Moderna face

Quiet agency

Some teenagers are convinced that the Internet arose in time immemorial. And many adults perfectly remember the times when they did not hear about the Internet, but they suggest that it arose somehow suddenly, with a jump. Meanwhile, the history of the Internet, together with the backstory, has exactly 40 years.

The ideological origins of the future Internet were psychologist Joseph Karl Robnett Licclavider. The numerous names of Professor Likraider if they were used, except during the purely official ceremonies. Everyone easily turned to him easily, without ceremonies: face. Moderna face. Before that modest that its decisive role in the emergence of the Internet is recalled infrequently and quietly.

Vladimir Nabokov, which was sensitive to the linguistic material, awarded with this name (or rather, with a pseudonym), the hero of the same story about the young painful emigrant from Russia, a second -bit actor in a provincial French troupe, which was written in 1938, which was written in 1938, “accidentally,” he had a small stage talent ”, but he could have been with the same success to be with the same success. painter, jeweler, rat ... ". Among the self-characteristics of the lonely reflecting Nabokovsky Alexander Lik, low-sympathetic: “extra”, “stole someone’s place”, “low-complex”, “condemned to live from life”.

We will believe Nabokov: the face is a quiet name. However, our modest provincial from the American hinterland (born in St. Louis), willingly responding to this name, cooked by the will of fate in the thick of scientific policy. And politics is directly related to the background of the Internet. The launch of the artificial Earth satellite and the flight of Yuri Gagarin prompted US President D. Eisenhower to admit that the defense of the country is lagging behind the enemy threats. Therefore, he ordered to organize two new state structures designed to plan and maintain scientific outlets of defense significance, and contribute to their implementation into practice.

One of them soon stated itself noisily: it was the glorified NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). Indeed, neither rockets, nor spaceships, nor astronauts launch the quietly. Unlike NASA, another agency did not advertise itself for a relatively long time. In a quiet whirlpool, however, it is known what is found. The agency was called Arpa (Advanced Research Projects Agency). It was the share of this organization that the honor fell to declare a brilliant project, known as "Internet".

Intergalactic network

The modest professor-psychologist Lik had the most direct attitude towards this project. In the summer of 1962, the 47-year-old face nominated the idea of ​​the Galactic Network and thereby one of the first to declare the relevance of the network organization of modern society. In this idea, one could already see a lot of what later layered in the basis of the Internet. It is quite earthly Internet, although a little later, on April 23, 1963, he even mentioned the "intergalactic computer network".

Such a network was supposed to unite and connect computers among themselves, wherever they were, so that the data arrays and programs stored in the memory of any of the elements of the network are easily accessible to a person working for any other computer included in the same network. Here it is, the main and fundamental idea of ​​a computer network, tied with another computer network, with a third, and so on - in (Inter) galactic scale ...

In October 1962, Lika was invited to Arp, proposing to head (and rebuild in a modern way) a unit engaged in support of research in the field of information processing. There he worked for less than two years; True, after 10 years, the face returned to Arpa again, but also did not stay there for a long time. This time was enough for him to support university developments, which later resulted in the global computer network Arpanet (after all, the face was disposed of certain finances in Arpa). Yes, and other developments too. Among them are the development of an interactive mode of working with a computer and high -level programming languages, the introduction of computers into science and business practice, improving the training of highly qualified specialists (by the way, it was the face that suggested awarding scientists for work in the field of computer sciences) ...

One of the first directions of this work was to develop a basic technology for switching packages for data transmission, which was designed to change the usual method of switching communication channels, which required a stable (and, generally long -term - remember the duration of the telephone conversations that you have to conduct) the connection. The first scientific article in the field of switching of packages was published by Leonard Kleinrook in 1961, three years later he also wrote a monograph on this topic. We must pay tribute to Liku and his experts from the Arp, who instantly noticed a promising field of research. Kleinrock for a long time remained one of the key figures in the development of global computer networks.

The start of the Arpanet network is considered to be the fall of 1969 (in 2004 we celebrate the 35th anniversary): it was then that the networks of the network became computers at the University of California at Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, as well as at the Research Institute at the University of Stanford (also in California) and at the University of Utah at Salt Lake City. The first communication session (between Los Angeles and Stanford) turned only into a partial success: while trying to introduce the standard "Login" command, only the first two letters (LO) were able to transmit without interference, and the connection was interrupted on the letter G. Despite this, the network soon earned at full capacity and began to recover more and more new "nodes".

