I loved Benjamin’s Labatut’s The Maniac. Conventionally considered a “biography” of John von Neumann however extra precisely a collection of brief, fast vignettes, recollections, and reconstructions informed by individuals round von Neumann and centered on the numerous concepts he touched, together with the metaphysics of logic, quantum physics, the nuclear bomb, the that means of rationality, the basic construction of life and particularly synthetic intelligence. The recollections are what is perhaps known as inventive non-fiction; primarily based on actual life interviews however written as if the speaker have been a novelist. For instance, Feynman uniquely watching the primary atomic check with out goggles, however informed much more vividly than Feynman informed the story.
As Tyler famous, most of the tales will likely be acquainted to MR readers, however a couple of have been new to me. Sydney Brenner, for instance, the Nobel prize successful molecular biologist who hypothesized after which proved the existence of messenger RNA studies with surprise and astonishment that von Neumann had earlier understood from concept alone how any such system should work.
Worry and awe within the presence of nice intelligence is a operating theme of the e-book. Polya famously described fearing von Neumann after seeing him resolve an issue in minutes that he had labored on for many years (once more the story is jeujed up in The Maniac to nice impact.) Eugene Wigner who knew him from childhood and who himself gained a Nobel prize in physics is “quoted” (recall that is fictionalized however primarily based on the file):
It was a burden rising up so near him. I usually surprise if my horrific inferiority advanced, which not even the Nobel prize has diminished within the slightest, is a product of getting recognized von Neumann for the higher a part of my life.
…I knew Planck, von Laue, and Heisenberg, Paul Dirac was my brother-in-law, Leo Szilard and Edward Teller have been amongst my closest mates, and Albert Einstein was an excellent good friend too. However none of them had a thoughts as fast and acute as Janos von Neumann. I remarked on this within the presence of these males, a number of occasions, and nobody ever disputed me.
Solely he was totally awake.
One other theme is the seemingly shut relationship between rationality and madness–Labatut develops this each in concept round Godel’s theorem but in addition in follow with the numerous rationalists who went loopy. What does this imply for synthetic intelligence?
The MANIAC refers to not von Neumann however to von Neumann’s creation the Mathematical Analyzer Numerical Integrator and Automatic Computer Mannequin, the primary laptop constructed utilizing von Neumann’s structure, which all computer systems use at this time. From the MANIAC we get to synthetic intelligence and once more the awe and concern. After Gary Kasparov loses to Deep Blue he turn into despondent and fearful, pondering that there should have been a human within the machine. Lee Sedol shedding to AlphaGo and shortly retiring thereafter. Ke Jie being annihilated by Grasp, the successor to AlphaGo and reporting “he’s a god of Go. A god that may crush all who defy him.” After which the creators of AlphaGo take off the coaching wheels, they take away all of the human video games that constrained the sooner fashions to a basis constructed on hundreds of years of human information and the consequence crushes the human-limited mannequin.
We’re reminded of what von Neumann stated on his dying mattress when requested what wouldn’t it take for a pc to start to suppose and behave like a human being.
He took a really very long time earlier than answering, in a voice that was no louder than a whisper.
He stated that it must perceive language, to learn, to write down, to talk.
And he stated that it must play, like a baby.
The Maniac is an effective learn.
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