The Machine that Won the War
Literature and your Life
Reader’s Response: What was your opinion of Multivac as you read the story?
More than a machine that fought War, it was a symbol of peace and hope. With this in mind having an opinion about a non living, non reasoning thing is complex. But Multivac’s purpose at first was to fight and end the inminente war, the three men should’ve paid more attention to the reliability of the machine.
Thematic Focus: Name one way Asimov’s vision of the future matches what you know about the present.
Asimov thought that the future would be full of extremely advanced technology that could reach places out of Earth. Meaning that the universe would have more life, and unfortunately also disputes. In the present day, humans are still trying to explore planets and other astral bodies outside the planet, but are limited to the conflicts within the planet itself.
Check your Comprehension
What is the reason for the celebration at the opening of the story? Why is Multivac seen as a hero?
Earth had apparently won a type of interstellar war, or where in temporal peace after a period of intense conflict and fire. Multivac was a machine often depicted as superior to the human race, since he had the ability of directly attacking or defending the population.
What does each man reveal about his wartime activities?
Apparently, the machine had been working with unreliable information during the last half of the war. All of the results and decisions regarding production capacity, manpower and resource potential were taken by men.
What is the primitive computing device that Swift used?
A coin determined the solution to hard decisions (Flipping the coin).
Critical Thinking
Why do the three men decide to make their confessions?
Since war is over, there are almost no risks regarding the population's effects on the machine. In addition the credit is being given only to the machine, but not the ones that programmed it.
Compare and contrast the jobs of the three men.
Henderson Chief Programmer had direct interaction with the information received from the computers
Jablonsky and Swift were both technicians, but the latter didn’t trust machines and was in charge of the war’s effort.
Suppose Henderson and Jablonsky had been able to do their jobs properly. Would the outcome of the war have been different?
There isn’t a simple answer, as the decisions taken by Henderson were based on experience and intuition. The machine’s decision could’ve been on other type of information that maybe didn’t evaluate all possible outcomes from different perspectives.
In what way was Multivac Responsible for winning the War?
He wasn’t necessarily the greatest autonomous weapon of the period, but had the possibility of fighting with whatever force was their enemy and giving a sense of hope and figure for the people.
How do the activities of humans, rather than machines, affect Henderson’s decisions?
Human’s decisions are based on emotion, the machine’s activities are based on information form a computer with only basic reasoning and logic.
Reading Strategy
Asimov’s future work includes a vastly expanded space program in which computers play important roles. Find a detail that proves this.
“They’ll be no menace now, ever again…. Thanks to Multivac”
“... The silent depths of Multivac’s underground chambers, it hung from the air”
In Asimov’s future world, people have many of the same faults and failings that they have now. Identify 2 ideas that show this.
Yet I presume you provided Multivac with data in your programming. You said nothing to us about unreliability."
"How could I tell you? And if I did, how could you afford to believe
me?" demand
"Intuition, I presume. I juggled them till they looked right. At first,I hardly dared, I changed a bit here and there to correct what were obvious impossibilities. When the sky didn't collapse about us, I got braver.
Toward the end, I scarcely cared. I just wrote out the necessary data as it was needed. I even had the Multivac Annex prepare data for me according to a private programming pattern I had devised for the purpose.
What detail does Asimov use to show how the monetary system in his future world is different from the way it is now?
… years before the metal shortage had brought into being a credit system tied to a computer complex.
Build Vocabulary
Circumnavigate: move around or navigate in circles
Circumference: distance around something
Circumstance: condition of fact sorrow ding certain event
Circumscribe; draw a line or put limit
Erratic (b) random
Grisly (.C) horrifying
Imperturbable (a) unexcitable
Oracle (a) wise person
Surcease (c.) an end
Subsidiary (c.) secondary
Circumvent (a) avoid
