Life in Code and Digits: When Shannon met Turing

Claude Shannon (


INTRODUCTION
"I can visualize a time in the future when we will be to robots as dogs are to humans.[...] I am rooting for the machines!"-Claude Shannon (Liversidge 1987).
We can trace the beginning of the digital revolution (Negroponte 1995) back to the 1940s, when Claude Shannon (James 2009, Soni & Goodman 2017), at age 32, introduces what he calls, "information theory" in his paper, A Mathematical Theory of Communication (Shannon 1948).A momentous work that spawns technological innovation, the paper establishes that all modes of communication, and all media can be expressed in code as binary digits or bits and transmitted error free.The inseparable connection between digital information and communication that Shannon describes anticipates a digital future of profound change that ties to the foundational concepts and architecture of the Internet and the Web.Also in 1948, intersecting with Shannon's pioneering theory, Alan Turing (Bowen 2012& 2016, Copeland et al. 2017), considered the father or founder of computer science (Bowen 2017), then aged 36, writes a report at the National Physical Laboratory on "Intelligent Machinery" (Turing 1948(Turing , also published 20 years later in 1968)), that lays the groundwork for the emerging fields of connectionist networks and artificial intelligence (Copeland & Proudfoot 1999, Copeland 2017).
The work of these two great scientists comes together when computing moves from analogue to digital (Bowen & Giannini 2016), adopting Shannon's universal binary language of ones and zeroes, while building on Turing's codebreaking work based on the "bombe", the name of an electro-mechanical computing device used for breaking the German Enigma during World War II.These developments have led to the life-changing and ubiquitous fusion of information, communication, and computing, which today has reached a tipping point of sorts that is often referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT), but in reality is more like the "Internet of Life" (IoL), connecting people as well as devices.
Since 1948, we have witnessed a steady progression of developments by which analogue technologies have gone digital, including in the arts (Bowen & Giannini 2016), with fundamental developments in photography, sound recording, film, video, radio, television, and telephone technology, in an increasingly mobile world (Filippini-Fantoni & Bowen 2008).Concurrently, we are experiencing a stream of digital transformations across human activity and interaction (Bowen & Giannini 2014).As daily life moves towards total immersion in the digital environment, a new digital way of life is emerging that in turn is causing a dramatic shift whereby digital dominates information behaviour, alters aesthetic perceptions (Hoy 2010), and recasts seeing and human expression within digital modes (Giannini & Bowen 2016).
Our study looks at looks at this digital phenomenon and how it is radically changing the arts and cultural landscape, disrupting social order and recasting cultural norms in unforeseen ways.As real and virtual life evolve into a fused experience, we aim to explore and digitally capture the effects of life in code and digits set at the intersection of digital information, communication, and computing, as we gratefully acknowledge the pioneering work of Claude Shannon and Alan Turing (see Figure 1).

Shannon and Turing
There are parallels in the work of Claude Shannon and Alan Turing, as illustrated by the fact that they are on display together in the Information Age exhibition (Blyth 2014) at the Science Museum in London (see Figure 1).Both produced foundational work for computer science in the related areas of information and computation theory (Dasgupta 2016).
In 1936, Turing, aged 24, published his highly innovative paper on the fundamental nature of computation through his theoretical concept of what has become known as a Turing machine (Turing 1936).In 1937, Shannon, as a master's student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and aged only 21, demonstrated in his master's thesis that Boolean algebra could be used to construct any desired logical/numerical relationship in the context of electrical digital circuit design theory (Shannon 1937).An associated journal paper appeared a year later (Shannon 1938).
Turing undertook his PhD at Princeton University in the USA during 1936-38, taking only a year and nine months to complete it (Turing 1938).Towards the end of this time, he also worked on an electronic cipher machine.Meanwhile, Shannon worked on his PhD at MIT, achieving it in 1940 (Shannon 1940).By this time,  (Hodges 1983, p. 249).
At Bell Labs, the American William Friedman was the chief cryptanalyst and thus officially held Turing's equivalent position in the US.Friedman was older and more old fashioned than Turing, being much more concentrated on codes and cyphers compared to the wider interests of Turing.However, Turing had tea in the Bell Labs cafeteria each day (Cobb 2015).Here he met an academic and philosophical engineer, namely Shannon, and the two had much in common.Turing and Shannon recognised each other's intellectual depth.Where Turing had precisely defined the notion of a computing machine mathematically (Turing 1936), Shannon had similar insights into the nature of communication and information (Shannon 1948(Shannon , 1949)).Note that the 1949 paper was originally submitted in 1940 (Hodges 1983, p. 552).
Turing's strength was the logic of machines, with an interest in information theory, which complemented Shannon's strengths.Turing's concept of a "deciban" was very similar to Shannon's measure for information (cf."decibel", named in honour of Alexander Graham Bell).Shannon coined the term "bit" in Shannon (1948) and the term "Shannon" is also sometimes used in information theory in homage to Shannon.The terms "ban" and "deciban" were introduced by Turing (with Jack Good) in 1940 as an information measure for the weight of evidence in the Banburismus procedure used at Bletchley Park for cryptanalysis (Copeland et al. 2017, pp. 421-2).There are significant parallels in Turing's and Shannon's treatment of information.
With respect to computation, Shannon had worked on the differential analyser at MIT designed by Vannevar Bush in 1930 and had designed a logical relay machine himself (Shannon 1938), written in 1937 at the same time that Turing was working on an electric multiplier at Princeton.Turing showed his 1936 paper on computable numbers (Turing 1936) to Shannon, who was impressed by the ideas in the paper.Shannon believed that a machine should be able to imitate the workings of the brain and this was in tune with Turing's thinking too.(Blyth 2014, pp. 15, 20).Turing said "Shannon wants to not just feed data to a Brain, but cultural things!He wants to play music to it!"(Hodges 1983, p . 251), understandably as Shannon loved Dixieland jazz throughout his life (Cobb 2015).
With their interest in machine intelligence, both Shannon and Turing worked on computer chess as a problem that required "thinking" to demonstrate skilful play (Copeland et al. 2017, pp. 344-6) (Copeland 2004, pp. 436-8).In the same year, Shannon also demonstrated that two symbols (e.g., 0 and 1) are all that are required for a Turing machine (Wolfram 2002(Wolfram , p. 1119)).The main Bell Labs building in Manhattan where Shannon and Turing both worked in 1943 was over the elevated West Side Line (popularly known as the "High Line", now disused), which passed through the building (see Figure 2).The Greenwich Village locale is known as a hub for artists and the

