Module 10: Done with Friedman, On To "Joe"

So on to more sources to analyze and dwell upon. Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat has come to an end, as of last post. Still discussing technological subjects with the world, as this class is labeled The Digital Society, we continue in a similar just old fashioned approach today. For today, I'm interpreting a short story, " A Logic Named Joe", published way back in 1946, where the term computer represented a far different term than modern day. A computer, was a guy who would compute, like a painter paints, and cook cooks. But with this story being science fiction, we can look back on it to see if it foretold anything true to today. So along with a little summarizing of the story, I'm also looking for anything prophetic. Prophetic meaning accurately describing or predicting what will happen in the future. I had a hunch that the word was similar in meaning to Old Testament prophets who would prophesy signs and events. 

So the read had a slow start for me as I had to re-read a few times to comprehend what was even being said. At first, I though Joe was some black slave kept in the cellar, since the language was slang as such times and I couldn't quite grasp the time period. I felt kinda dumb, but figured this was going somewhere, like he was a human calculator of sorts, being a logic in the cellar. Well now I've pieced together that 'Joe' is the name given to what seems like a type of computer the main character refers to as a logic setup. He describes it as a vision receiver with keys instead of dials. The first prophetic analysis I found briefly after. A sort of Skype and Google feature was described that this logic could access from relays in the tank (some sort of database or motherboard, I'm guessing.)  You could punch in someone's phone number, and "...if somebody answers you got a vision-phone connection." They totally nailed it in predicting reality of today's technology! Along with their crude version of Face-Time, was the ability to access weather reports, race results, and eventually equivalent to a homework help like Wikipedia. 

What came next though, as right in the beginning was the idea of artificial intelligence! Wow. Robots are current in modern technology and many movies explore the idea of artificial intelligence scenarios, whether they serve as convenient or go rouge with power.