Alan Turing; The father of Computer Science walking to the Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is usually defined as the science of making computers do things that require intelligence when done by humans, not just automatic actions. If the idea of making lifelike robots imitating humans structure and movements sounds crazy -although it could be reached in some decades-, what about making machines think like humans? Alan Mathison Turing, clearly as a man ahead of his time, already asked himself this question. In 1950, at the dawn of computing, he wrote an article named “Computing machinery and intelligence” for the philosophical magazine "MIND" asking what looks as a simple question; "Can machines think?"

Alan Turing, considered to be the father of computer science

In 1935, at Cambridge University, Turing conceived the modern computer. He described an abstract computing machine consisting of a limitless memory and a scanner that moves back and forth through the memory, symbol by symbol, reading what it finds and writing further symbols. This is Turing's "stored-program concept", and it would give machines the possibility of operating for people while they are modifying and improving its own software and programs. All modern computers are now based on these abstracts ideas that are usually called the "Universal Turing Machine".

Later on, during the Second World War, Turing enlisted on a special team working for the Allies at the Government Code and Cypher School. He was the leading cryptanalyst of the team trying to break the German ciphers used by the radio machine "Enigma" that the Nazis developed for making different codes every day, and which cryptanalysts had thought unbreakable. Turing's role in cracking intercepted coded messages enabled the Allies to defeat the Nazis in many crucial battles, although his colleagues at Bletchley Park recall numerous off-duty discussions with him on the fact he gave considerable thought to the issue of machine intelligence in wartime. His machine was actually a success, and part of his history is now shown on the recent film "The Imitation Game", which tries to make people conscious of the importance of Turing's role in History of the Second World War and the computer engineering. Besides, this movie will worth your time! [Watch the trailer]

"The Imitation Game", starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing. Directed by Morten Tyldum

Turing illustrated his ideas on machine intelligence by reference to chess. In principle, a chess-playing computer could play by searching exhaustively through all the available moves, but in practice this is impossible, since it would involve examining an astronomically large number of moves. Heuristics are necessary to guide and to narrow the search. Ever since, chess and other board games have been regarded as an important test for ideas in AI, since these are a useful source of challenging and clearly defined problems against which proposed methods for problem-solving can be tested. Also, the modern term "heuristic search" is the principle for a heuristic being that cuts down the amount of searching required in order to find the solution to a problem. Programming using heuristics is a major part of modern AI, as is the area now known as machine learning.

Mike Hillyard, one of the volunteers who rebuilt a replica of the Turing Bombe machine

Most of his work for the British Government was burnt, and the importance of his team was hidden after the War for being a national secret operation. Turing kept working on his Artificial Intelligence ideas by creating the first manifesto on AI named "Intelligent Machinery" just before publishing his most famous article on "MIND" magazine; “Computing machinery and intelligence” [I seriously recommend reading some fragments of the article on this LINK]. "The Imitation Game" proposes what has become known as the Turing Test to determine if a machine is capable of thinking. 

This test involves three participants, two answering questions, being one of them a machine, and a human interrogator. The interrogator attempts to determine, by asking questions through a keyboard and a screen, which one is the computer. He may ask questions as penetrating and wide-ranging as he or she likes, and the computer is permitted to do everything possible to force a wrong identification, meanwhile the other person must help the interrogator. What means that this long-range possibility of answering for the computer gives it the chance to answer "No" in response to "Are you a computer?". The idea was that if the questioner could not tell the difference between human and machine, the computer would be considered to be thinking. Nevertheless, no AI program has been even close to pass the test yet.
 

The Turing test does not directly test whether the computer behaves intelligently – it tests only whether the computer behaves like a human being.

 A great example of how it works is given by the sci-fi film "Blade Runner", Ridley Scott's masterpiece, starring Harrison Ford. In that movie, detective Deckard is forced by the police Boss to continue his old job as Replicant Hunter. His assignment: eliminate four escaped Replicants from the colonies who have returned to Earth. The replicants are almost perfect thinking machines, created to work and die for humankind, but all thinking beings can develop feelings... That video is an example of the test asking questions to a replicant who does not know she is.

Sadly, after all his great studies and being considered a genius on technologies and computer fields, he became an objetive for the huge homophobia that ruled many countries, including his own. British government revealed he was gay and sent him to prison for a few time. He was liberated with the condition on taking pills for a treatment of chemical castration. Some years later, he was found dead by his cleaner when she came in on 8 June 1954. He had died the day before of cyanide poisoning, a half-eaten apple beside his bed. His mother believed he had accidentally ingested cyanide from his fingers after an amateur chemistry experiment, but the coroner's verdict was suicide.

Despite the failure of machines to deceive us into believing they are human, Turing would be excited by the remarkable progress of AI. His work as a pioneer and engineer made him become a giant to follow on for the last decades. He became a symbol in computer engineering, although his story was hidden for decades. It was not until 2009 when British Government realized a statement apologizing and describing the treatment of Turing as "appalling" and also giving him the pardon for his conviction of "gross indecency". The Queen Elizabeth II officially pronounced Turing pardoned in August 2014, it was the fourth royal pardon granted since the conclusion of World War II.

It is interesting to know how these investigations have solved problems in the past to help us be in this high-technology age and how the work of Alan Turing has helped on following generations providing a formalisation of the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation". Besides, it would be a great topic for a discussion how close we are to reach the real Artificial Intelligence and what it would mean; can you even think about the ethical and philosophical -not just engineering- problems could it bring? Many written and filmed works has already talked about it; how would the machines act if they are programmed to think? Would the AI be conscious of its real purpose? Could it feel emotions? What about its infinite possibilities of learning and improving faster than humans? Could they create a revolution? 

Some of my great works about this topic are the book "I, Robot" and other notes by Isaac Asimov, as well as movies like "Metropolis" (Fritz Lang, 1927), "Blade Runner" (Ridley Scott, 1982), "War Games" (John Badham, 1983), "Bicentennial Man" (Chris Columbus, 1999), "The Matrix" (Wachowski brothers, 1999), "Artificial Intelligence" (Steven Spielberg, 2001) and the most recent movies "HER" (Spike Jonze, 2013) -wonderful movie- and -the not as good but interesting- "Transcendence" (Wally Pfister, 2014). Although ahead all of them there is a masterpiece from 1969 filmed by Stanley Kubrick; "2001: a Space Odyssey" has always been the best example of ethical study for Artificial Intelligence.

Quote by the machine HAL9000 in "2001: A Space Odyssey"

Sources and interesting links:

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18475646
http://www.alanturing.net/turing_archive/pages/reference%20articles/what_is_AI/What%20is%20AI03.html
http://www.turing.org.uk/bio
http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/reingold/courses/ai/turing.html
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~shm/Papers/TuringAI_1.pdf

 by Carlos Durango, 2015