Tag: Simon Schaffer

Interactions – Codebreaker

Codebreaker, a docudrama about Alan Turing, is a fascinating introduction to both Turing, the public intellectual, who is cited by many as a primary contributor to modern computing and artificial intelligence, as well as to Turing, the private human being, who was convicted as a criminal by the English society of his time because of personal inclinations commonly accepted and protected by most societies today.

Simon Schaffer, a professor in the Department of History and the Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, makes this poignant comment in one of the documentary segments of the film:

I mean what’s going on, partly, in the insupportable tragedy of Turing’s fate, is what happens when deeply institutionalized English intellectuals encounter what life’s like outside the walls. They forget, and cannot imagine, how evil and vicious life can be.

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