‘There are places still where a thought might grow’ – Professor John McAuliffe reflects on his tenure as Creative Manchester Director

In October 1949, philosopher Dorothy Emmet convened an interdisciplinary discussion at the university on ‘mind and computing machines’. Participants included another philosopher, a chemist, a mathematician, a zoologist.And Alan Turing who, a year later, published his speculative ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’ paper in Mind. In the paper’s ‘imitation game’, Turing’s first request of his…