Hermit and rose

Let us return, however, to a modest person. How did he come to his outstanding ideas? .. His original specialty is the psychophysiology of auditory perception. He was clearly good as a specialist: he released a number of works on this topic (including translated into Russian), was elected president of the American acoustic society. During the war years, he participated in the studies conducted in Harvard: it was necessary to ensure mutual understanding between the crews of bombers in high noisiness. In the postwar years, he also had to carry out defense projects in the famous MIT and other research organizations. Then he met computers. After the face took part in cybernetic seminars and was engaged in theoretical aspects of the use of computers. Very few psychologists at that time had a comparable experience with him in this area.

Despite all his outstanding knowledge, the face looked in MIT something like a “white raven”. He did not share wide (and almost unanimously) adopted in the middle of the twentieth century views on the fate and prospects of automation and computerization.

Almost every MIT student at that time raveled by creating artificial intelligence: a computer system or program capable of translating from one natural language to another, prove theorems, composing original music and outstanding poems, managing traffic flows and production processes, winning the world of the world in chess, go or at least by checkers (simple "nol. do not count). In a word - to solve purely creative problems. The priority task was to build an information model of the human brain; Super -margin - quite, however, achievable - was considered the development of a "supermodation", which is superior to the human capabilities of the thinking program.

The need for such a supermost was argued by the imperfection of the human psyche: our inattention, forgetfulness, excessive emotionality, fatigue, and inability to cover all the meaningful elements at once, and most importantly - a tendency to erroneous actions. At this time, the focus of attention was not versatility, but on the contrary, the limitations of human abilities - well, and, accordingly, the prospects for replacing an unreliable person are impeccable, never mistaken and not knowing fatigue by artificial intelligence.

His own experience with computers prompted Lika to complete unrealistic setting such tasks. Once, on the border of spring and summer of 1957, he was not too lazy and pronounced his work. At that time, Likraider was developing a model of hearing perception processes (the same task of determining the intelligibility of speech with a changing ratio of signal and noise volume levels).

As it turned out, up to 85% of the time, the face spent on preparatory work, the adoption of simple (non -creative) decisions, the search for reference information. And also - on the presentation of the results of the experiments to a form convenient for analysis, comparison and storage. For example, almost whole days took his construction of graphs and tables that significantly simplified the visualization of the experimental results. Even the instruction of the assistant and the control of his actions was taken from Lick in disproportionate a lot of time. So is it not better to entrust the computer to carry out all the preparatory work, processing results, search for reference information, bringing data to a single standard? Let it be nothing more than a routine, technical and mechanical part of the scientist’s creative work, however, part is necessary and repeated. In addition, quite tedious.

So the face came to the conclusion that the priorities in the use of computer technology are placed incorrectly. And he began to defend his vision. In 1960, he wrote that did not go unnoticed (and quite quickly translated into Russian) the article “The Sybiosis of a Man with a Machine”, and a few years later - a book about the libraries of the future. Then he performed the “first huck” in the Arp - again, in the hope of encouraging other scientists to reconsider the views on the role of computers in society.

Symbiosis is a biological term and means a complementarity of the functions of representatives of different types of flora and fauna, providing them with vital assistance to each other. An example of mutually beneficial cooperation is the symbiosis of a hermit and assets long-noted by biologists. Many children (and former children) know the fairy tale of Boris Zakhoder "Hermit and Rose": cancer transfers an acting organs that does not have the organs (aka sea rose) closer to the coral island, providing it with life rich and new acquaintances; Actinium bravely protects its symbiotic associate from his merciless enemy - karakatitsa.

How is it combined using computers? According to Lika, a person brings in a symbiotic pair just what is sharply lacking for the computer, i.e. their creativity, knowledge of ways to solve complex problems, intuition and experience; The computer takes on technical work in the form of the implementation of standard moves, performing calculations and presenting the results - in a word, everything that would be difficult for a person to do as quickly, neatly and accurately.

