acts, it is something celestial and divine.”
—Cicero
6: The Electronic Brain
The idea of a man-made “brain” is far from being new. Back in 1851, Dr. Alfred Smee of England proposed a machine made up of logic circuits and memory devices which would be able to answer any questions it was asked. Doctor Smee was a surgeon, keenly interested in the processes of the mind. Another Britisher, H. G. Wells, wrote a book called Giant Brain in 1938 which proposed much the same thing: a machine with all knowledge pumped into it, and capable of feeding back answers to all problems.
If it was logical to credit “human” characteristics to the machines man contrived, the next step then was to endow the machine with the worst of these attributes. In works including Butler’s Erewhon, the diabolical aspects of an intelligent machine are discussed. The Lionel Britton play, Brain, produced in 1930, shows the machine gradually becoming the master of the race. A more physical danger from the artificial brain is the natural result of giving it a body as well. We have already mentioned Čapek’s R.U.R. and the Ambrose Bierce story about a chess-playing robot without a built-in sense of humor, who strangles the human being who beats him at a game. With these stories as models, other writers have turned out huge quantities of work involving mechanical brains capable of all sorts of mischief. Most of these authors were not as well-grounded scientifically as the pioneering Dr. Smee who admitted sadly that his “brain” would indeed be a giant, covering an area about the size of London!
The idea of the giant brain was given new lease by the early electronic computers that began appearing in the 1940’s. These vacuum-tube and mechanical-relay machines with their rows of cabinets and countless winking lights were seized on gleefully by contemporary writers, and the “brain” stories multiplied gaudily.
Many of the acts of these fictional machines were monstrous, and most of the stories were calculated to make scientists ill. Many of these gentlemen said the only correct part of the name “giant brain” was the adjective; that actually the machine was an idiot savant, a sort of high-speed moron. This opinion notwithstanding, the name stuck. One scholar says that while it is regrettable that such a vulgar term has become so popular, it is hardly worth while campaigning against its use.
An amusing contemporary fiction story describes an angry crowd storming a laboratory housing a “giant brain,” only to be placated by a calm, sensibly arguing scientist. The mob dispersed, he goes back inside and reports his success to the machine. The “brain” is pleased, and issues him his next order.
“Nonsense!” scoff most computer people. A recent text on operation of the digital computer says, “Where performance comparable with that of the human brain is concerned, man need have little fear that he will ever be replaced by this machine. It cannot think in any way comparable to a human being.” Note the cautious use of “little,” however.
Another authority admits that the logic machines of the monk Ramón Lull were very clever in their proof of God’s existence, but points out that the monk who invented them was far cleverer since no computer has ever invented a monk who could prove anything at all!