Information is Power

Write a historical fiction story about someone working at a company that helped revolutionise early computers.

Information is Power

‘Information is power’ is a well-known saying. Nowadays we can get news at the click of a button and we do not have to rely on newspapers or radios in order to find out what is happening in the world. If we want information on a topic, all we have to do is enter the word or the term into Google Search. If you typed ‘what is a computer?’ into the Google search engine, you would get this definition:

A computer is an electronic device that manipulates information or data. It has the ability to store, retrieve, and process data. 

We take these search engines for granted, but in former times, we did not have these information highways. The history of the evolution of the computer is quite convoluted, but there were significant milestones on the way.  

During WWII, there was an urgent need to obtain information on the enemy’s battle plans. The government decided to establish a centre at Bletchley Park, where the top code-breakers in the land could work collaboratively in order to decode the messages that the enemy forces were sending. The messages were encrypted with a machine known as the Enigma and it proved very challenging to crack. 

‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man’ is also a well-known saying. Alan Turing was the mastermind behind the breakthrough. Another code-breaker, called Gordon Welchman assisted Turing in this enterprise. Basically, the ‘Enigma Machine had 150 million million million possible daily settings inside it.’

The Germans believed their Enigma Cipher Machine could not be cracked. When it emerged that the Allies were intercepting their communications, they believed it was the work of spies. They believed once the Enigma Machine sent an encrypted message, the Allies could never decrypt it. 

Breaking the code was crucial, because it meant that the Allies would gain valuable information on the enemy’s plans. Cracking the naval enigma code allowed Britain’s food supplies to be shipped across the Atlantic and ships were saved from being torpedoed. It was said that Turing’s code-breaking was so vital to the war effort that it saved millions of lives and possibly shortened the conflict by two or three years. 

There is no doubt that Turing laid the foundations for computer technology and artificial intelligence. We are now used to the concept of self-driving cars. It is estimated that every year, there are approximately 1.35 people killed in road traffic accidents. Could self-driving cars help to reduce these fatalities? Our roads would certainly be safer as most accidents are caused by careless driving. As Jordan said in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby:

You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn’t I? 

However, would a driverless car be able to make life-and-death decisions in a real life scenario? Would you like to think that a self-driving car, powered by an algorithm was making crucial decisions in an urban area or on a motorway? 

In respect to surgery, the use of robotics has increased. The Da Vinci robot was used to perform many eye surgeries and these have proved successful. But as Blake Morgan has pointed out, ‘a robot cannot look you in the eye, consider your feelings or feel sympathy for you or be a critical thinker’. 

Stephen Hawking warned humanity that Artificial Intelligence could get the upper hand. He wrote that, ‘Whereas the short-term impact of AI depends on who can control it, the long-term impact depends on whether it can be controlled at all’. And there has been a suggestion that we are already being controlled by social media and powerful Google and Facebook algorithms. 

The movie, I Robotdepicts a world where robots are part of human society and carry out many day-to-day tasks. However, one of the robots, Sonny appears to have been involved in the murder of Dr Alfred Lanning, thereby violating the Three Laws of Robotics. 

The famous science fiction writer Isaac Asimov devised ‘The Three Laws of Robotics,’ namely that a robot may not injure a human being, a robot must obey the order given to it and a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first two laws’. 

When we log into some sites on our computer we are asked whether or not we are a robot. This process known as CAPTCHA stands for ‘Completed Automated Public Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart’. You could be shown a set of images and you have to select which ones have traffic lights. 

In 1950, Turing published a paper called, ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’ where he reflected on the topic of artificial intelligence. He postulated the question, ‘Can machines think’. His test, which he called the ‘Imitation Game’ consisted of three players, an interrogator, a human and a computer. The interrogator has to figure out which is the human and which is the computer. If the interrogator cannot tell the difference, then this shows that the computer is intelligent. 

A famous American poet William Carlos Williams described his writing process in his prose-poem ‘Kora in Hell’. He said, ‘I decided that I would write something every day, without missing one day, for a year’. He declared that he would not edit or censor himself, but ‘write anything that came into my head’. He said, ‘Not a word was to be changed’. 

Computers can never be spontaneousin the way that William Carlos Williams advocates. He also wrote in the Preface to ‘Kora in Hell’ that, ‘Nothing is good save the new’. 

A computer cannot be original as it can only follow a programme. Artificial Intelligence can be used to enhance surgical procedure. Cataract surgery can be performed by a robotic technique, where an incision is made in the cornea and so forth the operation is performed robotically. 

But no matter how much Artificial Intelligence evolves, it will never be able to produce spontaneous writing. Allen Ginsberg, the Beat poet wrote, ‘First thought, best thought’.