If something happens fast enough, does it matter whether it is described as evolution or revolution, as expansion or explosion? The present development of computer technology is faster by orders of magnitude than anything which has happened before. So if computing should be classified as evolution, let us remember that it is an evolutionary process undergoing very rapid acceleration, and that there is no corner of automation into which it will not penetrate. The pattern of penetration will of course be determined by industry, but academic centres have a part to play, particularly in the training of the new generation of engineers. There is a peculiar belief that the academic mind is of so sensitive a nature that its bloom can be corrupted by injudicious contact with industrial technology. Samuel Johnson took a different view. To him the academic cloister was the really bad spot:

“Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes.

And pause a while from letters to be wise;

There mark what ills the scholar’s life assail,

Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.”

Without going all the way with Johnson, the machine intelligence worker need not be averse from seeking a direct coupling between academic research and industrial technology.