Cahit Arf
Turkish mathematician (1910–1997) who published a 1959 lecture asking whether machines can think. He is known for the Arf invariant and Hasse–Arf theorem, and his adaptation threshold remains useful.
Cahit Arf (1910–1997) was one of Turkey's most internationally significant mathematicians. He studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, was a doctoral student of Helmut Hasse at Göttingen and became a professor at Istanbul University. His name is attached to results such as the Hasse–Arf theorem, the Arf invariant and Arf rings.
The 1959 question
In 1959 he published a deceptively simple text in a public lecture series, asking whether a machine can think and how. He was not primarily a computer scientist, which is part of what makes the text interesting. He opens with akl-ı selim, sound judgment, argues that the threshold is intibak kabiliyeti, the ability to adapt, and sketches a model with ön hafıza, a control centre and yardımcı hafıza. He also discusses learning and the role of uncertainty and judgment.
It sits after Turing's 1950 paper and the Dartmouth proposal, and it still offers a useful way of thinking about modern AI systems.
Read more in Cahit Arf's 1959 question about thinking machines.
Related terms
Intibak kabiliyeti
Turkish for the ability to adapt. In Cahit Arf's 1959 lecture on thinking machines, it is the threshold that matters: not how many problems a machine solves, but whether it can adapt to new ones.
Akl-ı selim
Turkish for sound judgment or common sense. Cahit Arf used it to argue that expertise should help us exercise our own understanding rather than become a conclusion we repeat because an authority said it.
Ön hafıza
Turkish for preliminary memory. In Cahit Arf's 1959 model of the brain, the first stage where a question or observation enters before a control centre retrieves relevant material from memory.
Control centre
In Cahit Arf's 1959 model of thinking, the component that takes the question from preliminary memory and retrieves and applies material from memory, including deciding to consult outside sources.