Author: Isaac Asimov
Biography
Isaac Asimov was born in Petrovichi, Russia, in 1920, however his family immigrated to the United States when he was just 3 years old. Asimov taught himself how to read before his first year of school and soon began to read science fiction pulp magazines. At the age of eleven he was writing his own stories, and at the age of nineteen he had started to sell them to science fiction magazines. Upon finishing high school, Asimov went to Columbia University where he studied chemistry and received his Master’s degree. He then worked for the U.S. Naval Air Experimental Station during the last three years of the war and eventually received his draft notice at the end of the war in 1945. He served for 8 months and 26 days as a corporal. A few years after his return he received his PhD in biochemistry. He was then hired as an associate professor of biochemistry at Boston University School of Medecine, however, he did not enjoy the research very much and focused much of his time on writing.
During his lifetime, Asimov authored nearly 500 books, including his famous collection of short robot stories titled “I, Robot” and his “Foundation” trilogy. Asimov kept writing until his death in 1992.
Symbol
If we allow our decisions and thoughts to be decided by someone or something else, we will slowly lose our own ability to think for ourselves and eventually become as useful to society as a mindless zombie who has no mouth. This symbolizes the direction the human race could have gone if they kept allowing Multivac to control everything which they do.
Response
2. What evidence from the story tells you that Ben and the other characters see Multivac as a kind of god? What effect does their view have on the story's ending?
Ben and the other characters have complete faith in Multivac, the thought of questioning the super-computer’s answers not even crossing their minds. When Joe Manners is placed under house arrest none of his own family dare say that Multivac has made a mistake. They have grown up knowing that Multivac is always right; just as one is raised to know that their god always holds the correct answer. Because nearly all the characters pour their complete faith into Multivac’s intelligence, as the readers we start to feel Multivac is nearly a god in this futuristic world. Suddenly when we learn of Multivac’s want to be a mortal and die, it catches us off guard and sticks with us.
3. What does the ending suggest about the ability of technology to bring about a perfect world?
It suggests that technology is unable to bring about a perfect world. I agree that we should not and will not ever be able to fully rely on technology to provide us with all the answers of how to live our lives and run the world. For a computer to make conclusions on how humans operate in economics and society and ultimately find answers to how the world should be operated, it would have to understand human emotions. In order to understand these emotions it would most likely have to be able to feel these emotions to some extent. If a computer felt emotions it would most likely be or would become aware of its presence, which is often deemed as the test if something is truly a sentient, conscious being. Although, this would be an incredible feat, it would be likely the computer being would start to have its own wants, just as Multivac did, and this would conflict with its performance. On the other hand, if you restrained the computer from gaining consciousness, it would likely not be able to predict the things the conscious computer could. Therefore, there is no way of fully relying on technology for our answers; we will not be able to create anything more complex than ourselves.
4. Would you like to live in a society in which there was a computer such as Multivac? How might it help/hinder the progress of society? Discuss.
I would not like to live in a society where there is a super-computer such as Multivac because it takes away people’s ability to think for themselves, understand why things happen, and how to fix those things that are not wanted to happen. It is similar to how absolute faith in a god can cause people to not worry over why things happen or how to solve them because they know/believe that their god will take care of all problems for them as long as they remain faithful. A super-computer such as Multivac would most likely help society very much when concerning stopping crime, discovering new things in science, and running economies and politics. However, the super-computer would very much hinder the development of the human mind, faith in ourselves, and our abilities to work with one another, instead of working with computers. If the super-computer should ever fail, we would be stuck, our minds used to having logic fed to us, and we would have likely forgotten what we can do on our own. If we decided we need not rely on such computers, and continued to educate ourselves and work together, I believe we would get much farther in regards to gaining more knowledge and building a stronger safer society.
5. What do you believe the world of 2100 will be like? Write your response, using evidence from the future planning of today to support your ideas. Share your description with others.
I believe the world of 2100 will still have too much of our faith invested in technology. Instead of simply reducing our carbon emissions, our governments and corporations will have tried to develop technologies to capture the carbon and compensate for what we have been producing. We will be reactive rather than proactive. We will still be buried in our luxuries so deep that we won’t see the growing deserts which surround us and instead of making drastic changes to the way we live, we will adapt to the new climates with our technology. If it starts to get too hot, we will develop technologies to keep us cool. If the sea level rises, we will use technology to build us higher. If our resources decline, we will find a way to synthesize them. This is the way our world appears to be going. Our world leaders are non-committal to any carbon cutbacks, and if we stay on this path we will be well on our way to making the future a perfect match to the prediction in the past few sentences.
