Alan Turing Predicts Machine Learning And The Impact Of Artificial Intelligence On Jobs

A page from the notebook of British mathematician and pioneer in computer science Alan Turing, the World War II code-breaking genius, is displayed in front of his portrait during an auction preview in Hong Kong Thursday, March 19, 2015. This week's milestones in the history of technology include Alan Turing anticipating today's deep learning by intelligent machines and concerns about the impact of AI on jobs, Clifford Stoll anticipating Mark Zuckerberg, and establishing the FCC and NPR. Alan Turing gives a talk at the London Mathematical Society in which he declares that "what we want is a machine that can learn from experience." Anticipating today's enthusiasm about machine learning and deep learning, Alan Turing described how intelligent machines will work: Let us suppose we have set up a machine with certain initial instruction tables, so constructed that these tables might on occasion, if good reason arose, modify those tables. One can imagine that after the machine had been operating for some time, the instructions would have altered out of all recognition, but nevertheless still be such that one would have to admit that the machine was still doing very worthwhile calculations.