I. J. Good Edits The Scientist Speculates

In 1962 the British mathematician I. J. Good, who had worked with Alan Turing at Bletchley Park, edited The Scientist Speculates: An Anthology of Partly-Baked Ideas for Heinemann in London.

It collected short speculative pieces by scientists on questions they could not yet test, from the nature of mind and consciousness to machine intelligence and life elsewhere in the universe. Good's interest in machines that could improve themselves led three years later to his essay on an “ultraintelligent machine,” an early statement of what is now called the intelligence explosion. The seminal Jasia Reichardt describes the ultraintelligent machine and its story in our Editorials: “The Ultraintelligent Machine and Gaberbocchus Common Room”.