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I’m reminded of a short story where everyone has forgotten how to do math by hand since computers have long ago taken over all computational tasks. Then this on

• pjc50 4y ago
  "The feeling of power", Isaac Asimov, 1958. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feeling_of_Power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feeling_of_Power The twist is that this allows the replacement of expensive computerised missiles with inexpensive manned ones ...
  • whatch 4y ago
    As someone who just felt the urge to re-/read a lot of science fiction recently, I would really appreciate it if you added a spoiler alert
    • pjc50 4y ago
      I appreciate that many SF short stories revolve around twist endings or reveals which spoil particularly badly, but I also think there needs to be a time limit on this or we can't discuss a story from 1958.
  • preommr 4y ago
    I know I am missing the point but I hated that short story. There's no way any digital society loses record like that naturally since it's so cheap to store such information and have it last a long period of time and there's always enthusiasts that keep such things alive where sufficient advancements in technology mean people have more spare time. Also, it's way more unbelievable that an AI so advanced wouldn't be able to design simple manned machines.
    • noarchy 4y ago
      >it's so cheap to store such information and have it last a long period of time It may be cheap, but when YouTube (as one example) takes down a channel that may have thousands of hours of content, that's gone forever unless someone archived it and is willing to make it available.