Human Computers
I have always been fascinated by the novel and the universe of Dune by Frank Herbert. One of the concepts in his novel is that a long time ago AI rose up, enslaved mankind and mankind freed himself. So it is based in a time where computers are banned. Interestingly enough human computers exist called "Mentats". These are people expertly trained to do calculations.
In my studying I was surprised in the "Imposters' Handbook" written by Rob Conery that this already existed. People with huge books of mathematical tables designed to do loads of calculations were called computers before actual computers were built... Now that I realise at the time of writing computers were relatively new so people must have already been very aware of this concept. Perhaps he was motivated by the lack of requirements on people once the computer was added. People were no longer required to learn to participate in large computations. Like today no-one is required to remember a telephone number.
So human computers is not a new concept ... interesting.
Graeme