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comput[w82,jmc]		Computers and the future

	Ever since computers have existed there have been articles
entitled "computers and the future".  What new is there to say?  Well
perhaps we can learn about the future from the past.

	The most important fact about the  long predicted "computer revolution"
is that it hasn't yet occurred or is just starting in the 1980s.

	There are two ways new technology can benefit our lives.
First it can increase productivity in the economy and so make the
economy richer.  This increased riches will be divided among the
population by the various social mechanisms for dividing the wealth.
While there is an average benefit, there may be little way of
say who got what, except that a few people will have their jobs
made easier or more pleasant, and many will be rewarded economically
or professionally by their participation in the industry.
Computers have probably contributed to an increase in productivity.
The doubt comes from the view that the recent trends towards
bureaucratization that reduces productivity may have in some
way been enhanced by the availability of computers.

	The second way we can benefit from technology
 is by a specific improvement that affects daily life directly.
Thus we find ourselves
 flipping a switch to turn on a light rather than lighting a
candle, readjusting a thermostat rather than shovelling coal into
a furnace, telephoning rather than writing a letter or taking a
trip or enduring loneliness, driving in a car rather than harnessing
a horse, taking a streetcar or walking, and turning on the TV rather
than going to a movie.  All these benefits are direct rather than
merely economic, even though many people can think of side-effects that
they don't like.

	Notice that most of these direct benefits are in the rather
distant past.  Our grandfathers experienced more new technology affecting
daily lives than we have.
It is somewhat of a puzzle why there has been less new technology
affecting daily life recently.  Perhaps some of the following will
account for it.  (1) The mine of simple mechanical invention was used
up.  To go beyond the dishwasher in reducing the effort of having
a clean kitchen requires a robot that can clear the table, load and
unload the dishwasher and put things away and reset the table.
(2) The attention paid to military technology has diverted effort.
However, Japan hasn't yet produced any revolution in civilian technology,
although it appears now more likely to do so than the U.S.
(3) Social attention has focussed more on providing present technology
to the poor than to developing more good things for the middle class.
(4) The relative lack of self-confident rich people has reduced the
effort put into developing luxuries that later become necessities.
My opinion is that the first reason is the most important.

	Anyway, it seems likely that computer technology will give
rise to a wave of invention towards the end of this century that will
rival the wave of invention at the end of the last century in its
effects on daily life.  Here is what we can do.

	To begin with we shall have computers in every home.  In itself
this doesn't mean much unless we can see how the average person
will find the computer to his benefit.  I have to confess that many
of the proposed applications strike me as dubious.

	For example it has been advocated that people use their home
computers to keep their household accounts and keep track of their
inventories of groceries etc.
Many people keep their accounts in
their heads.  It's hard to beat that in so far as it works.
Keeping track of groceries requires entering the information in the
computer when something is purchased or eaten.  It's certainly more
trouble than it's worth if you have to keyboard each entry.  If you
could feed the charge slip from the store into the computer that would
solve half the problem, but it might take a vision system watching the
shelves and noticing when something was removed to solve the other
half.

	It seems that the main applications of computers or computer
terminals in homes are associated with communication facilities.
A home computer is of marginal utility in dealing with bills on paper
paid with checks on paper.  However, if the bills appeared on your
home terminal screen when summoned and all that one had to do was type
"pay it" on the terminal, then a real convenience would be achieved.
If one didn't want to question certain bills, they could even be
automatically paid at the last moment that avoids a penalty.


My computer can't ask the registrar's computer for the names and
numbers of the students in my class.