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"I identify with the weak person; this is one reason why my fictional protagonists are essentially antiheroes."
- Philip K. Dick
 |
| Computers Improve Computers | ||
| The idea that it will be possible for computers to design more advanced computers. |
The story is set in a future in which human beings have had computers for so long that they have forgotten how to do simple arithmetic.
| The President considered that. He said, "... in practice, how can anyone know how a computer works?"
Brant laughed genially. "Well, Mr. President, I asked the same question. It seems that at one time computers were designed directly by human beings. Those were simple computers, of course, this being before the time of the rational use of computers to design more advanced computers had been established. |
| Technovelgy from The Feeling of Power,
by Isaac Asimov. Published by Worlds of Science Fiction in 1958 Additional resources -
|
This is an early reference to this idea in science fiction. It's even more intriguing when you consider that this is the basis for the idea of a technological Singularity, which suggests that if computers were allowed to design better computers, then we would eventually have computers that transcended human intelligence completely.
Compare to the Games Machine from van Vogt's 1945 novel The world of Null-A and the Vulcan 3 computer from Philip K. Dick's 1960 novel Vulcan's Hammer.
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and Technology from The Feeling of Power
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Tech news articles related to The Feeling of Power
Tech news articles related to works by Isaac Asimov
Computers Improve Computers-related
news articles:
- Software Learns To Design Software
- AI Computer Chip Designs Passeth Human Understanding
| ElectionSim: China's 'Ender's Game' Battle Sim, Or Lem's 'Kingdom In A Box'? |
| Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer |
| Cortex 1 - Today A Warehouse, Tomorrow A Calculator Planet |
| Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness? |
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'The dinner was excellent. It was completely vegetarian — grown in specially prepared gardens in this Moon base...'
'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
'The vast spinning sphere of Factory in the Sky loomed above and ahead of us, gleaming white against the unfathomable jet depths of surrounding space.'
'And if it doesn’t work,' inquired Lazarus, 'what does that make us? Sunspots?'
'The Dillard people had performed a miracle and put all the works in a girl-modeled case.'
'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'
'...the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and Then one toppled and fell. Then another.'
