7. A Proposed Automatic Calculating Machine
This was the origin of the "Harvard architecture". This architecture is still essentially used in firmware for embedded systems, but not the general purpose computers and chips we have now.
Some other things stuck out which was what Aiken called the sheer "volume of accounting work".
Thinking about LLMs, if LLMs are good at text based knowledge work, it might not be AGI but can be just as revolutionary in terms of time saving as computational work was, if not more given the sheer amount of knowledge work that goes on in the world.
Not only quantitative, but qualitative leaps did Aiken predict. Computers can enable more calculations, but also the ability to solve problems not attempted because there would have been no way to enable all the calculations. Space flight might be a perfect example.
Author: Howard Hathaway Aiken
Original date: 1937