Artificial Intelligence on the Commodore 64

The word Luddite originated in England during the late 1700’s. During this period, there was an increase in faster working and cheaper cotton spinning technology which could replace more skilled workers. This development led to destruction of the machines by the workers, identified by the name Luddites coined by the textile activist Ned Ludd, to stand up for their practice and fair wages. To the original Luddites’ disappointment, automation has entwined itself within our current means of production. Modernly, the term Luddite has shifted to signify an opposition to technological change, in contrast to the original movement protesting the rights of workers alongside technological development. 

A form of automation that currently is a large topic of discussion, is generative AI. General misinformation and distrust are spread across media platforms about machine learning, allowing the modern definition of Luddite to become a resistance to technological innovation. This blog post will not be an excessive discussion of artificial intelligence within society, instead a look into a 1984 perspective of AI through the book Artificial Intelligence on the Commodore 64 by Keith and Steve Brain.  

In fantasy, artificial intelligence takes on an anthropomorphic role, conflict often arising when Issac Asimov’s three laws of robotics are crossed: 

• The First Law: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 
• The Second Law: A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 
• The Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. 

The 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey exhibits this through HAL 9000, the artificial intelligence antagonist of the film. HAL can process natural language, make weighed decisions, interpret emotions and art, and pilot the spacecraft, but eventually turns against the crew when they try to shut him down. 

In reality, the most advanced program available during 1984 was ELIZA, created to study the relationship between humans and computers. ELIZA was one of the first to be studied with the Turing Test, a test of a computer's intelligence and distinguishability from a human.  

 A more conventional way to mimic problem solving is feeding information AND conclusions to the computer so that it creates rules on its own.

The programmer can add other elements depending on the purpose of the computer, such as Soundex coding which matches the initial letter of the word and creates a numerical categorical system for the user’s input to prevent miscommunication from spelling. For a program used for learning purposes, one would training the computer following a similar method to the one pictured. The computer would create a bias (stored in an array) from questions answered correctly versus incorrectly, subsequently increasing certain areas in difficulty. 

Charlotte is a Physics and Astronomy student currently in her 2B term at Waterloo. She enjoys tinkering and creating all forms of art in her free time. She works at the Computer Museum as their current Winter 2024 coop student.