Critical Thinking
i) Why do you think the author wrote the text?
I think the author wrote this story to remind people that complete faith in one being is dangerous. No living being is perfect, and therefore if we lay our full trust in one being, we may find ourselves blindly following one of its mistakes and this could cost us dearly. In the story “All the Troubles of the World,” nearly all of society has blind faith in Multivac, the supercomputer which runs the world’s economy, justice system, and many other things. Multivac, however, develops emotions, which impede its performance. With all the burdens of humanity on its “shoulders,” it gets tired and wants to die. Because the humans have complete faith in this super-being, they do not question its orders, and nearly aid the computer in its attempted suicide.
ii) What does the author want you to think?
The author wants us to think, because it is dangerous to have complete faith in one being, we should put more responsibility in the hands of everyone, and realize that together, with 6 billion brains contributing to ideas, we will be better than any super-computer possible.
iii) Do you belong to any of the groups in the text?
I belong to the group of nearly everyone in the story. This group includes nearly, if not, every character, because all of them put their full trust into Multi-vac and do not know how it operates, or really what it is. Similarly, most things which I use in my life I do not understand how or why they work however, I trust my life with and base my life off of most of them. For example, I do not understand how my computer works, why most of the math equations I use work, how the car which drives me to places I need to go works, or even how my own body works. Hopefully as I gain more experiences and have more time to learn in my life, I will understand some of these things better, however, for now I must say that I am about as knowledgeable on most things in my life as most people (in the story and in real life) are about super-computers.
iv) Does the story remind you of a real-life event (your own or others)?
The story reminds me of how many people, put a large amount of faith in one media station to provide them with all their news. For example, many people receive all their national and international news from FOX News. Although FOX may cover some good stories, they are not perfect and could (and do) give misleading stories. When FOX does make a mistake, the people who rely on FOX for all their current information, will be misinformed and they could live the rest of their lives bathing in false information.
v) Does the story remind you of another book or movie on a similar topic?
They story reminds me of a novel called “A Wrinkle in Time.” This novel, similarly to “All the Troubles of the World,” has a super-computer run the whole society, however, the super-computer, in this case, purposely controls people and forces the people to have complete faith in it. Although the computer in “A Wrinkle in Time” was nearly the exact opposite of the super computer in “All the Troubles of the World,” the stories still remind me of each other because in both stories the computers develop human-like emotions and, as a result, their actions are ones that are very-human like. We know humans are capable of being kind and trying to help each other, and we know humans can be greedy and go to extreme measures for power. The computers from the stories each display one of these characteristics, and therefore, I feel because of their emotion, they are very human-like and are not much, if at all, more advanced than humans.
vi) How does the story help you think about social issues and social justice?
The story helps me think about many people’s lack of desire to question what does not make sense to them. Nearly all the characters in this story have complete faith and trust in the super-computer, Multi-vac, and they have come to believe that Multi-vac is a flawless, perfect being. Therefore, the characters do whatever Multi-vac instructs them, knowing that Multi-vac will not fail them. This reminds me of how many people in the real world follow the instructions of their religion or the news from their main media sources without question. Most of the time, there is no negative effects of blind faith in religion or the media, because most religions have very good principles and the media usually gives accurate information. However, since nothing/no being is perfect, there will always be flaws in things, and this includes religions, the media, and super-computers. If people blindly follow anything or anyone, they are bound to get caught up or lost in one of these flaws and it could end up costing them dearly, like it nearly did to Ben Manners in the story, “All the Troubles of the World.”
vii) What action might you take from what you have learned?
I will try to continue to improve on always questioning things which I do not understand, and questioning people whose ideas I do not understand. I realize that there are times that certain questions which might be floating through my head may not always be appropriate, but nevertheless, I will try to find the times which are, and question as much as I can.
viii) What big question has this text left you with?
How much of what I know, can I lay my full trust in?
No comments:
Post a Comment