Almost 80 years ago, Andrew and Kathleen Booth helped usher in the age of computation. Working together at Birkbeck, they built one of the first computers, the APE(C)X, and developed the first assembler language. This marked a pivotal shift from programming with raw machine code toward the creation of modern programming languages.

Today, we carry in our pockets machines magnitudes more powerful than APE(C)X, devices so seamlessly integrated into our lives, that it is no longer clear whether we command the machines, or they command us. With the advent of large language models, we now inhabit a world that would have seemed like science fiction to Andrew and Kathleen: machines and humans communicating through natural language.

In this talk, I revisit the modest beginnings of computing to explore how the interaction between humans and machines has evolved and what it means for how we learn, work, and think.

Dr. Felix Reidl studied Computer Science with a minor in Physics at RWTH Aachen University, earning his PhD in 2016 with a focus on graph algorithms and network theory. He joined Birkbeck, University of London, in 2018 and is currently a Senior Lecturer in the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences.

As Director of the Birkbeck Institute for Data Science and AI (BIDA+), Dr. Reidl launched the "Critical Voices on AI" seminar series, which casts a critical lens on the role of AI systems in society and how they shape our everyday lives.