Movies mirror the time they were made. [ErnieTech] asserts that we can see what people thought about computers back in 1957 by watching the classic Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn movie “Desk Set.” What’s more, he thinks this might be the first movie appearance of a human-like computer. On a side note, in the UK this movie was known as “The Other Woman.”
The story is about an MIT computer expert computerizing a broadcasting company who, of course, finds romance and, at least towards the end, comedy.
Of course, we are interested in the computer. It was supposedly an IBM machine and while IBM apparently provided some equipment (probably typewriters and tape drives), the computer is clearly just a ton of light bulbs. It was named Emmie, which was a nickname for EMERAC. Oddly enough, it was like a modern web search engine or chatbot, answering random research questions. The difference is they had fed all the world’s knowledge into it themselves using punched cards.
The video has spoilers, but for a movie made in 1957, that’s not really an issue. The ending is pretty predictable, anyway. Like many people in 1957, there was a fear that “computers were going to take all our jobs!” [Ernie] makes the point that this was a common trope where the computer would run the Enterprise company and then made a big mistake, and everyone realized we still needed humans. EMERAC later guest-starred in the movie “The Fly.” It was just a background player in the chorus, though.
He also points out that many of the things people thought about the widespread adoption of computers are still true today if you replace computer with AI. Turns out, you still need to know how to reset the system.
[Ernie] did a video about Colossus last month, a topic we also visited last year. One of our favorite fictional computers, though, was more recent from “The Three Body Problem.”
Never heard of this movie, but it may have inspired the Twilight Zone episode “From Agnes, With Love”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Agnes%E2%80%94With_Love
As far as computer-related movies go, I always preferred “Hot Millions,” with Peter Ustinov and Dame Maggie Smith.
I’ll take “A for Andromeda”, based on the book by Fred Hoyle. A BBC serial, but available as a movie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_for_Andromeda
Hello Doug Koehler,
oh a Big thank you for this Tip !
I try to find this film about several years in German it called “Das Millionending”
Seeing this film when i was a child in the 70ths and build “computers” with Lego and Top Secret material from old music tapes.
again a big thank you
joerg8051
This is one of my favorite Xmas movies that’s not an Xmas movie.
Humanities ace in the hole, our secret weapon, is the question ‘Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?”
That’s even a question?
No, no it is not.
Agreed, one of ours too.
That big screen of lights was in so many TV and movie sets or cut-ins.
I commented in the video how much I love the EMERAC set piece. It was in The Invisible Boy, The Fly and Return of the Fly, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (film and series), and so many more.
They weren’t wrong, just a bit early.
The irony is, the cost of the people doesn’t go away once you introduce the automation – it costs both at the same time. The difference is in who’s paying the people.
There will always be a need for someone to feed the dog …
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2022/01/30/future-factory/
Another computer with blinky lights (as they ‘should’ have!) . Just something about it suggests ‘thinking’ (even though it isn’t). I think that is why I really enjoy my PiDP front panels in my office. Make my RPIs appear they are ‘doing’ something. Sort of comforting and relaxing to walk in and see all the computers blinking :) .
This is what I remember as a kid going to the state fair.
Televac 86000
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tspauld/3880607548
The funny thing is those things only died out around 2000, though I suspect they went from the big carnivals down to the small ones. It was also interesting watching the demise of the rooms full of 9 track tape machines in movies, long after 9 track tape was obsolete.
In the context of our current A.I. fixation, EMERAC was more of a time-travel machine than a computer