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%3SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY%1

by                                        

JOHN MCCARTHY
Stanford University


.end
Abstract: Home computers and home terminals
with access to public computers, programs and data bases will
provide the public new opportunities for re-organizing their life
styles comparable to those provided by the automobile, telephone
and electricity around the beginning of the century.
The marketing of novel equipment and services will provide
comparable entrepreneurial opportunities.  Many industries will
have to adapt to a shift of demand from present forms of books
magazines, newspapers and forms of commerce to new forms.
New styles of politics will also have to arise.
The technology for these changes already exists; only the business
innovations required are proceeding slowly.

	A key fact is that documents can be stored indefinitely in
computer files for less than the cost of keeping them on library shelves
and can be accessible in milliseconds from anywhere in the world for quite
reasonable communication costs.  Not only will the Library of Congress
be available in everyone's home, but any document anyone chooses to
make public will be immediately and permanently available.
This will make writing independent of media; a writer or journalist
can have a public without a book publisher or newspaper.  Even more important,
a reader of something controversial can immediately find out if
there has been a reply, and the original writer will have to take
this fact into account.  This should raise the level of public
controversy on all issues and candidates.

	Consumers will have access to vastly more information
about products and services and can use programs to help them
get the best deal.  Shopping from a terminal will greatly extend
what is now done by mail-order shopping and will make small
markets much more viable.  Much business and government office work will become
irrelevant when there is direct interaction between individuals and the
computer programs belonging to institutions and between programs
belonging to different institutions.

	Once these basic facilities exist, the development of artificial
intelligence and its application to helping people select and
obtain desired information will be stimulated.

	We can even hope that much of today's 
negativism toward new technology will
be replaced by a healthier experimental attitude.  Let it be tried.
If it works badly we can always do something else.
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The long drought of technology based major changes in daily life is
about to end.
The computer revolution that has been announced for the last 25 years
is actually going to happen.
Information availability in the home.
Communication between computers belonging to different businesses.
Freedom of publication.
Enhancement of reason in public debate.
Electronic funds transfer
The main problems are entrepreneurial and organizational and the fact
that "social conscience" still plays a mainly negative role.
Overcoming negativism.
Better an empirical attitude toward negative consequences, because missed
opportunities are less likely to be corrected than harmful side-effects.
AI and robots aren't soon.
.END