![]() ![]() In the 1940s, movie heroes would routinely wrestle with the controls of aircraft, or become legends for their sharpshooting but when Asimov put pen to paper, he envisioned a world where men would become impotent in the face of smart robots.Īnd that’s precisely the world we are now building around us – how many of us can still read a map and navigate through a city without electronic satnavs? How many of us could slam on the brakes and avoid skidding if the ABS was turned off? How many planes could land in fog without computers? Let’s face it, whenever we hear the phrase “switching to manual control”, we instinctively tighten our seatbelts because we know it’s going to be a bumpier ride than if the computer was in charge. In The Evitable Conflict (1950) Asimov describes Machines which are “the vastest conglomeration of calculating circuits ever invented.” These Machines collect “a nearly infinite number of data in nearly infinitesimal time,” from all around the world, and use it to keep the global economy running smoothly.Ĭut to the present day, and the internet of everything is busy embedding billions of everyday objects with microchips that stream information back to vast data-clouds which some people fear gives too much control to companies wanting to sell us more stuff and governments wanting to keep an eye on us. ![]()
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