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Turing Oversold?

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Re: Turing Oversold?

#151

Post by UncleMeat »

Banana699 wrote: post #91
pyentropy wrote: post #6

The average person has no clue what theoretical computer science is. But science fields do need marketing. All children have heroes they look up to. Putting focus on Turing's achievements is merely creating a pop star figure in the mainstream, which I think is a good thing: a smart dude works on a problem that saves World War 2 and now powers your phone and your TikTok app. Once you are actually interested in the fie…

>a smart dude works on a problem that saves World War 2 and now powers your phone and your TikTok app. The vast majority of people working anywhere near mathematics, physical sciences or electrical engineering (the 3 founding pillars of CS) in the 1920s and 1930s probably worked on problems related to WW2 during WW2. You can equally state that motivating claim for a lot of other people. I think Turing gets the Media…

Oversensitive and hyper-reactive?

Jailing or sterilizing gay people for having sex is evil. End of story. It has only been 20 years since this was the law in some US states. I see no reason why vigorous rejection of this sort of policy as monstrous can possibly be seen as "oversensitive and hyper-reactive".

Re: Turing Oversold?

#152

Post by cs702 »

bo1024 wrote: post #101

We've been over this. Gödel's mu-recursive functions were a poor model of computation because it's completely unclear how to physically implement the arbitrary-function minimization operator. So people didn't see how to build a machine that calculates this way. Similarly, there's no clear way how to mechanize lambda calculus. Turing Machines, on the other hand, were instantly obviously mechanizable. It was clear that…

Jürgen Schmidhuber has a track record of complaining about unfairness in the conventionally accepted view of the scientific record, especially in the English-speaking world. For instance, he has claimed for years that his own early research on AI has been unfairly overlooked or ignored by a "conspiracy" (his word, not mine).[a] At one point, the NY Times called him the "Rodney Dangerfield of AI research" because he doesn't get the respect he deserves.[b]

Ultimately, as always, credit will be assigned by future generations of scientists and historians long after everyone who is alive today has disappeared from the face of the earth. Many disagreements that seem important now will be forgotten. Many findings that seem important now will turn out not be. Many names that are very prominent now will fade into obscurity. As always.

[a] https://people.idsia.ch//~juergen/deep-learning-conspiracy.h...

[b] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/27/technology/artificial-int...

Re: Turing Oversold?

#153

Post by vmilner »

yann2 wrote: post #24
pantulis wrote: post #4

There are a lot of true facts thrown in the article, but it does not explore the reason why this is. I feel the era of great thinkers who single handledly performed disruptive breakthroughs in their field, the Galileos and Newtons, was over with the Einstein-era (and even Einstein also stood in the shoulders of giants). No one works in isolation any more, and that is not a bad thing. You can subject any relevant figu…

No one worked in isolation in the past either. Move Newton, Faraday, Maxwell and Einstein 10kms away from where they were born, surround them by a different set of chimps and the story doesnt end the same way. A good book from Niall Ferguson - the Sqaure and the Tower - makes the case tradionally Historians have studied individuals instead of groups because its easier to collect data on one chimp versus the entire tr…

Having lived both 10kms north and 10kms south of Newton's birthplace (in more flat Lincolnshire farmland) I'm not sure he's the best example for that argument!

Re: Turing Oversold?

#154

Post by dilap »

dralley wrote: post #147
bo1024 wrote: post #101

We've been over this. Gödel's mu-recursive functions were a poor model of computation because it's completely unclear how to physically implement the arbitrary-function minimization operator. So people didn't see how to build a machine that calculates this way. Similarly, there's no clear way how to mechanize lambda calculus. Turing Machines, on the other hand, were instantly obviously mechanizable. It was clear that…

Likewise, people dispute that Ada Lovelace was the first programmer, because Babbage and Menabrea had previously created a few simple example programs. But that downplays her accomplishments too much. She didn't write the "first program" but she was the first to understand what computers would be capable of doing (for example, that by assigning numbers to letters and symbols, computers could do more than simply perfo…

I really enjoyed Stephen Wolfram's mini-bio of her.

https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2015/12/untangling-the-t...

I very much recoginized from that that she had the attitude and experience of a "programmer," so I would say she was the first programmer, in the modern sense.

Re: Turing Oversold?

#155

Post by nzmsv »

UncleMeat wrote: post #145
nzmsv wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. A finely crafted but ultimately false story can be actively harmful. A young person may think that they are not of the same caliber as "the greats" and cannot make their mark on a field, which would discourage them from trying. All the while in reality "the greats" were never as great as the historians later depicted them. "Come on in, collaborate, and make a difference" would be a much more positive messag…

This is where the humanities has the tech world beat. While we quibble over correct narratives and seek one option, the humanities has been completely soaked in the idea that there are nearly unlimited narratives that describe any given human endeavor and they weave together into a rich and ever-changing tapestry. This is why a historian can read, understand (both the pros and the cons), and respect books that repres…

So can I continue to prefer my narrative? It seems to gather some upvotes and some downvotes, so at least it is interesting and elicits a reaction :)

Also, the more I learn about my heroes the more I realize that they never saw themselves as ubermensch. If anything, self doubt seems to be the common thread. I think this angle does not get enough attention.