History of the New York Bell Labs Building
LGBT community, which Turing is likely to have appreciated.Bell Labs moved from the building in 1966 and established its headquarters in Murray Hill, New Jersey.
Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) was a non-profit and tax-exempt organisation established in 1967 to develop collaborations between artists, such as Robert Rauschenberg  and John Cage , with engineers at Bell Labs.
The Manhattan building was bought by Westbeth in 1967 and, after renovation, the building reopened in 1970 as a complex of affordable facilities including housing and studios for artists and arts organisations.The building was declared as a US National Historic Landmark in 1975 and added to the US National Register of Historic Places.The High Line was discontinued in 1980, although part of it north of the building is now an elevated walkway and park, with the newly moved Whitney Museum at its southern end.If Turing had been born a decade or two later and visited New York, it is interesting to speculate whether he could have met Andy Warhol (1928Warhol ( -1987) ) at The Factory, Warhol's studio and LGBT social hub at various locations in Manhattan.Of course, Turing's importance was unknown to Andy Warhol due to the secrecy surrounding Turing's wartime work.Had he known of Turing's historical role and early death by probable suicide (aged 41), perhaps he would have been inspired to produce similar multiple screen-print portraits of Turing to those he did of Marilyn Monroe (1926Monroe ( -1962)), who also died tragically young (aged 36) and of likely suicide, but with conspiracy theories also proposed too.These thoughts inspired the cover for a recent book on Turing's life and work (see Figure 3), including some of his interactions with Shannon (Copeland et al. 2017).

Recent Developments
Artificial Intelligence has been slow in coming, but has seen a recent boost with advances in the concept of "deep learning", a form of unsupervised machine learning.AI techniques can give computers a level of expertise considered on a par with or greater than the power of the best humans in limited domains, such as chess and more recently the ancient Chinese board game Go.However, enabling a computer to develop expertise in multiple games, for example, as proved much more difficult.
More serious recent AI applications include, for example, computer-based search for cancer treatments (Mukherjee 2016), scanning through massive amounts of data in an intelligent manner.Although machines are not yet more intelligent than humans, that possibility is still a very real one in the future (Bostrom 2014).Scientifically, the influence of Shannon and Turing continues to this day through their foundational work on computation, information, and AI, and is likely to continue.

Education
Over the past few years and still continuing, the dramatic changes in the integration of the fields of information and computing, often using These new directions in education for the information field reflect the work and vision of Shannon and Turing, which only now, almost 70 years later, is becoming more fully realised.

Digital Seeing and Aesthetics -from MoMA to Saks
The New York City digital experience is growing dramatically particularly at museums and retail stores.Visiting the shops at Columbus Circle (see Figure 4), the galleries of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) on 53 rd Street, and retail stores near MoMA on Fifth Avenue (for example, Oakley, Saks 5 th Ave., and Hollisters), present onlookers with digital works that offer new ways of seeing through a plethora of digital media displays and installations that no doubt influence their perceptions of what is art.The entire ceiling of the edgy sports store, Oakley, is illuminated by a series of interactive media screens (see Figure 5).Designed by Moment Factory as a permanent installation, it harks back to the painted ceilings of the 18 th century, whilst adding interaction and motion graphics.
The windows of Saks are taken up by a sequence of digital displays that change rapidly in unison and flash texts such as feminism and revolution.Figure 6 shows Saks windows when it was displaying the first two letters of the perfume, "J'ADORE".Proceeding downtown, to 46 th and Fifth Ave., Hollister, a clothing store with a Southern California aesthetic aimed at the 18-30 age group, grabs attention with a digital media display and audio surrounding its entrance (see Figures 7 and 8).The digital work focuses on beach scenes and water splashing making surprising connection to David Hockney's Hollywood swimming pools.

