Tags:: #Annotations #Bush

As We May Think¶

URL: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/

• The sheer amount of resources available nowadays makes it hard to decipher between what's truth and what is just an idea.

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_The difficulty seems to be, not so much that we publish unduly in view of the extent and variety of present day interests, but rather that publication has been extended far beyond our present ability to make real use of the record.¹

• These machines although they may be a complicated piece, the fact that parts can easily be interchanged with new or better parts makes it extremely reliable.

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*In spite of much complexity, they perform reliably.¹

• Does this cause problems?

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*The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability¹

• Nowadays, everything needs some sort of proof in order for it to be useful. This proof has to be able to be stored and readily accessible.

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*A record if it is to be useful to science, must be continuously extended, it must be stored, and above all it must be consulted.¹

• He explains how the process of generating an image has hardly changed overtime. He is showing that some complex processes that time to be improved upon.

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*It would be a brave man who would predict that such a process will always remain clumsy, slow, and faulty in detail.¹

• Although we may store immense amounts of information in a small space, it is not easily accessible, rather we pick at it.

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*Even the modern great library is not generally consulted; it is nibbled at by a few.¹

• He is making accurate predictions about the devices we have today. By looking at how technology has grown overtime he has been able to come to a solid conclusion about the future of technology

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*They will be controlled by a control card or film, they will select their own data and manipulate it in accordance with the instructions thus inserted, they will perform complex arithmetical computations at exceedingly high speeds, and they will record results in such form as to be readily available for distribution or for later further manipulation¹

• Because of the easy access to high amounts of computation power, all our minds are concerned with is finding what to ask the computer rather how to actually find this result on our own and confirm with the computer.

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*the creative aspect of thinking is concerned only with the selection of the data and the process to be employed and the manipulation thereafter is repetitive in nature and hence a fit matter to be relegated to the machine.¹

• Technology will continue to evolve, and there seems to be no end to how much you can improve a piece of technology. There will always be something new, but it will not satisfy scientists needs.

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*But even this new machine will not take the scientist where he needs to go.¹