Tron

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THAT OTHER WORLD is vast too; to its inhabitants, their System is limitless.

The Electronic World enmeshes the Earth, and reaches beyond it. Information is moved through the computer systems and processed by the artificial intelligences. The programs compute and search, retrieve and collate; they are already indispensable to science, industry, education, and government—to society in its present form.

The programs challenge and entertain in videogames, with no risk of harm to their human Users; they teach in the carrels and test in the classrooms. They evaluate and mediate; their word is often final. Their World is vast; their Users know less of it than the Users suppose.

The programs are only algorithms as human beings are only collections of chemicals.

The two, boy and girl, stood before the garishly painted machine, its screen showing them lively mosaics of light in bright colors. They played the videogame expertly, sharp and shrewd and quick; picking up the knack of the games was fun, but it demanded an application of self amounting to diligent work. On the screen, computer-modeled figures warred, throwing disks of devastating power at each other…

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