Science
fiction never predicted the internet; but it may have had a hand in its
creation. In this paper, I intend to show how science fiction authors have been
prefiguring aspects of the internet since long before its inception. This paper
begins with a short summary of the story, “A Logic Named Joe”. Published in
1946, the story is astonishing in the way its inhabitants unknowingly seem to
live the very technologically dependent lives that we lead today. I will then
use this summary and several other examples to prove the assertion that much of
what the internet has become today exists in part because of science fiction.
“A
Logic Named Joe” was written by William F. Jenkins under the pen name Murray
Leinster. It is important to understand that in Jenkin’s time, “computers were
colossal machines that could only be afforded by corporations and governments.”1
The story follows an unnamed protagonist (occasionally called “Ducky”) who
helps maintain “Logics” - machines that conveniently satisfy all the
information and entertainment needs of the modern household. Logics are linked
together and also linked to “Tanks” containing information. The following
excerpt describes the capabilities of logics:
Say
you punch Station SNAFU on your logic. Relays in the tank take over an’
whatever vision-program SNAFU is telecastin’ comes on your logic’s screen. Or
you punch ‘Sally Hancock’s Phone’ an’ the screen blinks and sputters an’ you’re
hooked up with the logic in her house an’ if somebody answers you got a
vision-phone connection. But besides that, if you punch for the weather
forecast or who won today’s race at Hialeah or who was the mistress of the
White House during’ Garfield’s administration or what is PDQ and R sellin’ for
today, that comes on the screen too. The relays in the tank do it. The tank is
a big buildin’ full of all the facts in creation an’ all the recorded telecast
that ever was made – an’ it’s hooked in with all the other tanks all over the
country2
Several technologies of today are
instantly recognizable in this story. The logics described, complete with
keyboard and screen and links to communication and entertainment services are
nothing else but the modern internet-connected personal computers of today.
Without meaning to, the author has in a few lines synopsized the exact
functions that websites like Google, online encyclopedias like Wikipedia, visual
channels such as YouTube, and communication tools such as Skype perform.
Information about the stock market and access to historical data are readily
available. Sports reports and television shows are downloadable and can be
viewed by all. Only a change in terminology seems to differentiate our world
from that of the story.
Into
this technologically advanced world comes a particular Logic (whom the
protagonist calls Joe) of the assembly line that by completely random and
unlikely chance seems to show some awareness of its purpose. As a machine,
Joe’s only desire is to do his job well, and he endeavors to do so by linking
up and synthesizing heretofore unlinked information. He is soon broadcasting
his services to the world: “If you want to do something and don’t know how to
do it – ask your logic!” As a machine, Joe lacks morals and social etiquette
and is soon seen wreaking havoc due to his candid and matter of fact solutions
to not only questions asked in jest, but even to those about murder, counterfeiting
and mischief in general. For example:
This
fella punches, “How can I get rid of my wife?” Just for the fun of it. The
screen is blank for half a second. Then comes a flash. “Service question: Is
she blonde or brunette?” He hollers to us an’ we come look. He punches,
“Blonde.” There’s another brief pause. Then the screen says,
“Hexymetacryloaminoacetine is a constituent of green shoe polish. Take home a
frozen meal including dried pea soup. Hexymetacryloaminoacetine is a selective poison which is fatal to blond
females but not to brunettes or males of any coloring. This fact has not been
brought out by human experimentation, but is a product of logics service. You
cannot be convicted of murder. It is improbable that you will be suspected.3
Logic maintenance
people race to find what is causing this unintended service. In the end, the protagonist manages to deduce
Joe’s location. He finds Joe and turns him off. He hides the now turned off
logic in his basement. “A Logic Named Joe” has been called one of the most
prescient stories ever published.
In
the story we see what the author calls a ‘visual-phone connection’4,
when the protagonist through Joe’s meddling is forced to confront his black
widow type ex–girlfriend on his logic screen. This is just one of the many
instances in which science fiction provides examples of a globally connected
community. From sci-fi classics like “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” (as well as
several others) we are all familiar with the holograms of characters being
transported across the light years to talk to their contemporaries as if they
were standing right beside them. Even telepathy is a common theme in science
fiction dealing with a whole other form of human being who can communicate and
control with his mind. Though, not outwardly obvious, science fiction thus
helped fuel the desire in human beings to communicate with those another in
another part of the world, as and when required. Thus though science fiction
had no obvious effects on the tools available for global communication today
(such as email, video conferencing etc.), their birth arguably were not
serendipitous moments but pre-planned and expected. They were born out of
necessity: a necessity that science fiction helped fuel.
Fig 1: Hologram of Princess Leia (Star Wars,1977, http://allanjosephbatac.com/blog/2008/05/star-wars-hologram-communication-now-a-reality.html)
There
comes a point in the story, where Joe, having access to people’s salaries, bank
accounts starts spewing out the minutest details of their lives to the general
public. This highlights another recurring theme in science fiction: the idea
that in the future individual privacy will cease to exist. Think about Facebook
for instance. We never truly own the content we put up on Facebook.
