Multivac

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Multivac is a fictional supercomputer appearing in over a dozen science fiction stories by American writer Isaac Asimov. Asimov's depiction of Multivac, a mainframe computer accessible by terminal, originally by specialists using machine code and later by any user, and used for directing the global economy and humanity's development, has been seen as the defining conceptualization of the genre of computers for the period (1950s–1960s). Multivac has been described as the direct ancestor of HAL 9000.

Description

Like most of the technologies Asimov describes in his fiction, Multivac's exact specifications vary among appearances. In all cases, it is a government-run computer that answers questions posed using natural language,

Robot series, Multivac's early interface is mechanized and impersonal, consisting of complex command consoles few humans can operate.[3] In "The Last Question", Multivac is shown as having a life of many thousands of years, growing ever more enormous with each section of the story, which can explain its different reported sizes as occurring further down the internal timeline of the overarching story.[4]
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Storylines

Multivac appeared in over a dozen science fiction stories by American writer Isaac Asimov, some of which have entered the popular imagination.[5][6][7] In the early Multivac story, "Franchise", Multivac chooses a single "most representative" person from the population of the United States, whom the computer then interrogates to determine the country's overall orientation. All elected offices are then filled by the candidates the computer calculates as acceptable to the populace. Asimov wrote this story as the logical culmination – and/or possibly the reductio ad absurdum – of UNIVAC's ability to forecast election results from small samples.[8][9]

In possibly the most famous Multivac story, "

hyperspace) has collected all the data it can, and so poses the question to itself. As the universe died, Cosmic AC drew all of humanity into hyperspace in order to preserve them until it could finally answer the Last Question. Ultimately, Cosmic AC did decipher the answer, announcing "Let there be light!" and essentially ascending to the state of the God of the Old Testament.[10] Asimov claimed this to be the favorite of his stories.[11]

In "All the Troubles of the World", the version of Multivac depicted reveals a very unexpected problem. Having had the weight of the whole of humanity's problems on its figurative shoulders for ages it has grown tired, and it sets plans in motion to cause its own death.[12]

Significance

Asimov's depiction of Multivac has been seen as the defining conceptualization of the genre of computers for the period, just as his development of

AI control terms, Multivac has been described as both an "oracle" and a "nanny".[19]

Bibliography

Asimov's stories featuring Multivac:

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Halbert, Martin (1992). "Recursive Reviews" (PDF). The Public-Access Computer Systems Review. 3: 21–28.
  2. OCLC 4491369
    . Univac is an acronym for 'Universal Automatic Computer' but I somehow got it into my head, without thinking, that it meant 'uni-vac', or 'one vacuum tube.' From then on, I wrote a series of stories featuring a giant computer I called 'Multivac.'
  3. ^
    OCLC 1038746131
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  4. OCLC 671558424
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  5. OCLC 668182916
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  6. OCLC 254106640
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  7. ISBN 978-3-642-32377-5
  8. ^ a b "Voters can be influenced by voter advice websites, but they do not follow the guidance blindly". Democratic Audit. May 8, 2014. Retrieved August 11, 2020.
  9. ^ a b "Data-driven democracy: Who decides?". aecpa.es (in European Spanish). Retrieved August 11, 2020.
  10. ISBN 978-1-4939-0617-8
  11. ^ Seiler, Edward (July 11, 2014). "Frequently Asked Questions about Isaac Asimov". Asimov Online. Of his own work, what were Asimov's favorite and least favorite novels? What were his favorite and least favorite stories?
  12. ^
    OCLC 882543352
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  13. OCLC 5831667
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  14. ^ "About MultiVAX".
  15. ^ Sanderson, Donald (2004). "Using Science Fiction to Teach Computer Science". Proc. WWW@10. Terra Haute, IN, 9/30-10/1/2004.
  16. ^ Cowen, Tyler. "The Robots Are Here". POLITICO Magazine. Retrieved August 11, 2020.
  17. OCLC 1048936923
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  18. OCLC 1038496399
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  19. OCLC 1126214981
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  20. ^ Jenkins, John H. "Question". Asimov Reviews.
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