Who extended Darwin’s ideas on evolution to machines? Describe this person’s position on mechanical evolution.
It was already known that machines could perform similar functions like humans. When Darwin’s theory was published, even at that time people were using machines, having analogy with human evolution.
A person named Samuel Butler, a writer, musician, and painter provided an extension to Darwin’s theory of evolution. Butler said that machines were also evolving or developing just like living organisms. Machines also had to face competition for existence.
The makers of the machines had to keep on updating their machines, in order for it to survive the competition. They had to develop a machine which had a competitive advantage.
Butler proposed that the inferior quality machines or outdated machines will perish or become extinct. They would become obsolete just like the dinosaurs. He also predicted that in near future machines will have intelligence, a prediction which he saw in his own lifetime, the up gradation of the calculating devices.
Babbage’s calculating device was no longer appropriate for the 19th century. Demand was now required for a more advanced calculating device. The United States census required the use of an advanced calculating device.