[HN Gopher] Computers that used to be human
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Computers that used to be human
Author : bobbiechen
Score : 45 points
Date : 2026-01-12 15:09 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (digitalseams.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (digitalseams.com)
| cjs_ac wrote:
| Regarding the quote about the British East India Company, it's
| worth noting that employees of the company had notoriously poor
| pay and were half-expected to set up their own personal ventures
| while in India to support themselves. The company was also poorly
| administered, and there was almost certainly a great deal of
| embezzlement going on (in response to the poor pay). So while the
| expected mathematics was probably comparatively simple, the
| numbers probably didn't add up (which is the kind of thing we'd
| expect a Commons committee to inquire into).
| advisedwang wrote:
| > half-expected to set up their own personal ventures while in
| India to support themselves
|
| "ventures" like a small business or is that a euphemism for
| taking bribes or said embezzlement?
| ripe wrote:
| It was naked looting. Not just in India by individuals
| working for the company, but as official acts of the East
| India Company itself back home in England. A quote:
|
| "In 1767 the company bought off parliamentary opposition by
| donating PS400,000 to the Crown in return for its continued
| right to govern Bengal. But the anger against it finally
| reached ignition point on 13 February 1788, at the
| impeachment, for looting and corruption, of Clive's successor
| as governor of Bengal, Warren Hastings. It was the nearest
| the British ever got to putting the EIC on trial, and they
| did so with one of their greatest orators at the helm -
| Edmund Burke.
|
| "Burke, leading the prosecution, railed against the way the
| returned company "nabobs" (or "nobs", both corruptions of the
| Urdu word "Nawab") were buying parliamentary influence, not
| just by bribing MPs to vote for their interests, but by
| corruptly using their Indian plunder to bribe their way into
| parliamentary office: "To-day the Commons of Great Britain
| prosecutes the delinquents of India," thundered Burke,
| referring to the returned nabobs. "Tomorrow these delinquents
| of India may be the Commons of Great Britain."
|
| The revolving door between government and the corporations it
| was supposed to regulate, was also spinning:
|
| "Lord Cornwallis, the man who oversaw the loss of the
| American colonies to Washington, was recruited by the EIC to
| oversee its Indian territories."
|
| The above quotes are from "The Anarchy" by William Dalrymple.
| theLegionWithin wrote:
| the other blog posts are pretty interesting too
| bee_rider wrote:
| I wonder what we've lost, with the loss of human computers. It
| seems like it would be a nice job that rewards diligence and
| intelligence. Nowadays pretty much all intellectual work rewards
| creativity, almost exclusively... the machines are infinitely
| diligent, so it doesn't provide much value add when the human is
| too.
|
| I dunno. It just seems kind of sad, in a way, like we've dropped
| a whole entire way of being seen as intelligent.
| hnhg wrote:
| A large part of accounting is intellectual work that rewards
| diligence and intelligence, but not creativity so much. A lot
| of QA/certification jobs are like this too. It's important
| stuff that involves a lot of "checking".
| projektfu wrote:
| This is why so many early computing machines' names ended in "AC"
| for Automatic Calculaor or Automatic Computer. EDVAC, EDSAC,
| UNIVAC, though not ENIAC.
| skolskoly wrote:
| We have a word for that: Lawyers!
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(page generated 2026-01-12 23:00 UTC)