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.)Is the dependence on computers great now and rapidly growing greater a disaster? Perhaps not.We were all utterly dependent on a variety of complexities in our society before computers were ever invented.We depend on the intactness of the wires that fill ourcities with electricity and on the generators that keep them humming.We depend on the pipes that carry our water-supply and on the transportation facilities that bringfood in and garbage out, on the fuel that supplies us with heat, on any number of things.We can lower the dependence, yes, by unwinding all the progress human beings have made in centuries.We might somehow make three-quarters of the world'spopulation vanish, shrink the cities to villages, dismantle all the complexities of industry, and become a planet of farmers and then we will all be dependent on thehealth of our horses, herds, and flocks, on the supply of firewood, on the coming of rain.And we can't voluntarily go back.All through history, human beings have turned away from simplicity and adopted complexity whenever they had a chance.Theychose those dependencies that, while they lasted, made life richer and more comfortable, and turned against those that, even while they lasted, broke backs and woreout bodies.217 The Computerized WorldIn line with this the world will continue to move forward toward computerization while it can.Part 2With every important revolution in technology, the role of human beings in the economy alters and some varieties of work ceases to be.There was a time when 95 percent of humanity dug in the soil, herded animals, gouged out minerals, or sailed on ships to obtain the food and other raw materialsneeded by themselves and the remaining 5 percent.The Industrial Revolution, which began two hundred years ago, increasingly shifted the bulk of this labor from human and animal muscle to the machine.The need forwhat we now call "unskilled labor," the sheer straining of sinew, declined, and the need for skilled labor and for services increased.Skill meant the need for masseducation.Leisure meant the need for mass entertainment.The coming of the computer will require further shifts.Unskilled mental labor will be on the way out.More and more, the dull processes of shuffling and adjusting andchecking and listing, and all the other things that first irritate and then stultify the brain, will be done by computer.And what will be left? Leisure.Amusement.Creation.We're getting a taste of it already.One popular aspect of the microcomputer in the home is its ability to be programmed as an adversary, its ability to play games withhuman beings.Computers can be programmed, for instance, to play chess.While chess has never been completely analyzed, and may never be, a program can guide the computeraccording to some general principles and make it possible for it to play a passable game.If a person learns the rules of the moves, he or she can begin to play at once and, of course, be soundly trounced by the computer.The human218219 The Computerized Worldplayer can, however, learn from his own mistakes (that's the beauty of the complex programming of the human brain) and improve his game.And he will learn moreeffectively than against a human adversary.A computer adversary, after all, does not get tired, or impatient, or contemptuous, or busy with other things.It can be used at will and at the human player's own pace;and eventually the human will learn to win.He or she can then buy a better program or, for that matter, construct one, or seek out human adversaries, or find a different game.He can write music and have the computer play it back, or he can construct a program what will make it possible for the computer to devise plots or write poetry,which the human partner can then use as a springboard for creative improvement.Or he can have the computer simulate houseplans on a television screen and play thegame of interior decoration.To be sure, there is a streak of Puritanism in many of us that would lead us to disapprove of this sort of thing as "playing" or "fooling around." There is the fear thatdependence on the computer for our amusement will cause our own mental abilities and self-reliance to go slack and rot.That, however, may be precisely the wrong way of looking at it.It is the unrewarding and repetitive scut-work of today, occupying, as it does, only the surface of the mind, that rots our mental abilities, and it is the creative "play" thatcan enhance and stimulate them.It is possible, in fact, that the coming of this new "play" that computerization makes possible will be but the very small tip of a huge iceberg and that the new age ofleisure is the route to new advance.Until now we have labored merely to maintain our social and economic structure, and there has been very little time and energy left over to advance it.With fullcomputerization, the world will run itself with only minimal human supervision, and the major part of human thought and energy can be put to extending and intensifyingThat, however, may be precisely the wrong way of looking at it.It is the unrewarding and repetitive scut-work of today, occupying, as it does, only the surface of the mind, that rots our mental abilities, and it is the creative "play" thatcan enhance and stimulate them.It is possible, in fact, that the coming of this new "play" that computerization makes possible will be but the very small tip of a huge iceberg and that the new age ofleisure is the route to new advance.Until now we have labored merely to maintain our social and economic structure, and there has been very little time and energy left over to advance it.With fullcomputerization, the world will run itself with only minimal human supervision, and the major part of human thought and energy can be put to extending and intensifyingthe structure of society.Then, too, a leisure culture may, in itself, lower the birth rate at least, leisure has always seemed to have had that affect so that computerization may be an importantstep toward solving the population problem (though it probably won't work quickly enough for us to be able to depend on it alone in this respect).Furthermore, it is a small step from computers that play games to computers that educate [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]