IBM Faces DOGE Questions?
February 17, 2025
Simon Willison reminded us of the famous IBM internal training document that reads: “A Computer Can Never Be Held Accountable.” The document is also relevant for AI algorithms. Unfortunately the document has a mysterious history and the IBM Corporate Archives don’t have a copy of the presentation. A Twitter user with the name @bumblebike posted the original image. He said he found it when he went through his father’s papers. Unfortunately, the presentation with the legendary statement was destroyed in a 2019 flood.
I believe the image was first shared online in this tweet by @bumblebike in February 2017. Here’s where they confirm it was from 1979 internal training.
Here’s another tweet from @bumblebike from December 2021 about the flood:
Unfortunately destroyed by flood in 2019 with most of my things. Inquired at the retirees club zoom last week, but there’s almost no one the right age left. Not sure where else to ask.”
We don’t need the actual IBM document to know that IBM hasn’t done well when it comes to search. IBM, like most firms tried and sort of fizzled. (Remember Data Fountain or CLEVER?) IBM also moved into content management. Yep, the semi-Xerox, semi-information thing. But the good news is that a time sharing solution called Watson is doing pretty well. It’s not winning Jeopardy! but it is chugging along.
Now IBM professionals in DC have to answer the Doge nerd squad questions? Why not give OpenAI a whirl? The old Jeopardy! winner is kicking back. Doge wants to know.
Whitney Grace, February 17, 2025
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