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C00012 00003		The Future of Automatic Machinery
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\date{March 4}		% Letter date
\stanford
\to {Professor P. R. Masani\cr
Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics\cr
University of Pittsburg\cr
Pittsburgh, Pa. 15260}

{\noindent Dear Professor Masani:}

I am returning the material that you sent me on January 26th.  I have, however,
revised my comments  on ``The Future of Automatic Machinery''.

I found it to be very difficult to differ with Professor Wiener as much as
I do and still to write a satisfactory review. I hope that what I have now
written will be acceptable.


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\sign{Arthur L. Samuel}
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\bye

The ``spacial inferiority'' of the computer as compared with the brain, to
which Professor Weiner made frequent reference, is still with us but the
gap has been greatly narrowed of late by the development of VLSI (very
large scale integration) devices.  We can now confidently expect the
computer to invade many of the domains that Professor Weiner saw as
excluded.  Progress will not be easy and a very large amount of work
remains to be done, in developing smaller, more complicated and faster
devices, in adding to our basic understanding of the nature of many of the
tasks that are still only done by people, in writing the necessary
computer programs and finally in accumulating the vast stores of data that
must be reduced to computer-readable form to codify what Professor Weiner
calls ``the whole experience of a lifetime''.


Professor Weiner's later obsession with the dangers of automation would, I fear,
have been greatly increased had he envisioned these recent developments.

This reviewer still feels strongly that those who follow Professor Weiner's
point of view, as put forth in this paper, are doing science and civilization
a disservice in flaying the computer for man's failings.
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Professor Wiener, perhaps, takes undue credit for opening Pandora's box
in calling public attention to the 
``. . . very vital parallelism between the brain and the computing machine'',
and at the same time he was too quick in protesting that we were not 
``. . . in sight of a new era, in which the translation from speech to
writing, the translation from writing to speech, the translation from
one language to another, and the functions ofthe file clerk and librarian,
and of other custodians of information, which is to be made readily available
to all, shall take place without human intervention.''

On the whole, this paper is a level-headed assessment of the future of
automatic machinery and its relation to man.  It is to be contrasted with
later writings of Professor Wiener (see Some Moral and Technical
Consequences of Automation [60d], for example) in which he exhibits an
almost paranoid obsession with the dangers of automation, and in a sense
aligned himself with the ``purblind gadegeteers of a certain type'' whom
he charges with tendencies `'to draw false and dangerous conclusions''.

Unfortunately, Professor Wiener was rather far from the mark in predicting
the future. He, in common with most people in the early 1950's, failed to
appreciate the problems of interfacing the computer to the real world,
problems that would slow the development of the automatic factory.  The
role that vision plays in even the most menial of factory tasks was but
poorly understood and the difficulties in the way of duplicating human
performance are only now being resolved. Slow as it has been in coming,
the automatic factory is on the way and Professor Wiener's assessment of
its impact on society is still valid.

By way of contrast, developments in the handling of information have quite
exceeded Professor Wiener's expectations. The computer has become a necessary
tool in many fields. The computer would be displacing many more
white-color workers than factory hands were it not for the insatiable demand for
data processing that is generated by our growing economy.


The comparison between the brain and the computer is no longer quite as
onesided as Professor Wiener seemed to think..  Much of the complexity of
the brain has to do with its biological nature, its need to grow and to
remain effective in spite of cell lossage, and its dual function
both to monitor the body and to sustain conscious thought.  The computer
is freed from these biological imperatives, it is endowed with a
million-fold increase in speed over that of the brain, it is blessed with
a much greater reliability, and we are currently experiencing a
million-fold reduction in component size as a result of what has come to
be called VLSI (very large scale integration).  Many tasks that were
formerly thought to in man's domain are now being handled or soon will be
handled by the computer.

Professor Weiner's later obsession with the dangers of automation would, I fear,
have been greatly increased had he envisioned these recent developments.

	The Future of Automatic Machinery

Comments by Arthur L. Samuel

On the whole, this paper is a level-headed assessment of the future of
automatic machinery and its relation to man. Professor Wiener correctly
notes that ``The gradual encroachment of auomatic machinery on the
function of mankind and its social significance is no novelty.'' and he
goes on to discuss what he believes to be the major contribution that
the computer will make toward man's betterment.  In contrast with
some of his later papers (see, for example, Some Moral and Technical
Consequences of Automation [60d]), Professor Wiener, in this paper, sees
no great harm in the development of computers, stating that ``If we accept the
primacy of man over his means of production, there is no reason why the
age of the machine may not be one of the greatest flourishing of human
prosperity and culture.''

Professor Wiener's complacency in 1952 was based on his belief
that the computer would always be severely limited in what it could do,
because of its ``spatial inferiority'' as compared with the human brain,
and that ``- - - the machine, for all the similarities that its
functioning shows with that of the human organism, is at a much lower
level of organization and complexity; and the dangers it offers to
humanity are not those of an independent will and purpose for existance,
but merely those of a material embodiment of our own stupidities and
shortcomings.''  Computers are more complex today and the ``spatial
inferiority'' is no longer as marked, but the conclusion is still valid.
Professor Wiener did not forsee, nor could he have forseen, the startling
developments of the ensuing years, the increase in complexity and speed of
the computer, the improvements in reliability, the reduction in cost, and
finally the advent of very large scale integration (VLSI) with the promise
of one million circuit elements on a centimenter-square chip.

Professor Wiener was correct in pointing out difficulties that were to be
encountered in attempts to assign to computers certain tasks that men do
well.  Many of these difficulties are still with us, but curiously enough,
the principal application of the computer has been in the fields of
information storage and information processing, fields that Professor
Wiener thought to be beyond the computer's capabilities, and the automatic
factory, as he invisioned it, is still not fully realized.

In later years, Professor Wiener was to develop an almost paranoid
obsession with the dangers of automation.  It is one of the ironies of
fate that he did not live long enough to see that his fears were largely
unjustified and that the computer was to make a very large positive
contribution to man's progress.  One can only speculate as to what he
would say on ``The Future of the Automatic Factory,'' were he living
today.