Editing Ada Lovelace (section)

===Insight into potential of computing devices===

In her notes, Ada Lovelace emphasised the difference between the Analytical Engine and previous calculating machines, particularly its ability to be programmed to solve problems of any complexity.{{Sfn|Toole|1998|pp=175–82}} She realised the potential of the device extended far beyond mere number crunching. In her notes, she wrote:

{{Blockquote|[The Analytical Engine] might act upon other things besides ''number'', were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine...Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Lovelace|first1=Ada|last2=Menabrea|first2=Luigi|title=Sketch of the Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage Esq.|year=1842|journal=[[Scientific Memoirs]]|publisher=Richard Taylor|page=694}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Hooper|first=Rowan|url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22385-ada-lovelace-my-brain-is-more-than-merely-mortal.html|title=Ada Lovelace: My brain is more than merely mortal| work=[[New Scientist]] |date=16 October 2012|access-date=16 October 2012}}</ref>}}

This analysis was an important development from previous ideas about the capabilities of computing devices and anticipated the implications of modern computing one hundred years before they were realised. [[Walter Isaacson]] ascribes Ada's insight regarding the application of computing to ''any'' process based on logical symbols to an observation about textiles: "When she saw some [[Jacquard machine|mechanical looms]] that used [[punched cards|punchcards]] to direct the weaving of beautiful [[pattern]]s, it reminded her of how Babbage's engine used punched cards to make calculations."<ref name="Isaacson">{{cite web|url=http://fortune.com/2014/09/18/walter-isaacson-the-women-of-eniac/ |title=Walter Isaacson on the Women of ENIAC |last=Isaacson |first=Walter | authorlink=Walter Isaacson |date=18 September 2014 |work=[[Fortune (magazine)|Fortune]]}}</ref> This insight is seen as significant by writers such as Betty Toole and Benjamin Woolley, as well as the programmer [[John Graham-Cumming]], whose project Plan 28 has the aim of constructing the first complete Analytical Engine.{{Sfn|Toole|1998|pp=2–3, 14}}{{Sfn|Woolley|1999|pp=272–77}}<ref>{{cite web |last=Ken t|first=Leo |url=http://www.humansinvent.com/#!/8947/the-10-year-plan-to-build-babbages-analytical-engine |title=The 10-year-plan to build Babbage's Analytical Engine |publisher=Humans Invent |date=17 September 2012 |access-date=16 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121014123843/http://www.humansinvent.com/#!/8947/the-10-year-plan-to-build-babbages-analytical-engine |archive-date=14 October 2012 |url-status=usurped}}</ref>

According to the historian of computing and Babbage specialist [[Doron Swade]]:

<blockquote>Ada saw something that Babbage in some sense failed to see. In Babbage's world his engines were bound by number...What Lovelace saw...was that number could represent entities other than quantity. So once you had a machine for manipulating numbers, if those numbers represented other things, letters, musical notes, then the machine could manipulate symbols of which number was one instance, according to rules. It is this fundamental transition from a machine which is a number cruncher to a machine for manipulating symbols according to rules that is the fundamental transition from calculation to computation—to general-purpose computation—and looking back from the present high ground of modern computing, if we are looking and sifting history for that transition, then that transition was made explicitly by Ada in that 1843 paper.{{Sfn|Fuegi|Francis|2003}}</blockquote>

''[[Note G]]'' also contains Lovelace's dismissal of [[artificial intelligence]]. She wrote that "The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to ''originate'' anything. It can do ''whatever we know how to order it'' to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no power of anticipating any analytical relations or truths." This objection has been the subject of much debate and rebuttal, for example by [[Alan Turing]] in his paper "[[Computing Machinery and Intelligence]]".<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CEMYUU_HFMAC&pg=PA67 |journal=The Turing Test: Verbal Behavior as the Hallmark of Intelligence |editor=Stuart Shieber |title=Computing Machinery and Intelligence |author=Turing, Alan |pages=67–104 |publisher=MIT Press |year=2004|isbn=978-0-262-26542-3 }}</ref> Most modern computer scientists argue that this view is outdated and that computer software can develop in ways that cannot necessarily be anticipated by programmers.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Natale |first1=Simone |last2=Henrickson |first2=Leah |date=2022-03-04 |title=The Lovelace effect: Perceptions of creativity in machines |url=https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221077278 |journal=New Media & Society |volume=26 |issue=4 |pages=1909–1926 |doi=10.1177/14614448221077278 |s2cid=247267997 |issn=1461-4448 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220127000000/https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221077278 |archive-date=27 January 2022 |access-date=9 March 2022 |url-status=live }} [https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/182906/ Alt URL]</ref>