b"Kathleen Booth lifted the nascent industry out Todays deep learning systems remind us of thisof machine code by creating the world's first quintessence; they can give us near perfectassembly language,in 1947, at the University of answers, they can beat the world's best boardLondon.John Backus and a team at IBM game players, they can assert newcompleted the first FORTRAN compiler in 1957. mathematical truths, but the explanation ofDennis Ritchie built C in 1972. how they came to their result, of what questionsthey solved so as to unrefutably prove theirThe history of computer science has been the hypothesis and so reach their conclusion, isdrive for even more eicient mechanisation of often completely intractable to the humanDo Computer Engineers rule the world?algorithms so that the world will not in fact need mind.a great deal of mathematicians of ability toWe will almost certainly continue to do so in the program computers, but rather that computers A paradox is that on the one hand we havedecades ahead. From the situation seventy-five become so accessible that they can be invented technology to make machines muchyears ago when there were not yet any controlled and directed by ordinary members of easier to program, requiring less training, lesselectronic computers, and but a few dozen the public. And now today deep learning is highly skilled human capital, and less time;electromechanical machines worldwide (mainly increasingly leading us to the point at which whilst on the other we have made them veryfor cryptography and code breaking), today computers can control and direct themselves in much more diicult to understand. A paradox isevery individual, every company, every ways which humans may not be capable of that whilst computers are now so much easier togovernment,and every society and community understanding. program, they are now much more pervasiveare directly or indirectly influenced by across human life, industry, government andcomputers. Douglas Adams satirised the Deep Thought society, and so there are so many more to besupercomputer which calculated, taking 7.5 programmed. A paradox is that whilst businessThose early machines were programmed using million years to do so,that the answer to the leaders and management expect computerbit patterns in machine code.Alan Turing duly Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and solutions to be delivered at low expense,noted in 1945 that the world will consequently Everything is: 42. Unfortunately though, no one computer engineers are expected to be evenneed a great deal of mathematicians of ability knows what the Ultimate Question is that leads more productive.because of the complexity involved in to that answer!programming machines.56"