877
The problem is older than I thought... (thelemmy.club)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/iiiiiiitttttttttttt@programming.dev
87 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I guess now we finally know why Babbage never finished building the Analytical Engine.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 10 points 10 months ago* (2 children)

Yeah but calculator back then was a profession. So if suddenly a machine can replace a complete profession it's at least conprehensible to assume it can do more than it actually can. It's basically the same with AI right now. There is this "overshoot" of what is expected from a new paradigm shifting technology. Similar to how people 100 years ago thought there will be flying cars by now.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 7 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Helicopters are flying cars.

    It is possible that the question was intended to be about human error checking prior to starting the process of calculating, like noticing a lack of a decimal on a monetary number in a data set, and Babbage misunderstood. That would be a valid question, but isn't how the quote is phrased.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •