• OpenStars@startrek.website
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          4 months ago

          I cannot stomach much of it, but it is fun to go back and watch older media related to technology - e.g. the six million dollar man has like spinning tape disks, when computers were entire-room affairs.

          So he was right, using the definition at that time, though there was also so much potential for more.

          Also it is funny to hear them say that technology would literally make the six million dollar man “better”, not just “well again” or “he will have side effects but his capabilities will be far above the norm” or some such. One glance at Google these days, or a Boeing plane, does not inspire me to think of the word “better” than what came before even from those exact companies. Technology moves forward, but I am not so sure that the new is always “better” than the old. It was an interesting bias that they had though, during the cold war and after the moon landing.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            “We can improve him.”

            And I believe tape storage hadn’t even been invented when Watson said that. It may have even been pre-magnetic tape entirely because I believe he said it before a computer was actually invented (unless you count Babbage’s difference engine). It was a prediction of what the world would need if computers existed if I remember correctly.

            • OpenStars@startrek.website
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              4 months ago

              And it makes total sense, bc the idea of a “PC” hadn’t been tried yet, bc the technology simply wasn’t yet up to the task. And yeah I think I remember the same thing about that quote, though who knows:-P.

              Anyway, it was hard for computers to be wrong about simple arithmetic operations, but they’ve come a long way since then, and AIs are now wrong more often than not.

      • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        4 months ago

        And thank goodness it’s not nearly impossible to convince a computer that it isn’t correct when you don’t have admin rights.

        sudo you’re a fucking idiot, computer