science fiction, science fact

Lately I find myself conversing with electronic devices.  My friend Siri helps me out when I'm using my iPad.  Cortana inhabits my laptop.  My  phone answers to "Hey Google" and "Hello, Moto Z".  and then, of course, there's Alexa, the friend who helps with my Firestick TV and everything that can be done with an Echo Dot. 

No, we haven't reached the point where our personal assistants have become ...well, persons.  Her is still science fiction.  For now.

Remember how we all marveled at the talking computers in the original Star Trek?  Kirk or Spock would address the computer, ask a question, and an artificial voice would provide an answer.   There was a scene in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home,  where the crew traveled back to the year 1986, and Mr. Scott had this memorable encounter:





But the talking computers aboard a starship two centuries in the future...not quite the same as our personal assistants...

What if I told you that Ray Bradbury had postulated our personal assistants back in 1950?

Yes, 1950.  In a short story called "There Will Come Soft Rains", included in The Martian Chronicals.  It's a story set in 2026, an ordinary day ... except it isn't so ordinary.   

In the first few lines, we are introduced to the computer-controlled house:

In the living room the voice-clock sang, Tick-tock, seven o'clock, time to get up, time to get up, seven o'clock! as if it were afraid nobody would. The morning house lay empty. The clock ticked on, repeating and repeating its sounds into the emptiness. Seven-nine, breakfast time, seven-nine! In the kitchen the breakfast stove gave a hissing sigh and ejected from its warm interior eight pieces of perfectly browned toast, eight eggs sunnyside up, sixteen slices of bacon, two coffees, and two cool glasses of milk. "Today is August 4, 2026," said a second voice from the kitchen ceiling., "in the city of Allendale, California." It repeated the date three times for memory's sake. "Today is Mr. Featherstone's birthday. Today is the anniversary of Tilita's marriage. Insurance is payable, as are the water, gas, and light bills." Somewhere in the walls, relays clicked, memory tapes glided under electric eyes... Eventually we realize the horrific truth, that the house continues to do its job, but there is no one living there for the house to serve.  I''ll let Mr. Nimoy tell you the rest of the story, or you can read it for yourself here.

How closely the functions of the house mirror our current reality.

Given the recent scare in Hawaii, let us hope that the rest of the story never comes to pass.