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Rainbow Roxy's avatar

Brilliant. What if Swift's "thinking machine" had more direct infleunce on early engineers? We might've seen actual AI concepts emerge even faster than the ABC's foundational work.

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Cusses and Discussions's avatar

A fascinating area of potential discussion regarding the influence of what is today considered Arts versus Sciences. This segmentation may arguably be a side-effect of the philosophical schism between mind and body that emerged with Descartes. Many of the most prolific scholars of history were so accomplished, I would suggest, because of the interplay of both Art and Science. I cannot comment on the training of historical engineers as much, but modern schools have a strong segmentation between the traditional Arts and even Sciences versus the Engineering schools themselves. So perhaps, as you suggest, if the interplay of literature and engineering were more pronounced progress - including ethics and societal factors - might have co-developed.

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