Bits With Soul

A lively and engaging talk by Simon Peyton Jones, Engineering Fellow at 'Fortnite' makers Epic Games, on the 'joy and creativity of computer science'.

“When people think of codes, coding, and computers, they often think of socially challenged nerds like me, writing “code” (whatever that might be) in a darkened basement, all soulless ones and zeros and glowing screens. But in fact computer science (the study of information, computation, and communication) gives us an enormously rich new lens through which to look at and explore the world.” So says distinguished computer scientist Simon Peyton Jones.

“By encoding everything in the same digital bits, we can mechanise the analysis and transformation of that information; we can explore it in ways that are simply inaccessible to manual techniques; we can engage our creativity to write programs whose complexity rivals the most sophisticated artefacts that human beings have produced—and yet fit on a USB drive; we can even learn from data in ways that have made ‘ChatGPT’ into a verb practically overnight.

Given how closely digital technology is interwoven in our lives, having a visceral sense of how this stuff works, what it can do well, and how it can fail, is essential for us to survive and thrive, and should be part of every child’s education.

In my talk I will share some of the joy, beauty, and creativity of computer science. This is serious, because it impinges on our daily lives. But it is also rich, beautiful, and fun.”