Comment by falcor84

> In Azimov's stories the positronic brains didn't need programmers, nor did they need computer scientists. In this world the techies were some sort of AI psychiatrists. Dr Susan Calvin is termed a robo-psychologist and she talks to the AI entities to try and solve their problems and make them do what we want them to do - sounds familiar, prompt engineering anyone?

I think it's a bit unfair to say this about Asimov, seeing how most of these stories were written in the 1940s and 1950s, before the idea of a "programmer" really came into being. But nevertheless, having done a quick dive into the texts, I found a few snippets where Asimov did describe the work of a programmer, with the best example possibly being the following from "Escape!" (published in 1945):

> The robopsychologist continued: “Here is what we’re going to do. We have divided all of Consolidated’s information into logical units. We are going to feed the units to The Brain singly and cautiously. When the factor enters — the one that creates the dilemma — The Brain’s child personality will hesitate. Its sense of judgment is not mature. There will be a perceptible interval before it will recognize a dilemma as such. And in that interval, it will reject the unit automatically — before its brainpaths can be set in motion and ruined.”

> Robertson’s Adam’s apple squirmed, “Are you sure, now?”

> Dr. Calvin masked impatience, “It doesn’t make much sense, I admit, in lay language; but there is no conceivable use in presenting the mathematics of this. I assure you, it is as I say.”