The Ghost in the Machine: Metaphors of the ‘Virtual’ and the ‘Artificial’ in Post-WW2 Computer Science

Abstract

Metaphors that compare the computer to a human brain are common in computer science and can be traced back to a fertile period of research that unfolded after the Second World War. To conceptualize the emerging ‘intelligent’ properties of computing machines, researchers of the era created a series of virtual objects that served as interpretive devices for representing the immaterial functions of the computer. This paper analyses the use of the terms artificial and virtual in scientific papers, textbooks, and popular articles of the time, and examines how, together, they shaped models in computer science used to conceptualize computer processes.