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WITH THE ADVENT of the computer and the dawn of the space race, the sixties brought futuristic visions of life to the mainstream consciousness. The Soviet satellite Sputnik had led to the formation of NASA to oversee America’s space program. In prime time on ABC, Americans could tune in to catch the animated cartoon The Jetsons, about a space-age family who lived with their housekeeping robot, Rosie, and dog, Astro. A couple of years later, Desilu, I Love Lucy’s production company, premiered Star Trek on CBS. Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey had a near-omniscient computer named Hal manipulating its astronauts. By the midsixties, the concepts of artificial intelligence and self-driving cars were no longer in the realm of magic or science fiction—they were seen as the logical, inevitable outcome of the American trajectory.
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