consider (as did a $34 item called the Pizza Program) ice cream



as an appetizer? Indeed, there are many people who may quite



reasonably decide that they can get along very nicely without a



computer. Even the most impressive information networks may



provide the customer with nothing but a large telephone bill.



"You cannot rely on being able to find what you want," says



Atari's Kay. It's really more useful to go to a library."







It is becoming increasingly evident that a fool assigned to



work with a computer can conceal his own foolishness in the guise



of high-tech authority. Lives there a single citizen who has not



been commanded by a misguided computer to pay an income tax



installment or department store bill that he has already paid?







What is true for fools is no less true for criminals, who



are now able to commit electronic larceny from the comfort of



their living room. The probable champion is Stanley Mark Rifkin,



a computer analyst in Los Angeles, who tricked the machines at



the Security Pacific National Bank into giving him $10 million.



While free on bail for that in 1979 (he was eventually sentenced



to eight years), he was arrested for trying to steal $50 million



from Union Bank (the charges were eventually dropped). According



to Donn Parker, a specialist in computer abuse at SRI



International (formerly the Stanford Research Institute), "Nobody



seems to know exactly what computer crime is, how much of it



there is, and whether it is increasing or decreasing. We do know



that computers are changing the nature of business crime



significantly."







Even if all the technical and intellectual problems can be



solved, there are major social problems inherent in the computer



revolution. The most obvious is unemployment, since the basic



purpose of commercial computerization is to get more work done by



fewer people. One British study predicts that



"automation-induced unemployment" in Western Europe could reach



16% in the next decade, but most analyses are more optimistic.



The general rule seems to be that new technology eventually



creates as many jobs as it destroys, and often more. "People who



put in computers usually increase their staffs as well," says



CPT's Scheff. "Of course," he adds, "one industry may kill



another industry. That's tough on some people."







Theoretically, all unemployed workers can be retrained, but



retraining programs are not high on the nation's agenda. Many



new jobs, moreover, will require an aptitude in using computers,



and the retraining needed to use them will have to be repeated as



the technology keeps improving. Says a chilling report by the



Congressional Office of Technology Assessments: "Lifelong



retraining is expected to become the norm for many people."



There is already considerable evidence that the school children



now being educated in the use of computers are generally the



children of the white middle class. Young blacks, whose



unemployment rate stands today at 50%, will find another barrier



in front of them.







Such social problems are not the fault of the computer, of



course, but a consequence of the way the American society might



use the computer. "Even in the days of the big mainframe



computers, they were a machine for the few," says Katherine Davis



Fishman, author of The Computer Establishment. "It was tool to



help the rich get richer. It still is to a large extent. One of



the great values of the personal computer is that smaller



concerns, smaller organizations can now have some of the



advantages of the bigger organizations."







How society uses its computers depends greatly on what kind



of computers are made and sold, and that depends, in turn, on an



industry in a state of chaotic growth. Even the name of the



product is a matter of debate: "microcomputer" sounds too



technical, but "home computer" does not fit an office machine.



"Desktop" sounds awkward, and "personal computer" is at best a



compromise. Innovators are pushing off in different directions.



Hewlett Packard is experimenting with machines that respond to



vocal commands; Osborne is leading a rush toward portable



computers, ideally no larger than a book. And for every



innovator, there are at least five imitators selling copies.







There is much talk of a coming shakeout, and California



Consultant David E. Gold predicts that perhaps no more than a



dozen vendors will survive the next five years. At the moment,



Dataquest estimates that Texas Instruments leads the low-price



parade with a 35% share of the market in computers selling for



less than $1,000. Next come Timex (26%), Commodore (15%) and



Atari (13%). In the race among machines priced between $1,000



and $5,000, Apple still commands 26% followed by IBM (17% and



Tandy/Radio Shack (10%). But IBM, which has dominated the



mainframe computer market for decades, is coming on very strong.



