Seen from behind
Front view
Designed and built (with a great deal of skilled help) in 1957/8 at the Medical Research Council Applied Psychology Unit, Chaucer Road, Cambridge by myself,
then a Research Scholar, with the aim of investigating the likely similarities and differences between human and
machine “intelligence”
then a Research Scholar, with the aim of investigating the likely similarities and differences between human and
machine “intelligence”
“LETTUCE” represented, then, one of the earliest steps in researching what is these days called “Artificial Intelligence.” I am still, myself, uncertain whether such a thing exists in any philosophical sense; but I was in any case prevented from investigating the subject further by being called up for National Service in the Royal Air Force.
Her constructional details are on the following page.
Showing the logical units mounted in her frame, and the two massive truck batteries which powered her.
An early shot at “machine thinking”