Sixty years ago, 'metal boxes' threatened to take over jobs. Now it's AI | ABC NEWS
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In March 1968, in a rich, British accent typical of Australian news reporters of the time, Four Corners journalist Jim Downes asked the country: "When this circuit learns your job, what are you going to do?" By "circuit", Mr Downes was referring to the computer — a technological innovation at once revered and feared by a 1960s Australian society already living through massive social, political and cultural change. Mr Downes, a brilliant wordsmith, described computers as "metal boxes of salmon-pink, beige or deep blue, trimmed in stainless steel or aluminium", which "promise or threaten the mind with what the industrial revolution did to the muscles". Subscribe: http://ab.co/1svxLVE Read more here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-01/computer-history-look-back/107093902 Note: In most cases, our captions are auto-generated. #ABCNEWS #ABCNEWSAustralia #ABCNewsSA #retrofocus
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