Thu
Sep
24
“ here’s a toast to Alan Turing
born in harsher, darker times
who thought outside the container
and loved outside the lines
and so the code-breaker was broken
and we’re sorry
yes now the s-word has been spoken
the official conscience woken
– very carefully scripted but at least it’s not encrypted –
and the story does suggest
a part 2 to the Turing Test:
1. can machines behave like humans?
2. can we? A poem by Matt Harvey, in response to the British government’s formal apology for hounding Alan Turing to death. It’s only a so-so poem, by my tastes — very Philip Larkin — but I love that last couplet a lot! I’ve actually been sort of writing around that question in my journalism for a loooong time … though sometimes the proposition is inverted: In what situations would we humans behave more morally if be behaved more like machines?
born in harsher, darker times
who thought outside the container
and loved outside the lines
and so the code-breaker was broken
and we’re sorry
yes now the s-word has been spoken
the official conscience woken
– very carefully scripted but at least it’s not encrypted –
and the story does suggest
a part 2 to the Turing Test:
1. can machines behave like humans?
2. can we? A poem by Matt Harvey, in response to the British government’s formal apology for hounding Alan Turing to death. It’s only a so-so poem, by my tastes — very Philip Larkin — but I love that last couplet a lot! I’ve actually been sort of writing around that question in my journalism for a loooong time … though sometimes the proposition is inverted: In what situations would we humans behave more morally if be behaved more like machines?
