The Great Automatic Grammatizator : ISC Long Answers Part 1
Question 1 : How does John Bohlen describe the efficiency of the automatic computing engine.
Answer: John Bohlen is the head of the “John Bohlen Inc.” a firm of electrical engineers, which is responsible for the construction of the great automatic computing engine, ordered by the government some time ago. He describes the efficiency of the machine at the beginning of the story. He tells that the machine ids probably the fastest electronic calculating machine in the world as it can provide the correct answer in five seconds to a problem that would occupy a mathematician for a month. It can produce a calculation within three minutes, that would fill half a million sheets of foolscap paper if done by hands.
The machine’s main function is to satisfy the ever growing need of science, industry and administration for rapid mathematical calculation which in the past by traditional methods, would have been physically impossible, or would have required more time.
The automatic computing engine uses pulses of electricity, generated at the rate of a million a second, to solve all calculations that resolve themselves into addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. There is no limit to its uses for practical purposes. Therefore it can be said that the automatic computing engine is practically very efficient.
Question 2 : Explain the feelings, thoughts and behaviour of Adolph Knipe after he reaches his apartment.
Answer: After Knipe reaches his two room apartment, he throws his coat on the sofa, with disappointment and pours himself a drink of whisky and sits down in front of the typewriter on the table. He thinks that Mr. Bohlen was right, he is unhappy and sad, but he didn’t know the “half of it”. Knipe feels discontented with his present situation. He realises that his chief Mr. Bohlen could not understand the reason of Knipe’s disturbed mind. He thinks that Knipe is disturbed due to some woman. “Whenever a young man gets depressed, everybody thinks it’s a woman”. This idea troubles him.
He leans forward and begins to read through the half finished sheet of typing still in the machine. Then he takes a sip of whisky, tasting the “malty – bitter flavour”, feeling the “trickle” of cold liquid as it travelled down his throat and settled in the top of his stomach. Cool at first, then spreading and becoming warm, in the gut. Then he expresses his dislike for Bohlen and discontent with the computing machine. “To hell with the great electrical computing machine…..”
At this moment, his eyes and mouth began “slowly to open” and in wonder he slowly raised his head and become “absolutely motionless” “gazing at the wall opposite”. Then his looks changes from wonder to astonishment but he remains quite fixed “unmoving” for a few seconds. Then a “subtle change” spreading over the face, his astonishment becoming “pleasure”. Initially only the corners of his mouth “spreading out” gradually then the whole face was open wide and shining with extreme delight. At last, Adolph Knipe had smiled after “many many months”.
A new plan comes into Knipe’s mind and he plans to make an electronic machine which can write stories and articles. He believes that his plan can take practical shape on the theory of English Grammar and he plans to mass produce the stories with the help of automatic machine and sell these stories.
Suddenly, he calls this idea completely “ridiculous”. He thinks his idea of producing literary work on an automatic machine is “delicious idea” but quite “impracticable”. The idea fascinated him enormously as it gave him a promise “of revenging himself in a most devilish manner upon his greatest enemies”.
He wants to avenge himself against all those editor who rejected his stories. Thus the idea of developing a machine to produce literature fascinates him.
Question 3 : How did Adolph Knipe work for the development of the machine before he completed the papers and went to the office of John Bohlen Inc. electrical engineers ?
Answer: Initially Knipe thought that the idea of constructing a machine to produce literature was “impracticable” because literature is a creative process and writing any story or article is too complex and nuanced for a machine to replicate. He wished to give this idea a practical shape. He thought about it for a considerable time. He considered the possibility seriously and some doubts appeared in his mind.
He found himself up against the old truth that “a machine, however ingenuous, is incapable of original thought”. It was not theoretically to make a machine which could use its own brain or thought like human beings. He already knew that a computing machine can handle only those mathematical problems that contains “one and only one correct answer”. This was the main “stumper” in his way to make a machine to produce literature.
After some time, he realised that a “machine can not have a brain” but “it can have a memory”. In its memory section electronic pulses can be converted into supersonic waves and this waves could be used as and when desired. This idea encouraged Knipe to build a memory section of almost unlimited size.
Knipe considered the possibility of creating a machine similar to a computing engine, which could be programmed with various algorithms to generate coherent narratives. By analysing existing literature and incorporating sophisticated language models, Knipe believed the machine could be designed to emulate different writing styles and produce quality literary works.
This innovative approach allowed him to construct an engine built along the lines of the electric computer could be adjusted to arrange words (instead of numbers) in their right order according to the rules of grammar. Then the verbs, the nouns, the adjectives, the pronouns are given and stored in its memory section as a vocabulary and arranged to be extracted as required. And then plots are fed and it will be able to write a meaningful sentences.
Knipe started working in a mood of “exultation”, “prowling” around the room amidst the littering of papers, rubbing his hands together, talking out loud to himself and with a sly curl of the nose he would mutter a series of curse which includes words “editor” always in it. After fifteen days of continuous work, he collected his papers in two folders and rushed towards the offices of John Bohlen Inc., electrical engineers.