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\chapter{31}{Technology and the Individual}

	This is a request for a grant of xxx over a period of yyy for
research  and  development  of new technology aimed at increasing the
amount that can be accomplished by a single individual.  Why this  is
desirable and the opportunities for doing it will now be explained.

	First  we  shall give some examples of desirable increases in
the power of an individual:

	1. An individual can build a house by his own efforts  if  he
has learned certain skills and will work rather hard for a while. His
ability to build the  house  is  dependent  on  the  availability  of
certain  tools,  materials,  and  services,  but  nevertheless  these
facilities are routinely available so that he can proceed on his  own
schedule  if  he  has  the  money.  Part of our goal is to reduce the
effort required for an individual to build a house himself and,  even
more  important,  to increase his freedom of choice in what kind of a
house it will be. New technology can help by providing computer-aided
design, computer controlled fabrication of parts, construction robots
for work on site, an improved information system that will allow more
people  to  acquire  the necessary knowledge and skills, and improved
standard services that will make more parts of  the  job  purchasable
when wanted.

	2.  An individual can write a book by his own efforts, but to
make it available to readers requires that he  convince  a  publisher
that  money  is  to be made from it.  In (McCarthy 1970), I described
how a home terminal  based  information  system  can  trivialize  the
operation  of  publication,  so that any written document can be made
publicly available just as this document is available to all users of
the  time-sharing  system  of  the  Stanford  Artificial Intelligence
Laboratory.

	3.  It  has  been  said  that  to  get  the  low   costs   of
mass-produced   articles,   we   must  accept  uniformity.   This  is
potentially no longer true, because computer controlled machines have
the possibility of producing single objects at mass-production costs.
This has already been partially realized  by  numerically  controlled
machine tools, and there exist great possibilities of individualizing
the design and production of clothing, furniture, and vehicles.

	4. The automobile has provided great freedom for  individuals
to  go  where they want bringing what they want whenever they want to
go there.  Now there are considerable demands to give up this freedom
in the name of efficiency.  Instead, we shall explore the possibility
of extending this freedom by introducing individual  flying  machines
that will be able to land almost anywhere.

	5.  We  would  like to enhance the ability of someone with an
idea for an invention to build a model to try out the idea.

	6. We would like to enhance the ability of a person  with  an
idea  for  improving government or other institutional policy to test
his idea for plausibility, and, if the idea still looks good, to  get
the attention of people with the power to implement it.

\noindent The above mentioned goals require development of a variety of
technologies though all of them are dependent on computer  technology
to  a  substantial extent.  It seems to us that the goal of enhancing
the power of the individual fits  the  aspirations  of  most  of  the
groups  that  are  dissatisfied  with  the  present state of American
society except for the important goal of giving  the  have-nots  what
the  haves  have.   Many of our specific proposals will contribute to
this goal too.
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