Hundreds of boring and repetitive jobs have been taken over by computers. They don't suffer from eye strain and they don't need holidays or sick leave. What's more they do exactly what you tell them to usually.
During the fifties Time Magazine had a computer to deal with their subscription renewals.
The computer was programmed to address and frank the renewal notices. It had on file the names and addresses of all the subscribers, and how much postage was required in each case.
Another machine was linked to the computer. It sorted all these letters into bundles by area.
No human was needed in this operation and the 300,000 letters (addresses, franked and sorted) were stacked in neat piles ready to be bundled into mail bags and taken to the post office.
Nobody realized anything was wrong until Mr. Albert Able of Alberta in Canada woke up one morning to find five postmen, each carrying three bulging mail bags, standing in front of his door. The computer had got stuck on the first record and sent every letter to him.
He completed one of the renewal forms, but asked for only one copy per week of Time magazine.
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