For the past couple of years I’ve been comparing where we currently are with Artificial Intelligence with where we were in 1994-1995 with the internet; alternately impressed and scared, dismissive and fascinated, eager to figure out how to use it to give us some kind of advantage we never thought we’d possess, and angry at things that it will replace. But if we go back to the 1980s we might find that the early half of that decade held much the same set of attitudes, confusions, concerns and guarded enthusiasm for the home computer. Above is a 1982 local New York news feature on the coming of the home computer. It features a home set-up that is triggered by a tape recorder as well as suggested use of the Yellow Pages, a large, unwieldy soft-cover book filled with ads and phone numbers that most people thirty or under have likely never heard of. The haircuts, the New York accents, the clumsy banter, is all charming. But what’s most interesting is not how antiquated all of this seems, but how quickly it changed. In a few short years we were all Appled-up, with home printers, Word programs, spread sheets, the whole shmeer. And in another few years we faced-down the darkness of the coming Internet, something that nobody appears to be able to live comfortably without anymore. Twenty or so years from now, some wise-ass like me will be posting material from the 2025/26 era about the beginnings of the public’s response to A.I. A lot of us will look and sound pretty stupid. Some will seem misguidedly negative. Others will seem misguidedly positive. Perhaps A.I. itself will be the thing posting these reminiscences. More than likely, I’d say.