Bot Oliver

Today, the idea of ​​symbiosis gave way to more advanced models of man-mass interaction, but for its time it was new and truly unexpected. Discussing the prospects of the libraries of the future, the face predicted electronic bookstores and remote access to them of readers scattered around the world. These thoughts look more than modern, even avant -garde in places. For example, in the late 1960s, he stated that in a computer network each person will have a personal “Oliver”-an intelligent help program capable of collecting and classifying information that meets the interests of the owner; The most curious at the same time, which is supposed to: “Oliver” these interests (changing over time!) are known. Therefore, "intellectual agents" or "bots of knowledge" to rename Oliver ...

At a time, when not only the intrinsic engineers, but also many psychologists succumbed to the number of bits in the message and at the same time ignore its psychological content, transmitted meanings and implied meanings, and the description of communication was replaced by a description of the processes of messages (i.e. the same bits), the face did not succumb to general poetry. (This Attrack was called "an information approach to the analysis of the psyche." It cannot be said that it did not bring valuable results, but nevertheless, the apologists of the information approach at times managed to throw out the child with the water - that is, the psyche. And to remain inconsistent with the same bits.)

For the face, communication is a meaningful bilateral, double -controlled process of exchange of views, information, moods ... Communicating people act on each other, they act together, cooperatively - even if their original positions are different, in the course of communication the views can partially change. He understood even communication with a computer psychologically. It was the face that was one of the first to talk about the computer as a communicative device.

In the publications, and in lectures, and as the organizer of science, the face invariably advocated improving the procedure for interacting with the computer. He supported the development of convenient ergonomic interfaces, high -level languages, and subprogram libraries. Meanwhile, his outstanding ideas were hardly applied to the primitive state of the then computer technology, which was faced with a face and which he sought to modify with all his might.

Struggle against linden economy

The computer fleet at that time consisted of a small number of mailframes at the present time. However, it was required to produce more and more calculations. The conclusion followed: valuable equipment should not be idle day or night. This practice immediately hit the programmers. After all, even pressing the key is an infinitely slow process: the speed of a computer of all of us makes us equally tight. And therefore, programmers were obliged to hand over the program code on the piles of pierced punchants to a special operator, which uploads the received programs to the computer all together in the form of a package of tasks. The package is processed without interruptions, which is achieved by increasing the efficiency of computer operation.

Most often, the programmer brings a task requiring a few minutes of account. Previously, a slow person delayed the computer, now the fast -acting computer delays the programmer. This was considered a step forward in the direction of the economical use of technology. As Polygraph Polygraphovich used to say, "in line, bitch children, in line." Programmers who do not agree with Comrade. Sharikov, they sought the right to suspend the processing of the package and "stir up" with their program at the moment when such a need arose, and even get a quick response of the computer. (A similar problem in Soviet scientific institutions is known to all readers of "Monday ..." Strugatsky.)

The idea of ​​the solution is called "Separation of Time". The world's first system with the division of time - “Project Mac” (MAC - the abbreviation of several English expressions at once: “man and computer”, “cognition using a computer” and “multiple access computer”) - appeared in MIT in the early 60s. According to this project, up to 30 programs were processed simultaneously. At first, the project was led by R. Fano, and then it was headed by our acquaintance LIK. In the 1960s, the “Separation of Time” was the front edge of the struggle for the principles of symbiotic interaction with the computer important for it.

Invaluable help to programmers was provided by Harold Sakman - along with the face, one of the first professional psychologists who became the interaction of a person with a computer. He compared the activities of programmers in two competing modes - package and division of time. It turned out that in some indicators it should be preferred by the division of time. This conclusion G. Sakman greatly undermined the strong, seemingly positions of supporters of the package operating mode of the computer.

***

In 1990, not quite a little to live before the creation of WWW, the face died of asthma. He had a lot of reason to believe that the efforts of his life were not in vain.

The modest man did not do anything that should be called him by the name: he did not prove the new theorem, did not open the new planet, did not write a generalizing monograph ... He just produced several undead ideas and contributed a little to their implementation. These ideas now, fortunately, do not look so original, and their realization, fortunately, went far ahead. And that is why the contribution of the modest person of the face to the development of the main technological innovations of the twentieth century, and the 21st century, too, can not be called modest ...