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Cover Quote: December 1971

For the first time I heard Russian scientists—concerned with programming computers, with machine translation of natural languages, with computer design and with artificial intelligence—talking science with their Western fellows. As if Komogorof were not Russian, and there had been no Sputnik, many Americans have asked me whether the Russians have enough computer know-how to launch a war with intercontinental ballistic missiles. If they are behind us today in the computer field, it can only be in hardware; and you can take it for granted that they will soon be abreast or ahead of us. But what I saw in Russian faces was that their scientists, like ours, know they are confronted by the problem of the Rabbi of Chelm with his Golem, and they are as unhappy as we are. Distressed by the persecution of his people, the Rabbi had gathered as much clay as he could mold into a robot to defend them. On its forehead he wrote the secret name of God. So it came alive with the desire to do what the Rabbi told it to do. The difficulty was to tell it in such a way that the order could not be misunderstood. There are endless stories of the ensuing mishaps, worse than the sorcerer’s apprentice, and Talmudic arguments as to the legal form of the orders; but, finally, the Rabbi of Chelm had to put an end to his Golem. We do not even know the secret name; we can only install computers to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles. We have the energy and the hardware. Defense is obviously impossible. Only massive retaliation remains to deter aggression. To be effective, retaliation must take off before aggression arrives. The only split-minute solution is push-button warfare. It can be realized by both countries all too soon, and it can only result in mutual destruction. Men go trigger-happy; fail-safe devices go off by accident; sabotage occurs; a third party springs the traps. We cannot yet build an ethical psyche into the Golem. I am sure that if the politicians would let us, we—our scientists and theirs—would follow the example of the Rabbi of Chelm.



- Warren S. McCulloch
Lectures on Experimental Psychiatry, 1961
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