What would Ada Lovelace think of Knowmail?
“The computer will never be creative or intelligent by itself; it can only do what we tell it to do.”
I like to call this statement “The Frankenstein clause”: it plays down the primal fear we humans have of our machines getting better than us, then taking over the world. Basically it says, “Move along, folks... Nothing to worry about, we’re the real brains here… These dumb computers will always obey us…”
This statement was made by many during the 20th century, but the first to articulate it was Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, in 1843. She was writing about Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, the first computer ever devised. The story of Babbage’s attempt to build a fully programmable mechanical computer out of myriad cogwheels and levers is fascinating. If you haven’t heard it, it’s well worth a Google. The man spent much of his life and fortune trying to get the machine built, and failed to complete it; but he did develop incredibly intricate designs that may yet be realized by the crowdsourced Plan 28. Ada, the daughter of the poet Byron and a keen home-tutored mathematician, had met Babbage when he was 42 and she was 18. She was one of the few people who understood what he was trying to do, and she became his friend and assistant, gaining her the admiration of future geeks and programmers.
Ada’s main contribution to...[Read More]