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C00002 00002	.cb SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY
C00004 00003	%3Kling, Rob (1980)%1: "Social Analyses of Computing: Theoretical
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.cb SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY

.CB by John McCarthy, Computer Science, Stanford University


	The "computer revolution", announced continuously since
the 1950s, hasn't happened yet, but it is getting started.
We should distinguish between science and engineering achievements
and their application to productivity on the one hand, and effects
on daily life on the other.  It is the latter that are only getting
started.

	When we analyze the social consequences of a new technology,
one approach is to suppose that the technology has more or less
fixed effects determined by the technology.  For many technologies,
e.g. nuclear energy, this kind of analysis is appropriate.  For
computer technology a different kind of analysis may be more useful.
Namely, the main effects must be analyzed in terms of how people will
use the varied opportunities it provides.  Therefore, the analysis
itself must involve invention, and it will be necessarily incomplete,
because the analyst cannot see what inventions other people will
make.
%3Kling, Rob (1980)%1: "Social Analyses of Computing: Theoretical
Perspectives in Recent Empirical Research", %2Computing Surveys%1,
Vol. 12, No. 1, March 1980.

"It is hard to believe that the public could best be served by
rapid development of a poorly understood technology".

"With such meager systematic attention, it is hard to believe
that important understandings about the long-term and more
subtle social features of computing will be acquired before
inappropriate commitments are made".

	People will do their own optimization as they always have.
Our society is built up from individuals and organizations.  Each
has its decision procedures, and each has the discretion to optimize
its welfare or perform its task as it sees best.  It is free to
use or ignore such information as may be available within the limits
of its discretion.  Decisions to introduce computer systems do not
differ from other decisions.  The long term consequences of every
action are poorly understood.  However, there is no other mechanism.
Even in a totalitarian society, decisions are made retail, and ours
is based on the presumption that individuals will do better if they
are free to spend their money for technology as they choose.  This
may not ultimately be correct, but we will surely keep capitalism,
perhaps with modifications, until one of the explicitly socialist
societies seems to be working better.  One might as well say,

"With such meager systematic attention, it is hard to believe
that important understandings about the long-term and more
subtle social features of eating ice cream will be acquired before
inappropriate commitments are made".


Rob Kling
ICS
University of California,
Irvine, California 92717