Employment selection before AI – Popular Mechanics Oct 1953
Toronto. In the early 1950s we were blessed with very costly and very crude computers (and little idea of how they could be used). A decade later, massive ‘mechanization’ projects were underway to use computers to do the work of clerks doing routine tasks – like preparing and printing telephone bills.
Another example was a ‘robot psychologist’ to match employees with jobs based on their perceived skill set. This 1953 article discovered by George Dunbar in his diligent pursuit of photographic history shows how photography was the preeminent recorder of history.
The article shows the American Army finding ‘the right men for the right jobs’. Photography helped illustrate the gigantic control centre of the computer with what is now deemed a ‘tiny brain’ – 32 kilobytes or less …
The title of this post is a riff on a 1960s song by a rather gross band. The song is, “Jim Dandy to the Rescue” by the Black Oak Arkansas.
