Bletchley Park, located in Bletchley, Milton Keynes was a bustling hub of innovation during the Second World War as it was the principal centre of Allied code-breaking. Bletchley Park is home to a myriad of information through its many exhibits. ONe of which is about the Bombe Breakthrough which explains the story of the Bombe machines (which were once stored in that very room) which broke Enigma through artefacts such as original blueprints.

Have you heard of Alan Turning? The answer is most likely yes as he is regarded as the father of modern computer science even though many people only first heard of him after the release of the movie ‘The Imitation Game’, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Turing was best known for his incredibly hard work developing the first modern computers and decoding the encryption of German Enigma machines while working at Bletchley Park during World War 2. It is estimated that the work of Turing shortened the war by two years and saved around 14 million lives. He did not work alone though.

Turing worked alongside around 7,500 women who also worked in Bletchley Park, making up roughly 75% of the workforce there. This was incredibly groundbreaking information for the time as generally, STEM roles were reserved for men (who had been sent to fight in the war). Many women were hired there to do clerical work or monotonous tasks which was equally as essential to the code breaking efforts taking place in the estate. On the contrary, some women also cracked the ciphers. Margaret Rock worked on German and Russian codes in huts as Turing did. It is believed that Rock described by Dilly Knox -who helped decrypt the Zimmerman Telegram- as "the fourth or fifth best in the whole of the Enigma staff."

Aswell as decoding Enigma machines, Turning has had a lasting impact on the modern world, he created ‘The Turing Test’ in 1950, though he originally named it the imitation game (hence the previously referenced movie title). IT is, in short, a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour indistinguishable from that of a human subject. Today, more than 70 years after Turing's proposal, only a few AI systems (one of which is Chat GPT), have managed to successfully pass the test by fulfilling the specific conditions he outlined. 

This is a grave concern, and to discuss the dangers of AI,  industry professionals and global leaders met at Bletchley Park for the world's first summit on artificial intelligence safety and ethics on the first two days of November 2023. Representatives from twenty-seven countries will attend, including Kamala Harris and Ursula von der Leyen (President of the European Commission), as well as leading figures from the world of computing, such as Elon Musk.