Bletchley Park Exhibition Shows How World War II-Era Research Shaped Artificial Intelligence
Titled “The Age of A.I.,” the show examines the technology’s 20th-century roots and spotlights its role in contemporary healthcare, environmental conservation and the creative industries
Best known as the historic World War II-era codebreaking site, Bletchley Park in England is turning its attention to artificial intelligence.
Titled “The Age of A.I.,” a new exhibition surveys the technology’s evolution—from its historical roots in wartime codebreaking to its expanding role in contemporary life.
“[The show] explores how artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming a part of our everyday lives and how it’s developing, along with the opportunities and risks that come with it,” Tilly Davis, exhibition and interpretations manager at Bletchley Park, tells Cameron Green of Greatest Hits Radio.
During World War II, Bletchley Park was home to some of Britain’s greatest mathematical minds, whose pioneering work in codebreaking laid the foundation for modern computing and A.I. research.
“Key figures in the early development of A.I.—Jack Good, Donald Michie, Alan Turing—were all here. So Bletchley Park feels like a natural place to talk about A.I.,” David Kenyon, research historian at Bletchley Park, tells Sam Read and Danny Fullbrook of BBC News. “There’s no doubt their thinking about computing was heavily influenced by the work they did here.”
Known as a “founding father of artificial intelligence,” Turing made early theoretical contributions to the field, introducing key concepts that were vital to A.I.’s development. Meanwhile, Good and Michie also published on A.I. in their later careers, as Bletchley Park notes in a statement.
“Bletchley Park was a place during World War II where technology was used to help solve really thorny, difficult, complicated problems,” Erica Munro, head of content at Bletchley Park, tells BBC News. “What is A.I. if not a tool to help us do that nowadays?”
The exhibition traces a throughline from this early work to A.I.’s use in healthcare, environmental conservation and the creative industries. One case study, for example, spotlights the British Antarctic Survey, which uses A.I. to track penguin populations in Antarctica by analyzing satellite images. Visitors can also engage with interactive displays, such as a “challenge to identify A.I.-generated images,” per Greatest Hits Radio.
The exhibition doesn’t shy away from A.I.’s potential harms, such as job displacement and the spread of disinformation. It also examines energy consumption, as A.I.’s sprawling data centers require massive amounts of power to function. Last year, Jesse Dodge, a researcher at the Seattle-based Allen Institute for A.I., told Dara Kerr of NPR’s “Morning Edition” that “one query to ChatGPT uses approximately as much electricity as could light one lightbulb for about 20 minutes.”
“We’ve really tried to present a balanced view of both the opportunities and the risks of A.I.,” Davis tells BBC News. “We’ve talked to experts across the field who all have slightly different opinions on the future of A.I.”
This exhibition comes on the heels of the A.I. Safety Summit held at Bletchley Park in 2023, where global leaders—including former U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris—discussed A.I. governance and regulation.
“The Age of A.I.” also prompts visitors to consider A.I.’s future. As Kenyon tells BBC News, perspectives on the technology have evolved over time. For instance, mathematician Good initially envisioned A.I. as a path to utopia, but he later reversed course.
“We have perhaps gone from ‘the future is bright’ to ‘the future is uncertain,’” Kenyon adds.
“The Age of A.I.” is on view at Bletchley Park in Bletchley, England, through 2026.