How to Program a Soul

The Commodore 64, the first computer I learned to program on. 

In the July issue of City Arts Eastside, sci-fi author Ted Chiang asked a simple question that called into question the nature of how artificial intelligence is imagined in sci-fi:

"You say that the [computers] are learning, but you are assuming that they come pre-filled with all of this experience. Where does that come from?"

Almost thirty years ago, Tracy Kidder published The Soul of a New Machine, which also sought to explain the source of that nebulous knowledge. A technical, dramatic and detailed story about a small group's attempt to build a computer on a deadline, which earned Kidder the Pulitzer Prize, Machine actually gives the details at how computers acquire their abilities. 

In the book's painstaking description of what makes a computer the machine it is (as opposed to an engine), Chiang's objection to much of sci-fi becomes clearer. 

Kidder realized that it's hard — really hard — to make a computer do anything, so the idea of a robot butler or, unfortunately, a robot apocalypse is a bit improbable. And so the book looks behind the curtain of computer mysticism that is often conjured in sci-fi novels, albeit from an '80s point of view. 

Interesting (and a little nerdy). 

As an aside, one programmer even posited an idea similar to one presented in Chiang's recent book, Lifecycle: "The way I think it's gonna be is that the computer will grow up with [a] child. When you're born, you'll be given a computer. You'll teach it how to talk after you learn how." 

Read more about Ted Chiang when you pick up a copy of City Arts Eastside or Seattle. There's also a little extra on his publishing debacle in our Web Exclusive, "Ted Chiang vs Tor Publishing."