Bullock, Seth. “Charles Babbage and the emergence of automated reason.” (2008): 19-39.
URL1 URL2
Charles Babbage (1791–1871) (figure 2.1) is known for his invention of the first automatic computing machinery, the Difference Engine and later the Analytical Engine, thereby prompting some of the first discussions of machine intelligence (Hyman 1982). Babbage’s efforts were driven by the need to efficiently generate tables of logarithms—the very word ‘‘computer’’ having originally referred to people employed to calculate the values for such tables laboriously by hand. Recently, however, historians have started to describe the wider historical context within which Babbage was operating, revealing how he, his contemporaries, and their students were influential in altering our conception of the workforce, the workplace, and the economics of industrial production in a Britain increasingly concerned
with the automation of labor (Schaffer 1994). While it was clear that all manner of unskilled manual labour could be achieved by cleverly designed mechanical devices, the potential for the same kind of machinery to replicate mental labor was far more controversial. Were reasoning machines possible? Would they be useful? Even if they were, was their use perhaps less than moral? Babbage’s contribution to this debate was typically robust. In demonstrating how computing machinery could take part in (and thereby partially automate) academic debate, he challenged the limits of what could be achieved with mere automata, and stimulated the next generation of ‘‘machine analysts’’ to conceive and design devices capable of moving beyond mere mechanical calculation in an attempt to achieve full-fledged automated reason. In this chapter, some of the historical research that has focused on
Babbage’s early machine intelligence and its ramifications will be brought together and summarized. First, Babbage’s use of computing within academic research will be presented. The implications of this activity on the wider question of machine intelligence will then be discussed, and the relationship between automation and intelligibility will be explored.