AI has been rapidly finding industrial applications, such as the use of large language models to automate enterprise IT. Those applications may make the question of actual intelligence moot. The British mathematician Alan Turing wrote in 1950, "I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?'" His inquiry framed the discussion for decades of artificial intelligence research. For a couple of generations of scientists contemplating AI, the question of whether "true" or "human" intelligence could be achieved was always an important part of the work.

A fascinating new video gives a unique look inside the Enigma cipher machine used by the Nazis during World War Two and famously cracked by a team of code breakers led by British mathematician Alan Turing. Scientists used state-of-the-art X-ray scans to peer inside the Enigma's metal casing, revealing the wiring and rotors that encrypted the messages sent using the machine. In total, more than 1,500 scans were taken of an Enigma machine built in Berlin in 1941 - one of just 274 known to have survived the war. Enigmas, which resembled large typewriters, were used by German air, naval and army forces to safely send messages throughout the Second World War. It used a complex series of rotors and lights to encrypt messages by swapping letters around via an ever-changing'enigma code'.

This undated Watters family photo via the Omaha World-Herald shows Col. John Watters and his wife, Jean Watters, on their wedding day. Jean Watters was buried Monday, Sept. 24, 2018, in Nebraska with British military honors for a secret that she held for decades: her World War II service as a codebreaker of German intelligence communications. The tribute honored Watters for her role decoding for a top-secret military program led by British mathematician Alan Turing, who was the subject of the 2014 Oscar-winning film, "The Imitation Game ." She was 18 when she enlisted in the Women's Royal Naval Service. She and her husband retired to the U.S. in 1969.

As mentioned already on The Conversation and other websites, this year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of famed British mathematician Alan Turing. According to some, computer intelligence is on course to match human intelligence by 2045. The outline of his remarkable life and sad ending has by now become fairly well known. Turing laid numerous foundation stones of modern computing, ranging from the deepest mathematical nature of computing (using what are now called Turing machines, he provided the modern approach to incompleteness (PDF) and undecidability) to specific issues of practical design; he also contributed to mathematical biology (morphology) and much else. At the same time, he played a key role in the British government's breaking of the German Enigma code at the now-fabled, but then ultra-secret, Bletchley Park, thus arguably accelerating the end of the second world war.

Nazi WWII encryption technology is being used to create the bank cards of the future. Technology from the German's Enigma ciphering machines, famously decoded by British mathematician Alan Turing, will be used to create ultra-secure encryption cards. The new cards will have machines in them to replace the existing three-digit CVV security number found on the back strip of most bank cards today, and could kill off the pin-entry card reader entirely. Technology from the German's Enigma ciphering machines, famously decoded by British mathematician Alan Turing, will be used to create credit cards. Pictured is a scene from the 2014 film'The Imitation Game' in which Benedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing Encryption technology during the second world war relied on frequently changing'cyphers'.