In his article, Bush details his opinion on how technology may advance sometime into the future. Bush leads by discussing the rapid innovation by scientists during World War II to illustrate the potential for rapid innovation in peacetime. Bush then goes into ways he sees technology can be improved. He discusses ways photography can be more efficient. Bush describes a new way of record-keeping by voice rather than with a keyboard. He envisions calculation machines for logical processes that don’t follow established arithmetic conventions. Bush later goes into a device he calls a “memex”, which would allow for the rapid access of records, books, and communications. He envisions the device would allow the user to create associations between records and that memex records created by one person could be used by many others on their memex.
The improvements described by Bush are largely seen today with computers. Voice-based record keeping is readily available with speech recognition software. Artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies essentially allow for the calculation of logical processes he describes. The description of a memex is essentially what a modern day computer achieves. They even have similar designs as he envisioned a memex to be a “slating translucent screen” with a keyboard. The accessibility of memex records he describes is accomplishable with the internet. In many ways, most of Vannevar Bush’s predictions of the future have come true.