Introduction to the History of Artificial Intelligence Development in Russia

Introduction to the History of Artificial Intelligence Development in Russia

Artificial intelligence is becoming one of the main engines of all scientific and technological progress. In a latent form, the idea of the possibility of the existence of such a phenomenon is already present in folklore. In an explicit form in science fiction novels, but historically, its origins go back to the birth of a new science, which was called cybernetics. This is the science of the general laws of obtaining, storing, transforming, and transmitting information in control systems, both in technology and in biology and sociology:

Cybernetics is the study of systems of any nature that are capable of perceiving, storing, and processing information and using it for control and regulation [GRITSANOV A.A. 2002: 454].

The founder of cybernetics is considered to be the American mathematician Norbert Wiener [WIENER NORBERT. 1948]. The immediate impetus for the emergence of the new science was the development of computers using vacuum tubes during World War II, although the origins of computing technology were the English mathematicians Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace, and the first working programmable computer using electromechanical relays was created by the German engineer Konrad Zuse in 1936. In the USSR, a translation of Wiener’s Cybernetics into Russian was published in 1958, but before that, the attitude towards cybernetics was hostile:

Cybernetics is a reactionary pseudoscience that arose in the USA… Cybernetics expresses one of the main features of the bourgeois worldview – its inhumanity, the desire to turn workers into an appendage of the machine, into a tool of production and a tool of war ROSENTAL M., YUDIN I. 1954: 236-237].

However, despite such an attitude to Cybernetics, in the building of an abandoned monastery in Feofaniya near Kiev, in an atmosphere of strict secrecy since the end of the forties, a group of engineers led by Sergey Lebedev tried to create something similar to a computing machine. Since 1946, Lebedev worked in Kyiv as the director of the Institute of Power Engineering, and in 1947, after the division of this institute, he became the director of the Institute of Electrical Engineering of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. When Lebedev’s group began their work, they knew only the most general information about the ENIAC digital computer created in the USA in 1945. Its operating principles and technical implementation were completely classified. Everything had to be done by themselves in conditions of extreme shortage of materials and devices. The creation of that made device, which was called MESN (Small Electronic Calculating Machine), was described in a book by its most active participants [DASHEVSKY LEV, SHKABARA EKATERINA. 1981]. But MESM was not the first computer in Europe; the academician Boris Gnedenko, the director of the Institute of Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, who thought so, evaluated the significance of its creation in the preface to this book:

The creation of MESM is a glorious page in the history of Soviet science. It marked the beginning of the rapid development of computing, control, and information technology in the Soviet Union. An acquaintance with it will undoubtedly arouse the interest of Soviet readers, especially young people. From such historical facts, young people learn creativity, learn that to create something new, it is necessary to have not only a fresh idea, but also genuine enthusiasm, allowing one to enthusiastically perform a huge amount of rough work, overcome a host of difficulties of a theoretical, experimental and organizational nature [Ibid]

However, the creation of MESM was by no means a state secret, but a secret of Lebedev and his closest circle, so as not to be accused of unseemly and even criminal activities. Lebedev began work at his own risk and peril, and they were not included in the plans of the Institute of Electrical Engineering, where his group worked. Feofaniya was chosen for a reason – Kyiv had enough premises for any, especially for «secret» work. Lebedev simply wanted to work away from the eyes of people and possible commissions that controlled the work of scientific institutions. The meager financing of the work was carried out «on the side» at the expense of money allocated for a completely different program. Often, almost with their own money, radio components had to be bought at a flea market, the existence of which at the «Evbaza» (»Jewish bazaar” in Kyiv) is not without reason mentioned by the authors in their memoirs. On their shoulders fell the heavy work of not only their immediate responsibilities in the laboratory, but also the organizational concerns associated with the design and construction of the machine. At that time, Lev Dashevsky held the post of deputy head of the laboratory headed by S.A. Lebedev. In 1946, he returned to Kyiv after demobilization from the army, where he was the head of radio centers on various fronts of the war with Germany. Immediately after returning to Kyiv, he was hired by Lebedev’s laboratory and defended his PhD dissertation a year later. During the war, Ekaterina Shkabara was the head of the automatic devices laboratory at one of the Ural ammunition factories. At the end of 1944, she returned to Kyiv and in 1948 successfully defended her candidate’s dissertation. Her supervisor was Lebedev, who invited her to his laboratory as a research fellow. The Academician Gnedenko wrote the following about these scientists:

There is no doubt that L.N. Dashevsky and E.A. Shkabara were S.A. Lebedev’s closest assistants, on whom he could rely in all matters, and indeed he did rely. I am happy that later, after S.A. Lebedev’s departure to Moscow, I had to manage the team he had created, which was very friendly and efficient. Then, in particular, I was convinced of the excellent business qualities, scientific initiative and selflessness of both of S.A. Lebedev’s associates – L.N. Dashevsky and E.A. Shkabara. It is to their reliable assistance that I largely owe the creation (from a small computer technology laboratory) of the Computing Center of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR [Ibid].

I can confirm these words of the academician, because Dashevsky was the head of my diploma project, and I met him in his apartment on several occasions. At the same time, I was a participant in the dismantling of MESM and its transportation to the Kiev Polytechnic Institute, from which I was graduating. In private conversations with ordinary participants in the creation of MESM, I learned a lot of interesting things about the conditions of their work

Lebedev's ten-member group began to create the first computer in the USSR at the end of 1947, but Lebedev had first organized a seminar. In addition to the group members, of whom only two had academic degrees, it was attended by prominent mathematicians of Ukraine. Among them was Academician Gnedenko, but he later noted that the influence of mathematicians on the computer design was practically non-existent. Only subsequent experience of specific work led to an understanding of the close connection between engineering and mathematical issues. And this understanding developed when several independent teams were already working on the creation of other computers in the country. On the other hand, the engineers did not yet realize that computers should have a modular structure (racks, frames, panels, standard replacement elements).

In general, the development of the computing machine was purely amateurish, without taking into account the minimal experience of working on the creation of any technical devices. In particular, there was no talk of standardizing individual parts of this machine, and similar ones in the future. To some extent, this was a repetition of the industrial revolution in England in the 18th century, when different factories used their bolts and nuts of different sizes and thread types to produce the first steam engines. The idea of ​​standardizing them came later. This principle has remained with professional designers of any machine forever. The fact that Soviet designers had different understandings of individual parts of a computer is indicated by the different names even of elementary blocks assigned to them in different design bureaus. There were cases when, in the same computing center, standard replacement elements for computers created at different factories had different names. Only many years later, the abbreviation TEZ began to be used everywhere. And it could not be otherwise. The shape and size of the contacts of the detachable connections of TEZs, even with the same number, were different. Also, the connections between individual computer devices (control, arithmetic, storage, input, output) and external devices for preparing and perceiving information on punched tapes and punched cards were not standardized. Even the word interface itself began to be used after the assimilation of IBM's operating principles about twenty years later.