The Comedy of Computation: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Obsolescence

By Benjamin Mangrum (Stanford University Press, 2025). We often deal with our doubts and fears about computing through humor, whether reconciling ourselves to machines or critiquing them. In fact, this dynamic turns up throughout modern culture, in movies, television, fiction, and the theater. Mangrum analyzes this phenomenon in "The Comedy of Computation," digging into several facets of modern culture and technology.