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Intentional or not, he has certainly predicted technology that has only recently come into existence. They may seem obvious now, but I wonder how inevitable the
by taitems 13y ago
Intentional or not, he has certainly predicted technology that has only recently come into existence. They may seem obvious now, but I wonder how inevitable they seemed during the 50s and 60s? Take for instance the Multivac: it is essentially Wolfram Alpha, even down to the pro-tier pricing he mentions in one short story.
- ijk 13y agoI suspect Wolfram Alpha was explicitly designed with Multivac in mind, either directly or indirectly through the general idea of an oracular AI machine. Google, on the other hand, is a bit more alien--though I have met plenty of people who try to address Google as if it was Multivac (or Siri, I suppose).
- coldtea 13y ago>Take for instance the Multivac: it is essentially Wolfram Alpha, even down to the pro-tier pricing he mentions in one short story. Or it would be, if Wolfram Alpha wasn't tragically limited. Given the grandiose annoucements when it came out, I expected a lot more than a wikipedia meets scientific calculator with sub-Siri query intelligence.
- improv32 13y agohttp://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?t=crmtb01&f=ob&i=can%20entropy%20be%20reversed%3F http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?t=crmtb01&f=ob&i=can%20en...