Professional work, information, phone numbers and photographs can be stolen in
an instant. Though we reserve the right to delete a page, we can never be
completely sure that it is gone forever. “Facebook, in the end, is just an
internet tool, meant for socializing. It should be approached with caution;
caution that is vindicated every time we here of someone creating a fake
account.”5 In today’s world Joe spewing out information about the
protagonist’s wife could be equivalent to a simply attentive Facebook user with
a sinister motive in mind. Science fiction stories also talk in length about
the all-seeing-eye, an entity that knows everything about you and can use that
knowledge to bring about your downfall. “The Net could be said to
comprise of a plethora of all-see-eyes. Our actions are tracked and collated
for various purposes – some governmental, some commercial and some criminal.”6
How
would one define Joe in a modern context? The answer: a virus. Even early
science fiction authors who extrapolated complex systems of technology knew
that every system would have bugs. They also deduced that bugs could be created
deliberately to make intelligent machines go mad when the need arose, a story
line that science fiction has fact played to death (HAL in 2001: A Space
Odyssey, Skynet in the Terminator franchise etc.). Thus Joe, who is essentially a virus, is
unscrupulously used to glean information about others along with countless
other illegal activities. Though written in in a humorous fashion, one cannot
help but feel a little dread when the author describes how, during the short
time Joe was active, elitist groups, robbers and even murderers came to commit
several ‘perfect’ crimes with his help. Even months after Joe was disconnected,
many of the perpetrators remained at large. Joe’s advice was so perfect that a
fourteen year old was able to create the “simplest, neatest and most efficient
counterfeitin’(sic) device yet known to science.”7 Thus the very
personalities and attitudes which undermine new technology can be attributed in
some way to fears that science fiction has created.
Even
the basic concepts of file sharing were introduced by science fiction, albeit
in a much more fantastical fashion. Science fiction is rife with the idea of
“direct transfer of information or experience to the human mind.”8 a
variation to what has now become the almost daily act of downloading off the
Net. Science fiction authors however always surrounded such information
transfer with varying degrees of danger, and the protagonists seldom proceeds
with the process unless required to out of necessity. Often characters who
partake in these transfers find themselves suffering from serious side effects.
With illicit material, viruses and spyware only a click away, most downloaders
would do well to learn from such cautionary tales.
The
most interesting point brought up by “A Logic Named Joe” is probably how the
author highlights the extent of the dependency of his storys’ society on the
system of logics, tanks and relays. When the frantic protagonist asks a
technician at the tank to shut the system down, the technician responds :
‘Shut
down the tank? […] Does it occur to you, fella, that the tank has being doin’
all the computin’ for every business office for years? […] Listen, fella!
Logics changed civilization. Logics are
civilization!’9
The implications of
these statements are positively chilling. As a global community exactly how
dependent are we on the internet? The answer: too much. A collapse of the
internet would result in worldwide chaos. Giant companies and corporations like
Google, Microsoft and Amazon would shut down in a matter of days. Industries
would collapse. Thousands of people would be unemployed. Llong distance
communication, including basic cell phone services would become obsolete (the
cell phone infrastructure is heavily dependent on the internet). There would be losses
of trillions of dollars and the global economy would decline. Luckily though,
it is virtually impossible to shut down the internet completely. It is a
collection of millions of computational systems all over the world, and is an
entity that is always changing. Thus unless there was a near total devastation
may be by an asteroid colliding into the earth or boiling lava engulfing it’s
entire surface, the internet’s future seems secure. If on the other hand, if
such a scenario were to occur, we would probably have bigger things to worry
about. It is interesting to note that in this science fiction is simply giving
tangible form to an issue that has been around for centuries. Humanity has
pretty much always been dependent on technology, as it has improved.
Towards the end of the story we have the protagonist
pondering whether he should reboot Joe and use him for his own ulterior motives
allowing himself to amass possible infinite wealth and everlasting life or
whether he should take an ax to it to destroy its dangerous potential. “It’s a
pretty good world, now Joe’s turned off. Maybe I’ll turn him on long enough to
learn how to stay in it.”10 The final sentence of the story repeats
a fear that science fiction has echoed throughout the course of its history. A
fear that we all possess, to varying degrees. As we age, and as technology
grows, will there come a time where we will simply be left behind? We are
familiar with the worlds of older generations who regard the computer,
something we hold so dear, as just a ‘new fangled’ creation, one which they do
not even strive to understand. As the years pass, will all of us eventually
share the same fate of simply standing by the while technology marches on?
I hope through this paper I have been able to show you
how the World Wide Web as we know it today is mirrored in the science fiction
of earlier times. Though not outwardly obvious, , many of the aspects of the
internet were preconceived by
imaginative writers. Subtly these ideas have travelled from generation
to generation affecting who we are and what we have come to expect from the
technology surrounding us. Had science fiction never existed , the internet would
probably have been a very very different place.
Notes
1. Eric G. Swedin and David L. Ferro, “Murray Leinster and a Logic Named
Joe” , http://books.google.com/books?id=nL5Rx4Iknn4C&pg=PA54&dq=a+logic+named+joe&hl=en&ei=lcS8TsmaFcm2tweko9HSBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CD0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=a%20logic%20named%20joe&f=false
(accessed November 10, 2011)
2.
Murray
Leinster, “A Logic Named Joe” Astounding Science-Fiction,37 June 1946, 45
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Bob Al-Greene, “With Facebook comes a loss of
identity” Daily Nebraskan, January 12,2009, http://www.dailynebraskan.com/a-e/al-greene-and-pluhacek-with-facebook-comes-a-loss-of-identity-1.1296549#.TrzV-UP7jop (accessed November 9, 2011).
6. Kirk Hampton and Carol Mackay “The Internet and the Anagogical Myths
of Science Fiction, ” in Science Fiction and the Prediction
of the Future, ed. Gary WestFahl, Wong Kin Yuen and Amy
Kit-Sze Chan(North Carolina: McFarland
& Company, 2011), 41.
7. Leinster, “A
Logic Named Joe”
8. Kirk Hampton and Carol Mackay “The Internet and the Anagogical Myths
of Science Fiction”
9. Leinster, “A
Logic Named Joe”
10. Ibid.
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