Reading Digital
A study by Pew Research shows that reading on the Internet is preferred by young readers."Most of that reading among younger adults is through digital text rather than print.About eight-in-ten (81%) of 18-to 29-year-olds who prefer to read their news also prefer to get their news online; just 10% choose a print newspaper."(Mitchell 2016).The breakdown among 30-to 49-year-olds is similar. 3.

CONCLUSION
The reputations of Shannon and Turing have changed considerably over time.Scientists recognised their stature early.For example, they are the only two scientists to be mentioned in von Neumann (1958) (Copeland 2004, p. 22).Wartime secrecy mean that knowledge of Turing's importance was considerably delayed in popular circles.For example, a 1965 book on mathematics for general readership mentioned Shannon with an accompanying full-page photograph (Bergamini 1965, pp.50-1), whereas there is no mention of Turing.In 2012, Turing was selected as one of 43 people considered as the top scientists of all time (Bowen 2012), with no mention of Shannon.On the other hand, in the same year, Shannon's information equation was selected as one of 17 equations that have dramatically affected the world (Stewart 2012).Shannon's analysis led to a formula as follows.For two symbols (e.g., 0 and 1, as in a bit), with probability p and q respectively (i.e., q = 1-p), then the information content in a message H can be given as (Stewart 2012, p. 273): where log is the base 2 logarithm.This can be generalised to (Stewart 2012, p. 265): where p(x) is the probability of a symbol x occurring in a message.
In 2016, both   A digital work of 2012 at the Tate Modern, by Angela Bullock, entitled, Aluminium 4, is described on its accompanying label as, "4 aluminium pixel boxes with DMX [Digital Multiplex] control box, lighting system, electrical components and cable" (see Figure 10).The boxes, each having a different colour screen, are programmed to change colour and be interactive with viewers.As the opposition of physical or digital as two distinct states of being fades, and becomes increasingly inextricably linked and indiscernible, we find ourselves living in a new digital reality, unsure of how coded digital life will reflect our human and artistic values.
Despite the huge scientific contributions of Shannon and Turing, both if briefly together at Bell Labs in Manhattan during 1943, there is no memorial to either of them in New York City (Hargittai & Hargittai 2017).This is an omission that both authors would love to see rectified in the digital years to come.

Message me when (by T. Giannini)
The

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Shannon and Turing display with seminal papers in the Information Age gallery at the Science Museum, London (Blyth 2014).(Photographby J. P.Bowen.)

Figure 4 :
Figure 4: Newly installed screens in shops at Columbus Circle, W. 59 th St., New York.(Photograph by T. Giannini.)

Figure 5 :Figure 6 :Figure 7 :
Figure 5: Oakley retail sports on Fifth Avenue.The ceiling is designed by Moment Factory as a permanent digital installation.(Photograph by T. Giannini.)

Figure 8 :
Figure 8: LA beach, large digital screen at entrance to Hollister.The images change every few seconds.(Photograph by T. Giannini.).
Life in Code and Digits: When Shannon met Turing Tula Giannini & Jonathan P. Bowen 57 the rise of nascent practices of text messaging and mobile email" (MoMA's display text, see Figure9).

Figure 11 :
Figure 11: Internal view of "The Passing Winter", by Yayoi Kusama, 2005.The infinite possibilities of digital life in an analogue world -exhibit at Tate Modern.(Photograph by J. P. Bowen.) New York, for two months, working on speech encryption.Turing would probably have found Greenwich Village in 1943 more exciting than Princeton in the late 1930s, with its sexual casualness even then.He once said "I've spent a considerable time on your subway.I met someone who lived in your Brooklyn who wanted me to play Go." . It is quite possible that Turing discussed this with Shannon at Bell Labs since he had already expounded his ideas to Jack Good and Donald Shannon's interest in Turing's ideas continued after Turing's untimely death in 1954.Shannon & McCarthy (1956) proposed the Shannon-McCarthy Objection regarding the Turing test, where a very large yet finite look-up table could be used to generate human-like responses

4 Digital Communication -When Media and Message are Digital When
Shannon and Turing were at Bell Labs in New York City at 463 West Street (see Figure2), in 1943, they would meet for tea.Their discussion focused mostly on computing and the brain, artificial intelligence and machine learning, all of which are still highly pertinent today.