However, I agree with you on a broader point. This is just one perspective. Here is another one: Turing the historical figure is necessarily oversold because many more people than Turing the real person contributed to his aggrandizement. Like all cultural icons, Turing the idea outlived and outshined Turing the man.

Re: Turing Oversold?

#156

Post by cxr »

yann2 wrote: post #24
pantulis wrote: post #4

There are a lot of true facts thrown in the article, but it does not explore the reason why this is. I feel the era of great thinkers who single handledly performed disruptive breakthroughs in their field, the Galileos and Newtons, was over with the Einstein-era (and even Einstein also stood in the shoulders of giants). No one works in isolation any more, and that is not a bad thing. You can subject any relevant figu…

No one worked in isolation in the past either. Move Newton, Faraday, Maxwell and Einstein 10kms away from where they were born, surround them by a different set of chimps and the story doesnt end the same way. A good book from Niall Ferguson - the Sqaure and the Tower - makes the case tradionally Historians have studied individuals instead of groups because its easier to collect data on one chimp versus the entire tr…

"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops."

https://graph.global/?id=2851>

Re: Turing Oversold?

#157

Post by HideousKojima »

dralley wrote: post #147
bo1024 wrote: post #101

We've been over this. Gödel's mu-recursive functions were a poor model of computation because it's completely unclear how to physically implement the arbitrary-function minimization operator. So people didn't see how to build a machine that calculates this way. Similarly, there's no clear way how to mechanize lambda calculus. Turing Machines, on the other hand, were instantly obviously mechanizable. It was clear that…

Likewise, people dispute that Ada Lovelace was the first programmer, because Babbage and Menabrea had previously created a few simple example programs. But that downplays her accomplishments too much. She didn't write the "first program" but she was the first to understand what computers would be capable of doing (for example, that by assigning numbers to letters and symbols, computers could do more than simply perfo…

Since the notes attributed to Lovelace were written as part of some scribe work she was doing for Babbage, what indication is there that the notes are her own original work, and not something that Babbage asked her to write? Don't get me wrong, she was clearly a very intelligent woman.

Re: Turing Oversold?

#158

Post by VBprogrammer »

dralley wrote: post #147
bo1024 wrote: post #101

We've been over this. Gödel's mu-recursive functions were a poor model of computation because it's completely unclear how to physically implement the arbitrary-function minimization operator. So people didn't see how to build a machine that calculates this way. Similarly, there's no clear way how to mechanize lambda calculus. Turing Machines, on the other hand, were instantly obviously mechanizable. It was clear that…

Likewise, people dispute that Ada Lovelace was the first programmer, because Babbage and Menabrea had previously created a few simple example programs. But that downplays her accomplishments too much. She didn't write the "first program" but she was the first to understand what computers would be capable of doing (for example, that by assigning numbers to letters and symbols, computers could do more than simply perfo…

Defining the first person to do anything is almost futile. No one exists in a vacuum and most first were standing on the shoulders of technological accomplishments far outside of their own field.

That said, I'm sure in the case of Ada Lovelace there is at least some element of my misogyny involved.

Re: Turing Oversold?

#159

Post by cxr »

denton-scratch wrote: post #104
yann2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one worked in isolation in the past either. Move Newton, Faraday, Maxwell and Einstein 10kms away from where they were born, surround them by a different set of chimps and the story doesnt end the same way. A good book from Niall Ferguson - the Sqaure and the Tower - makes the case tradionally Historians have studied individuals instead of groups because its easier to collect data on one chimp versus the entire tr…

The idea that history is wrong to focus on "chaps" derives from marxism; and Fergusson is very much anti-marxist. The marxian view would be that historical change is the result of economic forces; that if (e.g.) Turing hadn't done it someone else would have, because economics was driving history in that direction. I'm sympathetic to the marxian view of Great Men; I think it's no coincidence that the related work of G…

Alternative angle: among their insights and discoveries, the successes will be shaped by survivorship bias. When deciding what part of one's work to focus on, a person will pursue the things that are close enough to other contemporary work at the time, because it provides a short path to buy-in.

Re: Turing Oversold?

#160

Post by HideousKojima »

goto11 wrote: post #43
formerly_proven wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find so strange about The Imitation Game that all of this is pretty well-known; anyone who has skimmed the Wikipedia article of Turing and the overview article on breaking Enigma knows that the movie is pretty much complete horseshit. Most of the alterations in the movie removed things that would have made the movie more interesting instead of the utterly bland story they made up.

Given the movie was a major box office hit and critically acclaimed, I suspect the producers knew what they were doing. Just don't expect historical accuracy from a Hollywood movie. Cleopatra didn't look like Elizabeth Taylor either.

Cleopatra most likely looked like a horribly inbred Greek, seeing as her family tree has a literal circle in it.
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