Jimena Canales shares the “demons” that shaped computer science.

Just like the mailer demons you may have seen pop up on an undelivered email, there are hundreds of other software “demons” that live inside your computer.

Whenever a computer completes an automated task, they are said to be done by computer demons.

These demons are anthropomorphized figures that help computer scientists understand complicated processes, which in turn drives AI forward.

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About Jimena Canales:

Jimena Canales is an expert in 19th and 20th century history of the physical sciences, working for a better understanding of science and technology in relation to the arts and humanities.She received an M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University in the History of Science and a BSc in Engineering Physics from the Tecnológico de Monterrey. Her first book, A Tenth of a Second: A History explored the relation between science and history as one of the central intellectual problems of modern times. Her widely-acclaimed second book, The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson and the Debate That Changed Our Understanding of Time has been translated in Chinese, Greek, Spanish and excerpted in other languages. Her third book Bedeviled: A Shadow History of Demons in Science, covering four-centuries of scientific discovery, is now available.

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