S15 Awakening the Digital Imagination Blog

The Brilliant Kook

The Brilliant Kook

So, I have to be honest and say that I was (am) one of those people that thought my daughter (4 years) was pretty amazing for being able to use the iPad by herself.  I mean, she could find her own shows all by herself on Netflix, with no help needed from anyone?!?!  And, I […]

A Few Brief Thoughts on Turing’s Computing Machinery and Intelligence

A Few Brief Thoughts on Turing’s Computing Machinery and Intelligence

I had forgotten what a clear, concise, and talented writer Turning was. His prose bursts with energy, even when his is deep in the weeds of logical arguments against theology. Turing’s concept of science was broad enough to include the speculative imagination, and his statement about the need for conjecture as a motor of scientific discovery … Continue reading A Few Brief Thoughts on Turing’s Computing Machinery and Intelligence

Thinking Machines, Creative Machines

Thinking Machines, Creative Machines

This week I read Turing’s “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” featuring Turing’s arguments against resistance to the idea of thinking machines, as well as his predictions for what digital computers of the future would be able to do. These days, many humans still have the same objections as those Turing argued against. We find thinking machines […]

Machines That Can Think and Learn and Feel and Do Other Stuff Real Good

Machines That Can Think and Learn and Feel and Do Other Stuff Real Good

This week we are reading Alan Turing’s “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” and thinking about “machines that can think and learn.” At the same time, I was clearing out my 1000 open browser tabs, bookmarking things I still wanted to get back to at some point when I ran into “We Know How You Feel,” a New Yorker article…

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Learning Machines

Learning Machines

I am not a numbers person, but reading Alan Turing’s “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” (NMR), and watching The Imitation Game has me thinking about numbers, what they mean, and what we make of them. The excerpt in the New Media Reader was first published in 1950 and teems with binaries. Turing’s original conception of the […]

The vision of machine learning, from 1950

The vision of machine learning, from 1950

Reading: “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” by Alan Turing. Mind: A Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy 59(236):433-360. October 1950. (one reprint is here by a quick Google search). Computer scientist majors will learn about the famous Turing Machine in any introductory Theory of Computation class.  They might get a cursory mention of the “Imitation Game,” the subject of […]

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