author
Edmund Callis Berkeley
1909–1988
A lively early champion of computing, he helped introduce the public to the idea that machines could “think” long before computers became everyday tools. He also co-founded the Association for Computing Machinery and wrote with unusual clarity about the promises and risks of the computer age.
1 Audiobook
Giant brains; or, Machines that think
by Edmund Callis Berkeley
About the author
Born in New York City in 1909, Edmund Callis Berkeley became one of the early public voices of computing. He is best known for his 1949 book Giant Brains, or Machines That Think, which explained emerging computers to general readers at a time when the field was still new and mysterious.
Berkeley was a co-founder of the Association for Computing Machinery in 1947, helping shape a professional home for the new discipline. He also worked as an editor and publisher, using magazines and books to make technical ideas accessible and to encourage wider discussion about how computers might change everyday life.
His interests reached beyond technology alone. Berkeley is also remembered for his concern about the social consequences of science and for his activism aimed at reducing the danger of nuclear war. He died in 1988, leaving behind a body of writing that captured both the excitement and the responsibility of the early computer era.