In the 40s and 50s programmable general-purpose electronic computers were solving problems.
Ballistics tables, decryption of enemy messages, and more. Early programmable general-purpose electronic computers, from the moment they were turned on could solve problems in minutes that would take human computers months or years. In the 40s, ENIAC proved the feasibility of thermonuclear weaponry.
By 1957 the promise and peril of computing entered popular culture with the Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn film "Desk Set" where a computer is installed in a library and runs amok, firing everybody, all while romantic shenanigans occur. It was sponsored by IBM and is one of the first instances of product placement in films.
People knew "electronic brains" were the future the second they started spitting out printouts of practically unsolvable problems instantly-- they just didn't (during your timeframe) predict the invention and adoption of the transistor and its miniaturization, which made computers ubiquitous household objects.
Even the quote about the supposed limited market for computers trotted out from time-to-time to demonstrate the hesitance of industry and academia to adopt computers is wrong.
In 1953 when Thomas Watson said that "there's only a market for five computers" what he actually said was "When we developed the IBM 701 we created a customer list of 20 organizations who might want it and because it is so expensive we expected to only sign five deals, but we ended up signing 18" (paraphrased).
Militaries, universities, and industry all wanted all of the programmable general-purpose electronic computers they could afford the second it became available because they all knew that it could solve problems.
Included for comparison is a list of problems that quantum computing has solved:
I don't like the idea of some "authority" picking the winners and losers in the open-source space.
What makes IMDB work and this not, is that Movies are static things. You aren't going to one day find the 1957 romantic comedy Desk Set[1], suddenly turn into a slasher film. Where as open source software changes, sometimes drastically.
[1]- You should watch Desk Set, it has Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. The main plot is about a computer taking over the job of information workers.
Google search replaced, or dramatically reduced, an entire industry of skilled labor around research and library sciences. There's a great old Hepburn/Tracey movie, Desk Set, that is a playful treatment of this.
The concern is always that there is a finite amount of work[0] to go around in any given iteration of our current style of society. New kinds of work do get invented from time to time. Automation eliminates kinds of work. The two are rarely in sync with eachother and the difference is usually measured in human privation and suffering.
[0]work being defined as, "something you can trade for food and healthcare"
Or if you couldn't find it in a library, you could call a librarian: company, city, university, or otherwise.
I enjoyed the film Desk Set. Katherine Hepburn is one of those librarians, working at a pseudo-NBC company in the 50s. (As a special bonus, it features early movie mainframe hijinks.)
"It should come as no surprise that recent advances in big-data analytics and artificial intelligence have created strong incentives for enterprises to amass information about every measurable aspect of their businesses. And financial regulations now require organizations to keep records for much longer periods than they had to in the past. So companies and institutions of all stripes are holding onto more and more.
Studies show [PDF] that the amount of data being recorded is increasing at 30 to 40 percent per year. At the same time, the capacity of modern hard drives, which are used to store most of this, is increasing at less than half that rate. Fortunately, much of this information doesn’t need to be accessed instantly. And for such things, magnetic tape is the perfect solution.
Seriously? Tape? The very idea may evoke images of reels rotating fitfully next to a bulky mainframe in an old movie like Desk Set or Dr. Strangelove. So, a quick reality check: Tape has never gone away!"
The open plan office was the norm until the cubicle was invented (by Herman Miller I believe) as a tool of liberation in the 1960s. Just look at any film from the 50s (like The Apartment or Desk Set) to see.
Some research institutions, inspired by academia, had offices (IBM, PARC, IAS, Bell Labs..) and mingling areas it that was less common.
I saw open plan offices reappear around 2000 when the price of Palo Alto real estate started shooting up and frankly it shocked me. It’s crazy to me that this is considered savings given how much it costs to recruit and pay a person. I can’t concentrate with noise or visual clutter (people moving in my field of view).
Some jobs do do better with an open plan, like sales teams. It’s a cultural issue.
Hacker Cinema
10 comments on Hacker News
This.
I still think AI is at root at UI improvement for working with computers. It's an equivalent to the general move of command line interaction to WIMP.
Freaking out over this seems like nothing to me so much as that Tracy/Hepburn movie ... Desk Set.
In the 40s and 50s programmable general-purpose electronic computers were solving problems.
Ballistics tables, decryption of enemy messages, and more. Early programmable general-purpose electronic computers, from the moment they were turned on could solve problems in minutes that would take human computers months or years. In the 40s, ENIAC proved the feasibility of thermonuclear weaponry.
