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.BB WHAT CAN TECHNOLOGY BASED ON PRESENT SCIENCE DO FOR THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS


	Contrary to what I suppose would be the intellectually
fashionable expectation, the above title is not meant ironically.
The author admires the American middle class, his own class,
and puts its welfare first.


	
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#. People can live farther from where they work or go to school.  Family
members can work in different places with less strain.  People can live
comfortably with less infrastructure.

#. An individual can build a more ambitious project by himself or
in a small group.  For example, it can again be possible for an
individual to design and build a substantial airplane or car
or multi-story building.

#. It can be possible to know the policies of governments and other
institutions and their rationalizations.  This knowledge can be
promptly available.

#. It can be possible to get an exception to a policy affecting an
individual where justice warrants it.  It can be made possible to reach
someone with the authority to make the exception more often than it is
now.

#. The amount of work required to keep house and take care of
children can be reduced to where it can more readily be shared
between man and wife.  Couples with an ordinary amount of personal
energy will be able both to pursue careers without significant
interference.

#. Desires can be satisfied more immediately.  This is most easy in
the case of desires for information, but it will also be possible
to obtain a chess set or a work of art in the middle of the night.

#. Burglary and theft can be eliminated as forms of crime.

#. Standards of evidence for conviction of crime can be raised,
and simultaneously crime can be made more difficult.

#. The mobility of children and old people can be greatly increased
by computer-driven cars.  The conflicts between citizens' freedom
and the police can be greatly reduced.

#. The conflicts between citizens and the government over taxes
can be reduced.

#. Everyone can have a small apartment where he works in addition
to his main home.  Since it can be used by family members as well
as by the worker himself or herself, the separation of work from
family life can be reduced for those who want to do that.


Goals

	Some of the above can be require technological advances
for their achievement, i.e. they involve products or systems that
don't yet exist.  Others merely require that society be richer.
Of course, making society richer requires technological advance
in itself.

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#. Construction needs to be cheaper.  Robotics in the factory and
at the construction site are the chief way of doing it.


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John McCarthy
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Computer Science Department
Stanford University
Stanford, California 94305

ARPANET: MCCARTHY@SU-AI
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