New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future

by James Bridle

Programming Hippo took almost a year, and when it was ready it was run continuously on the SSEC, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for several months. The result of the calculations was at least three full simulations of a hydrogen bomb explosion: calculations carried out in full view of the public, in a shopfront in New York City, without anyone on the street being even slightly aware of what was going on. The first full-scale American thermonuclear test based on the Hippo calculations was carried out in 1952; today, all the major nuclear powers possess hydrogen bombs. Computational thinking – violent, destructive, and unimaginably costly, in terms of both money and human cognitive activity – slipped out of view. It became unquestioned and unquestionable, and as such it has endured.