By 1957 the promise and peril of computing entered popular culture with the Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn film "Desk Set" where a computer is installed in a library and runs amok, firing everybody, all while romantic shenanigans occur. It was sponsored by IBM and is one of the first instances of product placement in films.
People knew "electronic brains" were the future the second they started spitting out printouts of practically unsolvable problems instantly-- they just didn't (during your timeframe) predict the invention and adoption of the transistor and its miniaturization, which made computers ubiquitous household objects.
Even the quote about the supposed limited market for computers trotted out from time-to-time to demonstrate the hesitance of industry and academia to adopt computers is wrong.
In 1953 when Thomas Watson said that "there's only a market for five computers" what he actually said was "When we developed the IBM 701 we created a customer list of 20 organizations who might want it and because it is so expensive we expected to only sign five deals, but we ended up signing 18" (paraphrased).
Militaries, universities, and industry all wanted all of the programmable general-purpose electronic computers they could afford the second it became available because they all knew that it could solve problems.
Included for comparison is a list of problems that quantum computing has solved:
This reminds me of the 1957 movie Desk Set. Katherine Hepburn works at a reference desk like Foy Desk that’s under threat of automation.
This is an app store, not IMDB.
I don't like the idea of some "authority" picking the winners and losers in the open-source space.
What makes IMDB work and this not, is that Movies are static things. You aren't going to one day find the 1957 romantic comedy Desk Set[1], suddenly turn into a slasher film. Where as open source software changes, sometimes drastically.
[1]- You should watch Desk Set, it has Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. The main plot is about a computer taking over the job of information workers.
Google search replaced, or dramatically reduced, an entire industry of skilled labor around research and library sciences. There's a great old Hepburn/Tracey movie, Desk Set, that is a playful treatment of this.
The concern is always that there is a finite amount of work[0] to go around in any given iteration of our current style of society. New kinds of work do get invented from time to time. Automation eliminates kinds of work. The two are rarely in sync with eachother and the difference is usually measured in human privation and suffering.
[0]work being defined as, "something you can trade for food and healthcare"
can highly recommend the old movie "desk set", whose protagonists are reference librarians threatened with being replaced by a computer.
Or if you couldn't find it in a library, you could call a librarian: company, city, university, or otherwise.
I enjoyed the film Desk Set. Katherine Hepburn is one of those librarians, working at a pseudo-NBC company in the 50s. (As a special bonus, it features early movie mainframe hijinks.)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/desk_set
"It should come as no surprise that recent advances in big-data analytics and artificial intelligence have created strong incentives for enterprises to amass information about every measurable aspect of their businesses. And financial regulations now require organizations to keep records for much longer periods than they had to in the past. So companies and institutions of all stripes are holding onto more and more.
Studies show [PDF] that the amount of data being recorded is increasing at 30 to 40 percent per year. At the same time, the capacity of modern hard drives, which are used to store most of this, is increasing at less than half that rate. Fortunately, much of this information doesn’t need to be accessed instantly. And for such things, magnetic tape is the perfect solution.
Seriously? Tape? The very idea may evoke images of reels rotating fitfully next to a bulky mainframe in an old movie like Desk Set or Dr. Strangelove. So, a quick reality check: Tape has never gone away!"
The open plan office was the norm until the cubicle was invented (by Herman Miller I believe) as a tool of liberation in the 1960s. Just look at any film from the 50s (like The Apartment or Desk Set) to see.
Some research institutions, inspired by academia, had offices (IBM, PARC, IAS, Bell Labs..) and mingling areas it that was less common.
I saw open plan offices reappear around 2000 when the price of Palo Alto real estate started shooting up and frankly it shocked me. It’s crazy to me that this is considered savings given how much it costs to recruit and pay a person. I can’t concentrate with noise or visual clutter (people moving in my field of view).
Some jobs do do better with an open plan, like sales teams. It’s a cultural issue.
Jeez, some of those movies are dreadful, and there's almost nothing on the list from before 1990.
1954 - Gog (robots that look like robots and not people in metal suits)
1957 - Desk Set (non-stupid treadment of an early computer)
1970 - Colossus : The Forbin Project (how is this not in there)
1971 - How to Frame a Figg (silly, but it's got a computer hacker)
1975 - Three Days of the Condor
1990 - The KGB, the Computer, and Me (PBS doc about "The Cuckoo's Egg")