Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
view of an IBM showroom, which then closes to a tight shot of a single
machine bearing the IBM logo. The equipment on the set was provided
by IBM, and the credits at the end of the fi lm—in which an acknowledg-
ment of IBM's involvement and assistance features prominently—appear
as if printed on an IBM machine. IBM also supplied equipment operators
and training.
The IBM Corporation's involvement with
Desk Set
was more than an
early example of opportunistic product placement. Underneath the trap-
pings of a lighthearted comedy,
Desk Set
was the fi rst fi lm of its era to
deal seriously with the organizational and professional implications of
the electronic computer. In the midst of the general enthusiasm that
characterized popular coverage of the computer in this period crept hints
of unease about the possibility of electronic brains displacing humans in
domains previously thought to have been free from the threat of mecha-
nization. In 1949 the computer consultant Edmund Berkeley, in the fi rst
popular topic devoted to the electronic computer, had dubbed them
“Giant Brains; or, Machines That Think.” The giant brain metaphor
suggested a potential confl ict between human and machine—a confl ict
that was picked up by the popular press. “Can Man Build a Superman?”
Time
magazine asked in a cover story in 1950 on the Harvard Mark III
computer.
1
More pressingly, asked
Colliers
magazine a few years later,
“Can a Mechanical Brain Replace You?”
2
Probably it could, concluded
Fortune
magazine, at least if you worked in an offi ce, where “offi ce
robots” were poised to “eliminate the human element.”
3
IBM's participa-
tion in production of
Desk Set
can only be understood in terms of its
ongoing efforts, which started in the early 1950s, to reassure the public
that despite rumors to the contrary, computers were not poised “to take
over the world's affairs from the human inhabitants.”
4
Seen as a maneuver in this larger public relations campaign,
Desk Set
was an unalloyed triumph for IBM.
5
The fi lm is unambiguously positive
about the electronic computer. The idea that human beings might ever
be replaced by machines is represented as amusingly naive. Sumner's
Electronic-Magnetic Memory and Research Arithmetic Calculator
(EMERAC) is clearly no threat to Watson's commanding personality and
effi ciency. In fact, “Emmy” turns out to be charmingly simpleminded.
When a technician mistakenly asks the computer for information on the
Island “Curfew” (as opposed to Corfu), Emmy goes amusingly haywire.
Fortunately, she could easily be put right using only a bobby pin, judi-
ciously applied. The reassuring message was that computers were useful
but dimwitted servants, and unlikely masters. As one reviewer described
