Inspired from the movie Oppenheimer.
Is it just me or did we notice the fact that the reason the atomic bomb eventually became unnecessary to defeat the Nazis was that there was another group of scientists trying to defeat the same evil with a radically different approach.
In the end a few mathematical models and computation won over the sheer brute, explosive force of nuclear physics.
It is now estimated that Bletchley Park’s code breaking apparatus shortened the war by 3 years and even more importantly *saved* 14 million lives. The mathematical and computational models pre-empted with pin-pointed accuracy how and where the Nazis were going to attack. This allowed the Allied forces to fight them exactly where they were, with exactly the resources required to counter attack. While mostly targeting military personnel only, not civilians….a very important difference.
This is data science, math and presumably “AI” at its most immaculate, eloquent display of power.
It should not be lost on anyone that the reason these 2 scientific thoughts were unknowingly set in a (sick) race with each other was the shortage of political morality both during and after the war.
The bomb’s development timing ended up being a little off. When it became clear to Oppenheimer that this technology was no longer needed, he spent the rest of his life doing whatever he could to stop further development of this program, at great personal cost.
It is amazing that the best minds at the time found it so hard to digest this seeming inconsistency in belief. Really, to a scientist’s mind, this is obvious. The human cost of the bomb far outweighed any remaining political risk in the changing world order. When you design systems, there are always trade-offs and when situations change, the trade-offs do so too. This personal and political dissonance is what the movie captures so beautifully.
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