Computing: A Logic Named Joe

Yesterday's class discussion focused on one of the problems with computing, what it can and cannot do. What is or is not computable. The decide and undecidable. As explained in David Harel's book, Computers ltd., (works best with firefox) there are simply some problems that computers and humans cannot solve. For example, the tile, verification, and halting problems.

William Fitzgerald Jenkins (aka Murray Leinster) brought up another problem with nearly infinite computing power, several decades before homes had computers in them. The problem? What happens when people suddenly gain logical access to all the information in the world? What do they solve and what do they create?

"A Logic Named Joe", is a short science fiction story written for Astounding Science that accurately describes a seemingly modern world filled with logics, a sort of personal computer.

Robert Franson explored some of the ideas introduced:

Desktop ideas:

• Desktop computers in virtually all homes & businesses
• Keyboards and vision screens
• Local logic processing
• Ordinary-language interface (not programming)
• Interactive customizable software
    

Internet ideas:

• Internet access from your desktop
• Country-wide networked databases (including video) on all topics
• Networked accounting software 
• Television shows on desktop computers
• Real-time weather forecasts, stock quotes, etc.
• Real-time Internet personal telephony and televideo 
• Private Internet addresses / phone numbers (coded or secret)
• Auto-censorship of adult content for children
• Auto-censorship of criminally-slanted queries
• On-screen service help
• Service-flash announcements upon individual log-in
• Online access to network maintenance personnel
• Central software upload & modify from desktop computers
• Central software infect from desktop computers
• Automatic customizing software
• Coin-operated Internet access in restaurants

Zed also explores some of the insights found in "A Logic Named Joe":

 You know the logics setup. You got a logic in your house. It looks like a vision receiver used to, only it's got keys instead of dials and you punch the keys for what you wanna get. It's hooked in to the tank, which has the Carson Circuit all fixed up with relays. 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 an' 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 mistress of the White House durin' 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 telecasts that ever was made--an' it's hooked in with all the other tanks all over the country--an' everything you wanna know or see or hear, you punch for it an' you get it. Very convenient. Also it does math for you, an' keeps books, an' acts as consultin' chemist, physicist, astronomer, an' tea-leaf reader, with a "Advice to the Lovelorn" thrown in. [...]In the nineteen hundreds a man would have to make use of a typewriter, radio, telephone, teletypewriter, newspaper, reference library, encyclopedias, office files, directories, plus messenger service and consulting lawyers, chemists, doctors, dieticians, filing clerks, secretaries--all to put down what he wanted to remember an' to tell him what other people had put down that he wanted to know; to report what he said to somebody else and to report to him what they said back. All we have to have is logics. Anything we want to know or see or hear, or anybody we want to talk to, we punch keys on a logic.

Web filters:

But the guy goes over. He punches keys. In theory, a censor block is gonna come on an' the screen will say severely, "Public Policy Forbids This Service." You hafta have censor blocks or the kiddies will be askin' detailed questions about things they're too young to know.

Online porn (sort of):

None of my kids are old enough to be int'rested, but Joe bypassed all censor-circuits because they hampered the service he figured logics should give humanity. So the kids an' teen-agers who wanted to know what comes after the bees an' flowers found out.

The potential privacy consequences of everyone doing everything online:

My wife calls me at Maintenance and hollers. She is fit to be tied. She says I got to do something. She was gonna make a call to the butcher shop. Instead of the butcher or even the "If you want to do something" flash, she got a new one. The screen says, "Service question: What is your name?" She is kinda puzzled, but she punches it. The screen sputters an' then says: "Secretarial Service Demonstration! You--" It reels off her name, address, age, sex, coloring, the amounts of all her charge accounts in all the stores, my name as her husband, how much I get a week, the fact that I've been pinched three times--twice was traffic stuff, and once for a argument I got in with a guy--and the interestin' item that once when she was mad with me she left me for three weeks an' had her address changed to her folks' home. Then it says, brisk: "Logics Service will hereafter keep your personal accounts, take messages, and locate persons you may wish to get in touch with. This demonstration is to introduce the service." Then it connects her with the butcher.But she don't want meat, then. She wants blood. She calls me."If it'll tell me all about myself," she says, fairly boilin', "it'll tell anybody else who punches my name! You've got to stop it!"

and the consequences of the Net going down:

"Shut down the tank?" he says, mirthless. "Does it occur to you, fella, that the tank has been doin' all the computin' for every business office for years? It's been handlin' the distribution of ninety-four per cent of all telecast programs, has given out all information on weather, plane schedules, special sales, employment opportunities and news; has handled all person-to-person contacts over wires and recorded every business conversation and agreement-- Listen, fella! Logics changed civilization. Logics are civilization! If we shut off logics, we go back to a kind of civilization we have forgotten how to run!"

The whole problem with Joe is that he changes the accessibility of information. Suddenly everyone is able to see all the information in the world, and more importantly the "logics" use this access to answer any question typed into their terminal. So following human nature people begin to ask the purely self interested questions and the world begins to dissolve, until Joe, who was allowing the access, is taken offline.  Many people see our modern internet as filled with the same problems, people using it for malicious reasons. But look closer at that last phrase, it contains the real problem, "PEOPLE using it". The problem is not inherit in the system rather it is how we use it that controls its relation to our world. For example, Facebook is not evil, rather some of the people who use it are. But what are we willing to do about it? Do we take Facebook "offline"? Will that really solve the whole problem? Or will people still try and harm each other? Guaranteed the problems of Joe's world didn't end just because he was no longer a part of it. The problems persisted, simply not as quickly as before. "You might say I saved civilization an' not be far wrong" or you might be really wrong....