The Dialogue Between Liberal Arts and Technology
In her Notes, Lovelace incorporated human creativity by detailing how the engine could operate only if humans programmed it. She also discussed how humans could benefit from the programmed tasks.
"The reality is Ada’s contribution was both profound and inspirational. More than Babbage or any other person of her era, she was able to glimpse a future in which machines would become partners of the human imagination, together weaving tapestries as beautiful as those from Jacquard’s loom. "-Walter Isaacson, author of the Innovators [5] |
The tasks that she proposed the Analytical Engine would be capable of executing if constructed were an inherent exchange between liberal arts and technology. The creative, novel tasks were conceivable only thanks to the engineering of the Analytical Engine.
“Her appreciation for poetical science led her to celebrate a proposed calculating machine that was dismissed by the scientific establishment of her day, and she perceived how the processing power of such a device could be used on any form of information. Thus did Ada, Countess of Lovelace, help sow the seeds for a digital age that would blossom a hundred years later.”-Walter Isaacson, author of the Innovators [5] |
Lasting Exchange Impact
Steve Jobs explains how Apple stands at the intersection of arts and technology. Time 26 secs. Peters 2011 [24]
|
Lovelace's interwoven conception of technology and liberal arts reverberated through the decades and continues to heavily influence the development of modern technology.
"It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough--that it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing.” -Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple and technology visionary [24] |
“The merger of the personal computer and the Internet allowed digital creativity, content sharing, community formation, and social networking to blossom on a mass scale. It made real what Ada called ‘poetical science,’ in which creativity and technology were the warp and woof, like tapestry from Jacquard’s loom.” -Walter Isaacson, author of Innovators [5]