New Scientist 2000; 166(2236): 50
First posted 20.2.02

Turing was there

I enjoyed your interview with Stephen Grand, creator of The Norns, some of the most sophisticated artificial life around. However, I found his bald statement that artificial intelligence has failed because Alan Turing’s predictions about it have not come to pass a little glib. Grand is proposing the use of genetic algorithms and a biological approach to solving the AI problem, but these are the very same things which Turing himself proposed way back in the 1940’s!

Turing discussed "genetical" searches, unusual neural-network architectures, and carried out some of the first work in a field which has since become known as morphogenesis. For a small example of functional Turing nets (to our knowledge the world’s first) see: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/cw/unorganized.htm The development of the programmable digital computer based on Turing’s designs so eclipsed these ideas that they have been more or less forgotten. If Turing hadn’t died at the age of 42 or if these ideas had been developed the world may be quite a different place today - we would probably have more than just Macs and PCs on our desks.

Craig Webster

Reference

1. "God of the norns" New Scientist 2000; 166(2232): 42-45.