Giant brains; or, Machines that think

"Giant Brains; or, Machines That Think" by Edmund Callis Berkeley is a book takes you back to the early days of computers, showing how these machines were starting to be seen as capable of "thinking" like humans. It talks about different kinds of computers and how they were helping to make knowledge progress faster and also looks at what this might mean for the world. From the beginning, the author explains that he's writing about the arrival of machines that can do really hard math and think in complex ways. He introduces the idea of "mechanical brains," explaining how they can handle information faster and better than people can. The start of the book prepares the reader to dive into the details of how these machines were built, what thinking really means, and what the future might hold for intelligent machines.