Module 10

         At first I didn't understand what the protagonist was describing as the quaint terminology describing a future from the point of view of someone from the 1940s was a little hard to follow.  However the more I read, the more I understood what he meant.  It was a bit eerie reading this story knowing that it had been written in 1946.  When the author described how 'Joe' was able to think for itself I became very uncomfortable.  A machine that is able to think for itself is a very real threat to human existence.  However the author of this sci-fi short story decided to go down a different direction and instead made 'Joe' into a tool for unrestricted knowledge.  This was nearly as bad as people are people and given the opportunity to do what they want without consequence they will act on it.  Conscience is not a significant barrier.  If it was, socialism would be the path to Utopia.

         The story was an excellent example of the results of free access to knowledge without any accompanying wisdom.  Picture perfect bank robberies, techniques for murder without risk of conviction, universal skeleton keys, counterfeiting money, a 'cure' for concupiscence, and ways to force the rest of humanity to a certain way of life are just a sampling of the 'benefits' provided by the new and upgraded Logic service.  Sure there were some who just asked how to make a good and wholesome dinner and innocent stuff like that, but it doesn't take many criminal acts to upset civilization and there were apparently quite a few in a very short time.  Fifty four bank robberies in one day for example.

         The best part of this story is how it shows human nature.  How the protagonist describes Laurine and the line where his wife upon discovering that the Logics will give you all the private information about anyone you ask: "Hurry!" she says, desperate, "before somebody punches my name! I'm going to see what it says about that hussy across the street."  The only reason why we haven't experienced this ourselves is because while Google can provide you with some information, it's not an AI which connects all the dots of collective human knowledge for you.

         It is eerie how much like the Internet the system of Logics is given that the book was written about twenty years before there even was an Internet of any kind (ARPANET was developed in the 60s).  Tanks are like datacenters, and Logics are like PCs (complete with Youtube, Skype, etc.).  I wonder how the author even conceived of the idea.  It was not like it is now with technology advancing so fast that you just have to imagine what might be possible and it's reality in a few years.  Back then radio was the primary media outlet and televisions were the big new thing and few people had them.