Apple, fighting back, will unveil its new Lisa model in January,



putting great emphasis on user friendliness. The user will be



able to carry out many functions simply by pointing to a picture



of what he wants done rather than typing instructions. IBM is



also reported to be planning to introduce new machines in 1983,



as are Osborne and others.







Just across the horizon, as usual, lurk the Japanese.



During the 1970s, U.S. computer manufacturers complacently felt



that they were somehow immune from the Japanese combination of



engineering and salesmanship that kept gnawing at U.S. auto,



steel and appliance industries. One reason was that the Japanese



were developing their large domestic market. When they belatedly



entered the U.S. battlefield, they concentrated not on selling



whole systems but on particular sectors--with dramatic results.



In low-speed printers using what is known as the dot-matrix



method, the Japanese had only a 6% share of the market in 1980;



in 1982, they provided half the 500,000 such printers sold in the



U.S. Says Computerland President Ed Faber: "About 75% of the



dot-matrix printers we sell are Japanese, and almost all the



monitors. There is no better quality electronics than what we



see coming from Japan."







Whatever its variations, there is an inevitability about the



computerization of America. Commercial efficiency requires it,



Big Government requires it, modern life requires it, and so it is



coming to pass. But the essential element in this sense of



inevitability is the way in which the young take to computers:



not as just another obligation imposed by adult society but as a



game, a pleasure, a tool, a system that fits naturally into their



lives. Unlike anyone over 40, these children have grown up with



TV screens; the computer is a screen that responds to them,



hooked to a machine that can be programmed to respond the way



they want it to. That is power.







There are now more than 100,000 computers in U.S. schools,



compared with 52,000 only 18 months ago. This is roughly one for



every 400 pupils. The richer and more progressive states do



better. Minnesota leads with one computer for every 50 children



and a locally produced collection of 700 software programs. To



spread this development more evenly and open new doors for



business. Apple has offered to donate one computer to every



public school in the U.S.--a total of 80,000 computers worth $200



million retail--if Washington will authorize a 25% tax write-off



(as is done for donations of scientific equipment to colleges).



Congress has so far failed to approve the idea, but California



has agreed to a similar proposal.







Many Americans concerned about the erosion of the schools



put faith in the computer as a possible savior of their



children's education, at school and at home. The Yankelovich



poll showed that 57% thought personal computers would enable



children to read and to do arithmetic better. Claims William



Ridley, Control Data's vice president for education strategy:



"If you want to improve youngsters one grade level in reading,



our PLATO program with teacher supervision can do it up to four



times faster and for 40% less expense than teachers alone."







No less important than this kind of drill, which some



critics compare with the old-fashioned flash cards, is the use of



computers to teach children about computers. They like to learn



programming, and they are good at it, often better than their



teachers, even in the early grades. They treat it as play, a



secret skill, unknown among many of their parents. They delight



in cracking corporate security and filching financial secrets,



inventing new games and playing them on military networks,



inserting obscene jokes into other people's programs. In soberer



versions that sort of skill will become a necessity in thousands



of jobs opening up in the future. Beginning in 1986,



Carnegie-Mellon University expects to require all of its students



to have their own personal computers. "People are willing to



spend a large amount of money to educate their children," says



Author Fishman. "So they're all buying computers for Johnny to



get a head start (though I have not heard anyone say, 'I am



buying a computer for Susie')."







This transformation of the young raises a fundamental and



sometimes menacing question: Will the computer change the very



nature of human thought? And if so, for better or worse? There



has been much time wasted on the debate over whether computers



can be made to think, as HAL seemed to be doing in 2001, when it



murdered the astronauts who might challenge its command of the



spaceflight. That answer is simple: computers do not think, but



they do simulate many of the processes of the human brain:



remembering, comparing, analyzing. And as people rely on the



computer to do things that they used to do inside their heads,



what happens to their heads?







Will the computer's ability to do routine work mean that



human thinking will shift to a higher level? Will IQs rise?



Will there be more intellectuals? The computer may make a lot of



learning as unnecessary as memorizing the multiplication tables.



