A human computer

When we talk about computers today, we most likely mean electronic devices, such as desktop PCs or laptops. But there was a time when the term 'computer' was used to refer to humans and meant 'one who computes' - a person, or team of people, who would work on long and often tedious mathematical calculations. So a human being is - in a sense - a computer, because there are still tasks that a human mind can accomplish, but even cutting edge devices cannot.

Did you know that in 2003, 9 billion hours were spent on playing Solitaire? In comparison, it took only 7 million human hours (6.8 hours of Solitaire playing time in 2003) to build the Empire State Building, and only 20 million human hours (still less than a day of Solitaire) to build the Panama Canal! Now imagine if there was some way to harness all this playing time for doing something productive and perhaps fun.

That is the basis of human-based computation - a computer science technique in which certain steps of a computational function are being outsourced to humans to complete tasks in a symbiotic relation. In short, instead of a human employing a computer to solve a problem, the role is reversed - the computer asks people to solve a problem, then collects, interprets and develops a solution based on the answers.

Human-based computation, in my opinion, brings a lot of benefits to modern society - a fine example of it is Wikipedia, which I'll heavily reference because of that. Let's take a look at some other examples and draw conclusions, shall we? :)