It was a time when people thought Artificial Intelligence was either on the way shortly (those who actually used computers) or already here with those Atomic Brains we have now (everyone else).
I just watched the Svengoolie episode of "This Island Earth" and, early on, one of the characters mentioned how that era was called the "pushbutton age". Well, we live in more of a "pushbutton age" now but familiarity breeds contempt; conversely, unfamiliarity breeds a kind of awe, and unreasonable expectations that can leave a bad taste in peoples' mouths.
I personally remember going through it when the Internet was first beginning to trickle down to the masses, pre-Bubble, and I remember thinking that some of those ideas then were patently idiotic. But which!
And in the 1920s, radio went through the same thing, if not bigger. Radio!
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It's amazing how so many of those projects remain largely unsolved today.
It was a time when people thought Artificial Intelligence was either on the way shortly (those who actually used computers) or already here with those Atomic Brains we have now (everyone else).
I just watched the Svengoolie episode of "This Island Earth" and, early on, one of the characters mentioned how that era was called the "pushbutton age". Well, we live in more of a "pushbutton age" now but familiarity breeds contempt; conversely, unfamiliarity breeds a kind of awe, and unreasonable expectations that can leave a bad taste in peoples' mouths.
I personally remember going through it when the Internet was first beginning to trickle down to the masses, pre-Bubble, and I remember thinking that some of those ideas then were patently idiotic. But which!
And in the 1920s, radio went through the same thing, if not bigger. Radio!