But if a dictionary stored in the computer's memory can easily



correct any spelling mistakes, what is the point of learning to



spell? And if the mind is freed from intellectualroutine, will



it race off in pursuit of important ideas or lazily spend its



time on more video games?







Too little is known about how the mind works, and less



about how the computer might change that process. The



neurological researches of Mark Rosenzweig and his colleagues at



Berkeley indicate that animals trained to learn and assimilate



information develop heavier cerebral cortices, more glial cells



and bigger nerve cells. But does the computer really stimulate



the brain's activity or, by doing so much of its work, permit it



to go slack?







Some educators do believe they see the outlines for change.



Seymour Papert, professor of mathematics and education at M.I.T.



and author of Mindstorms: Children, Computers and Powerful



Ideas, invented the computer language named Logo, with which



children as young as six can program computers to design



mathematical figures. Before they can do that, however, they



must learn how to analyze a problem logically, step by step.



"Getting a computer to do something," says Papert, "requires the



underlying process to be described, on some level, with enough



precision to be carried out by the machine." Charles P. Lecht,



president of the New York consulting firm Lecht Scientific,



argues that "what the lever was to the body, the computer system



is to the mind." Says he: "Computers help teach kids to think.



Beyond that, they motivate people to think. There is a great



difference between intelligence and manipulative capacity.



Computers help us to realize that difference."







The argument that computers train minds to be logical makes



some experts want to reach for the computer key that says ERASE.



"The last thing you want to do is think more logically," says



Atari's Kay. "The great think about computers is that they have



no gravity systems. The logical system is one that you make up.



Computers are a wonderful way of being bizarre."







Sherry Turkle, a sociologist now finishing a book titled



The Intimate Machine: Social and Cultural Studies of Computers



and People, sees the prospect of change in terms of perceptions



and feelings. Says she: "Children define what's special about



people by contrasting them with their nearest neighbors, which



have always been the animals. People are special because they



know how to think. Now children who work with computers see the



computer as their nearest neighbor, so they see that people are



special because they feel. This may become much more central to



the way people think about themselves. We may be moving toward a



re-evaluation of what makes us human."







For all such prophecies, M.I.T. Computer Professor Joseph



Weizenbaum has answers ranging from disapproval to scorn. He has



insisted that "giving children computers to play with...cannot



touch...any real problem," and he has described the new computer



generation as "bright young men of disheveled appearance [playing



out] megalomaniacal fantasies of omnipotence."







Weizenbaum's basic objection to the computer enthusiasts is



that they have no sense of limits. Says he: "The assertion that



all human knowledge is encodable in streams of zeros and



ones--philosophically, that's very hard to swallow. In effect,



the whole world is made to seem computable. This generates a



kind of tunnel vision, where the only problems that seem



legitimate are problems that can be put on a computer. There is



a whole world of real problems, of human problems, which is



essentially ignored."







So the revolution has begun, and as usually happens with



revolutions, nobody can agree on where it is going or how it will



end. Nils Nilsson, director of the Artificial Intelligence



Center at SRI International, believes the personal computer, like



television, can "greatly increase the forces of both good and



evil." Marvin Minsky, another of M.I.T.'s computer experts,



believes the key significance of the personal computer is not the



establishment of an intellectual ruling class, as some fear, but



rather a kind of democratization of the new technology. Says he:



"The desktop revolution has brought the tools that only



professionals have had into the hands of the public. God knows



what will happen now."







Perhaps the revolution will fulfill itself only when people



no longer see anything unusual in the brave New World, when they



see their computer not as a fearsome challenger to their



intelligence but as a useful linkup of some everyday gadgets:



the calculator, the TV and the typewriter. Or as Osborne's Adam



Osborne puts it: "The future lies in designing and selling



computers that people don't realize are computers at all."











--By Otto Friedrich. Reported by Michael Mortiz/San Francisco,



J. Madeleine Nash/Chicago and Peter Stoler/New York

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