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I am looking for a story, probably from the early 1950's, about a society that was essentially controlled by a computer. Every person had a plastic cube that contained their history. If one wanted to make a "important" decision, they had to get permission from the computer.

Everything went well for awhile but then became so complex that the computer had a melt-down. One might even assert that the computer was the forerunner of AI.

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    Hi, welcome to SF&F. Do you recall if you read this in an anthology or a magazine? Was the society worldwide, or merely regional (e.g. North American continent) in size?
    – DavidW
    Commented Sep 9, 2023 at 17:26
  • it is interesting, when computers barely affected society (i am typing on a machine that has more memory than all the computers in the world in 1960s and beyond) we still worried about them having a major and negative effect on us. i sure hope skynet does not happen...
    – releseabe
    Commented Sep 9, 2023 at 18:25
  • @releseabe - Too late
    – Valorum
    Commented Sep 9, 2023 at 18:37
  • @Valorum: If there really were Terminators, we would probably not know this: instead of individual killing machines it would be gov officials moving us towards major disaster.
    – releseabe
    Commented Sep 9, 2023 at 19:50
  • Sounds similar to the classic The Machine Stops, but I don't remember anything like "a cube that contains their history"
    – Shawn
    Commented Sep 9, 2023 at 23:01

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Not an exact match but "Binary Divine" (1969) by Jon Hartridge, has some similarities. A central computer speaks to people via individual "VOICE" boxes which give them advice. Alas, the computer goes mad and only 10% of the population survive the crash. It's a novel rather than a short story, and people depend on the computer, rather than requiring permission.

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