human had to feed numbers to the Univac to produce the simple song.
Underlying the thinly veneered hucksterism of these shenanigans is the American computer makers鈥� awareness that capabilities of 鈥渕echanical brains鈥� today far exceeded the nation鈥檚 readiness to use their skills. If automation of the office and the factory is to proceed smoothly and effectively, the mathematics fundamental to computing must be taught in the schools 鈥� taught widely and quickly. The computer must become as familiar as the old-fashioned blackboard, which it is in reality beginning to supplant.
First published in 快猫短视频 on 20 June 1957
50 Years of 快猫短视频: The Best Articles 鈥� find many more in our exclusive Special Report. You can also have your say on what you think was the biggest scientific advance of the last 50 years, in our