Chapter 20 Apple in the black box (4)

"I don't know some things but I can do them." 660 repeatedly pondered this sentence, and then he thought of a word - black box!

In cybernetics, unknown areas or systems are usually called "black boxes", while omniscient systems and areas are called "white boxes", and black boxes that can be viewed or partially visible black boxes are called "gray boxes". Generally speaking, there are widely problems of "black boxes" that cannot be observed but can be controlled in social life. For example, we watch TV every day, but we do not understand the internal structure and imaging principles of TVs. For us, the internal structure and imaging principles of TVs are "black boxes". (Excerpted from "Baidu Encyclopedia")

The concept of black box was not a symbol or metaphor at its beginning, but a real black box during World War II. According to von Hilgers' historical research (von    hilgers, 2011), the black box theory originated from the tizard mission in 1940, which shared the latest technological progress between Britain and the United States.

During the Tizzard mission, the British side had transported a black box with a magnetron to the United States. After the box arrived at the MIT in Boston, the name "black box" and the implications behind it spread.

In the 1943 Rand internal report, an article titled "Bomber Defense System Built from a Black Box" (bomber    defense     from                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   �

Later, "black box" (black        box) became a slang term for many military confidential technologies during World War II. Since many engineers responsible for operating these machines did not understand the technical details, they often could only understand the mechanism of their work and how it was applied to actual scenarios through the input and output of the black box.

The 1940s was a period of influx of cybernetics. Wiener, the founder of the cybernetics field, tried to develop an air defense early warning system for the US military during World War II (but it ended in failure). Although this failed attempt did not provide help to the US military, it exposed Wiener to a large number of "black box systems" that existed in military technology practice, which inspired his later interest in research on black box systems. The air defense early warning system developed by Wiener actually reflected the control at that time.

The great ambitions of researcher institution: According to Wiener's description, this air defense early warning system can use a complex feedback mechanism to predict whether enemy bomber pilots choose to drop bombs at a certain place (galison, 1994). Because Wiener tried to predict the behavior of human pilots, such an air defense early warning system was one of the earliest artificial intelligence attempts in the 20th century, so it is not surprising that Wiener was unable to fulfill his expectations under the technical conditions at that time.

In this project, the most noteworthy point is that the machine that Wiener conceived to build human-like intelligence does not require us to understand the composition of the human brain. He expects to model (model) through feedback mechanisms to simulate human behavior. In other words, as long as the same input enters the human brain and enters the machine, they can get the same output, then whether their internal principles and calculation processes are the same, is not important for Wiener (or for most cybernetic researchers). ("A Brief History of the "Black Box": How to change from a professional noun to a popular metaphor?"

Black boxes are the unknown world we have and the world we want to explore. How to understand the unknown black boxes? We can only use the variables of "input" and "output" in the black box without directly affecting the internal structure, elements and mechanism of the original object black box to obtain reasoning about the internal situation of the black box, search, discover its internal rules, and realize control of the black box. This research method is called the black box method.

If you take fruit as an example, it means that fruit farmers actually don’t know how fruit trees produce fruits at the micro level. However, fruit farmers can control the output of fruit trees (fruits) by inputting fruit trees (fertilizers, pesticides, and even light, etc.). Fruit farmers continuously summarize methods to improve fruit yield and quality by analyzing these inputs and outputs.

For us ordinary people, apples come from black boxes because the apple tree itself is a black box. (If the apple tree is a white box, then I can at least use soil, air and fertilizer to pick up an apple tree with my hands without using another apple tree. However, this is impossible.) We input fertilizers, pesticides, and other things into the black box of the apple tree, and then the black box of the apple tree has rewarded us with fruits.
Chapter completed!