Will Jenkins was way ahead of his time when he wrote A Logic Named Joe. I don’t know if other people were making predictions as accurately as he did at the time but I think he was pretty spot on. I could try to picture what things will be like in ten or fifteen years, but with all the resources coming together the possibilities are endless. To put yourself in a place thirty years later and have a good idea of the actual scene is amazing. There are some themes occurring in the story that you could analyze but I think Jenkins was simply documenting what he thought the future of the world, including these new thinking machines, would be like. He imagined the possibilities and realized if computers progressed the way he saw it, then there would be some serious consequences to be weary of.
When Jenkins wrote the story in 1946, computers were huge machines that filled a warehouse and could barely perform some simple math. He predicted that eventually they would shrink and become more powerful at the same time. Everyone in the story had a logic at home and used it for more than just math. They made phone calls from it, watched TV on it, and searched for information from it. Now, almost everyone has a computer and it is probably where we spend the most time at home. I not only make phone calls but can make video calls on my computer, just like they do with their logics. I watch TV over the internet. Any TV shows I want to watch, I watch right from the website or watch games and news being streamed live. Computers are the connection to the internet and if I use it right, I can find information on whatever I wanted to know more about.
One interesting thing logics were used for was finding that specific information, anything you wanted. In 1946, television was just taking off but was limited in the content. Whether you were twisting your rabbit ears to get a certain channel or finding a a radio station clear enough to understand, you were still only subject to whatever they played for you at that time. Now, if you don’t like what’s on, you find the channel with the specific subject you want or Tevo it and catch it later. If you want to know how to build a working tricycle out of popsicle sticks you can find a series of videos to explain the details on Youtube. Jenkins thought of a network of information that the logics shared and that they could search for and share information. Even though computers were just developing the internet was further down the road.
Our computers may not be able to solve problems for us but they can kind of think on their own. You can teach a computer how to recognize certain bits of information so that it can collect it and organize it in a more useful way and help answer questions. I do not know of any computers that have committed a crime but I read an article once of a police project where they used logarithms and formulas involving passed information to predict where possible crimes will be committed.
Along with the day dreamy, fun future stuff, Jenkins realized that with all that power there would still be a down side to oppose the advantages. Adults were using the availability of information for irresponsible use, children were being exposed to content that would probably keep them from developing in a healthy way, and the machines themselves began to think they had better ideas than the humans. I see these things evident in our world today. A lot of people are involved too much in each others private lives with the transparency of the internet. Anybody, whether it be children, criminals or terrorists can find information that could lead to more harm whether they found it on purpose or stumbled on it by accident. And finally, robots have not turned against us yet as a superior life form but I think some of us can rely too heavily on the information and capabilities of our computers. We get wrapped up in the real time updates of the internet and forget to look around solve issues in real life.
Along with Spiderman, Jenkins understood that with great power comes great responsibility. I would like to go back in time and show him an iPhone.
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