John von Neumann was probably the smartest man of the 20th century. An Austro-Hungarian polymath who made significant contributions to physics, maths, computer science, and one of the defining moments of the century, the creation and deployment of the atomic bomb, he was so unfathomably intelligent that he was referred to by some as an alien. Benjamin Labatut’s The MANIAC is about his life, work and legacy as it is felt today with the emergence and proliferation of artificial intelligence, and where never-ending technological progress may be taking us…
I’d never heard of the Chilean writer Benjamin Labatut before or von Neumann, which seems impossible given the latter’s impact on our society today, but I was really impressed with this novel, a, perhaps appropriately, hybrid form of both fact and fiction.
I say appropriately as one of the concerns in the book is man’s relationship with machine and whether a fusion between the two is possible, as von Neumann was hoping for at the end of his life, or whether the continued development of technology will one day, sooner rather than later, mean that machine becomes more intelligent than man and… well. As Kurt Godel, another great mind appearing in this book, says: “Our earthly existence… can only be a means towards a goal of another existence.”
The title refers to the computer than von Neumann built after the war, improving upon the existing one - the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, or ENIAC, the world’s first digital general-purpose computer - and creating the Mathematical Analyzer, Numerical Integrator and Computer, or MANIAC.
You could also read other meanings into it: given the number of brilliant scientists and mathematicians profiled in this novel who kill themselves and others, it could be suggested that such high levels of intelligence can turn a person crazy. It could also describe von Neumann’s seeming detachment from humanity in his work - he was the one who convinced the US military to detonate the bomb at 600m altitude rather than ground level in order to cause the greatest possible damage to the Japanese. Not to mention the first task he sets for the MANIAC when it’s switched on: destroy life as we know it(!), which leads to the hydrogen bomb, a vastly more powerful super-weapon than the atomic bomb.
Later in the book when the Korean Go champion Lee Sedol squares off against an AI called AlphaGo and makes a move that confounds the computer, it too goes crazy and starts making stupid moves that costs it the game. It made me think back to the opening chapter of the book, about the tragedy of Paul Ehrenfest, a celebrated early 20th century Austrian physicist, who ends up committing murder suicide, killing his disabled son Wassik and then himself. Depression definitely contributed to the act but he had also been struggling for years to understand the new emergent changes in physics at this time, the frustration of which may have led to his final desperate act.
It’s like Labatut is saying that a fundamental shift in understanding - either in how a game is played or the foundations of a discipline are upended - can lead to catastrophe. Only, if AI becomes more and more powerful, what will the repercussions be to humanity if one day it too goes crazy - a god AI murder/suicide too? And then there’s the unanswered question hinted at in the book: we created the MANIAC which led directly to the creation of the hydrogen bomb; we’ve created AI - what new type of unthinkable horror will this lead to next?
Though the book is based on real historical events and people, the von Neumann part of the book, which makes up the majority, is told through the voices of the various people in von Neumann’s life that Labatut mimics which makes the book a novel, albeit more like dramatised history. Most of the voices sound quite similar and blend together except for the Julian Bigelow chapters, who was an engineer who worked with von Neumann on MANIAC, and whose voice is clipped and spare, and the Richard Feynman chapters, which were the most compelling and had this bouncy, jovial tone to them and contains the most compelling part of the book: the description of the hydrogen bomb tests.
The second goal von Neumann gives MANIAC is to create a new type of life and, though this sounds amazing, the digital life part of the book was my least favourite and was the only part of the novel that felt like it dragged. Its inclusion though is certainly relevant for where the book goes in the final part.
Labatut’s decision to jump ahead to the present day and close out the book with the Lee Sedol/AlphaGo episode was an inspired choice as it felt like the novel went through a refresh while also showing us the impact of von Neumann’s work in our world now. And it’s also a fascinating story in itself, highlighting still more genius minds like Sedol and Demis Hassabis, the creator of AlphaGo and himself a chess prodigy (there’s a free documentary on YouTube called AlphaGo about this match that I highly recommend as well).
Benjamin Labatut has written one of the year’s best books in The MANIAC, a fascinating novel about the wonders and terrors of scientific progress and the similarly wonderful and terrible people who make them happen - despite the gloominess of the subject matter, it was undeniably compelling and I really enjoyed it.
Definitely recommended - let’s hope that the Singularity, the point in time when humans lose control of technological progress and AI becomes the superior intelligence on the planet, is only a fanciful dystopian notion like the Millennium Bug turned out to be!
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