Artificial intelligence · 1843

Lovelace on machine thought

Ada Lovelace sees that a computing engine could manipulate any symbols, not just numbers.

In her notes on Menabrea's paper about the Analytical Engine, Ada Lovelace argued the machine could compose music if its rules were encoded, while insisting it could originate nothing. Turing answered her 'Lady Lovelace's objection' directly in 1950, making her notes the opening move of the machine intelligence debate.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 1

Analytical Engine 1837

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Computation per constant dollar, 1850-2006 Latest: 7.3B million units of computer power per 2006 $ (2003) Source: Nordhaus 2007, Two Centuries of Productivity Growth in Computing, J. Econ. Hist. 67(1), Table 6