In today’s episode in our series on the history of thinking about thinking machines, David and Shannon discuss Isaac Asimov’s 1955 short story ‘Franchise’, which imagines the American presidential election of 2008 as decided by one voter and a giant computer. Part prophecy, part parody: have either its predictions or its warnings about democracy come true? How does the power of technology shape contemporary politics? And why was Asimov’s vision of the future so reactionary?

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Next time: Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

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Virgil Ziegler-Hill

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