The Isaac Asimov short story "A Perfect Fit" from 1981 is about that, except the person does not die if they use a computer. It is just that using one or even thinking of using one causes the great pain and nausea.
Here's a copy at EDN [1], which is where it was first published I believe. In the '70s and '80s professional science and technology publications would occasionally commission will known science fiction writers to write a short story somehow related to the subject of the publication.
Since it is short and freely available I won't bother summarizing.
There's also another Asimov story, "Saving Humanity", about a person who could not use computers. In that one there was no pain or anything like that. It was just that computers would crash if he tried to use them, or was even near on being used. This was quite an inconvenience, because it meant that even if he went into a bank to use a teller to withdraw cash the teller's computer would crash.
It is part of a series of short stories [2] written in first person from the point of view of a writer recalling conversations with his friend George, who claims to have summoned a small demon to grant him favors, but due to the rules the demon cannot do anything that directly benefits George. George instead asks the demon to do things for his friends (usually without the friend's permission), which invariably turn out to go wrong in some terrible way.
In the particular story I'm thinking of, George had a friend who was disappointed he had never done anything great and probably never would. He wanted to do something major, like save the world from a disaster. George mentioned that to the demon, and the demon used his powers to give the friend the computer crashing power.
How the heck is that supposed to save humanity? Apparently sometime within the friend's future lifetime we are going to have a Skynet or Colossus [3] situation and what will save us is George's computer crashing friend managing to get near the ruling computer.
Comments
The Isaac Asimov short story "A Perfect Fit" from 1981 is about that, except the person does not die if they use a computer. It is just that using one or even thinking of using one causes the great pain and nausea.
Here's a copy at EDN [1], which is where it was first published I believe. In the '70s and '80s professional science and technology publications would occasionally commission will known science fiction writers to write a short story somehow related to the subject of the publication.
Since it is short and freely available I won't bother summarizing.
There's also another Asimov story, "Saving Humanity", about a person who could not use computers. In that one there was no pain or anything like that. It was just that computers would crash if he tried to use them, or was even near on being used. This was quite an inconvenience, because it meant that even if he went into a bank to use a teller to withdraw cash the teller's computer would crash.
It is part of a series of short stories [2] written in first person from the point of view of a writer recalling conversations with his friend George, who claims to have summoned a small demon to grant him favors, but due to the rules the demon cannot do anything that directly benefits George. George instead asks the demon to do things for his friends (usually without the friend's permission), which invariably turn out to go wrong in some terrible way.
In the particular story I'm thinking of, George had a friend who was disappointed he had never done anything great and probably never would. He wanted to do something major, like save the world from a disaster. George mentioned that to the demon, and the demon used his powers to give the friend the computer crashing power.
How the heck is that supposed to save humanity? Apparently sometime within the friend's future lifetime we are going to have a Skynet or Colossus [3] situation and what will save us is George's computer crashing friend managing to get near the ruling computer.
[1] https://www.edn.com/a-perfect-fit/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azazel_(Asimov)
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project