Turing, “Intelligent Machinery, A Heretical Theory”, 1951

70 years old, still relevant

Today, a moment of classic insight.

Here's a brilliant five-page treatise by Turing on the subject of educating machines. This isn't called "machine learning" as we do it today, but rather "education". Yet, the essence remains unchanged. Remarkably relevant, even though more than 70 years have passed.

Ideas about machine architecture remain pertinent: memory, indices ('indexes of experiences' – a nod to vector databases), crude but effective heuristics, rewards (known as the 'pleasure principle'), and the importance of a random element.

Allow me to share a quote:

“Let us now assume, for the sake of argument, that these machines are a genuine possibility, and look at the consequences of constructing them. To do so would of course meet with great opposition, unless we have advanced greatly in religious toleration from the days of Galileo. There would be great opposition from the intellectuals who were afraid of being put out of a job. It is probable though that the intellectuals would be mistken about this. There would be plenty to do in trying, say, to keep one's intelligence up to the standard set by the machines, for it seems probable that once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers. There would be no question of the machines dying, and they would be able to converse with each other to sharpen their wits. At some stage therefore we should have to expect the machines to take control, in the way that is mentioned in Samuel Butler's Erewhon”

In the past, people could convey profound thoughts in just five pages. Such brevity and depth are hard to come by today.