
The Computers of Tomorrow (1964) - danso
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/flashbks/computer/greenbf.htm?single_page=true
======
danso
The final line of this article is just astounding to me:

> _Barring unforeseen obstacles, an on-line interactive computer service,
> provided commercially by an information utility, may be as commonplace by
> 2000 AD as telephone service is today. By 2000 AD man should have a much
> better comprehension of himself and his system, not because he will be
> innately any smarter than he is today, but because he will have learned to
> use imaginatively the most powerful amplifier of intelligence yet devised._

An "on-line interactive computer service"?...what did "on-line" even mean back
then...nevermind "interactive"...The prediction in 1964 that we would have "an
information utility as commonplace by 2000 AD as telephone service is today"
must be one of the most prescient and accurate three-decade predictions ever
made in a general interest magazine.

~~~
StandardFuture
I agree that looking back at that statement from modern day is just mind
blowing. BUT, I think it is good to remember that (in all honesty)fundamental
computing did not advance after the 1970s. PLs, OSs, computer networks, etc.,
were all invented in the early 1970s or earlier. Most of what has been done in
computing in the last several decades have been improved versions of the
concepts invented in the 50s and 60s. JGrahamC calls this "Turing's Curse".
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[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVZxkFAIziA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVZxkFAIziA)

~~~
danso
Brilliant talk, thanks for linking to it...I love the bit (8:40) where he
says, "The thing you are doing has likely been done before. And that might
seem depressing, but I think it's the most wonderful thing ever. Because it
means an education in computer science is worth something."

------
StandardFuture
The number of quotable quotes in this article is absolutely astounding. But
this one stood out to me the most:

> "The increased possibilities for embezzlement through fraudulent accounting
> may attract some of the resulting unemployed, but there are ways that the
> computer can be deputized to police its own operation, quietly and without
> danger of corruption."

As it outright acknowledges increased unemployment stemming from the ease by
which computers can do the same task that it would normally have taken
hundreds of individuals to accomplish.

And yet, to this day, we still refuse to acknowledge this. Most of the
politicians running this country (U.S.) were children (or teenagers) when this
article came out. At what point did humanity decide to just ignore the
impending changes a fully computational world was bringing?

~~~
lkrubner
In theory, automation does not ensure unemployment, but it does lower wages.
In theory, so long as you have a central government that is willing to engage
in enough fiscal stimulus, and a central bank that is willing to engage in
enough monetary stimulus, then a society can always achieve full employment.
However, automation lowers the value of unskilled labor, and certain types of
automation can invalidate the value of certain types of skill, so for
unskilled labor and for certain types of skills, automation lowers wages. See:

[http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/08/rise-of-the-
robo...](http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/08/rise-of-the-robots/)

"If this is the wave of the future, it makes nonsense of just about all the
conventional wisdom on reducing inequality. Better education won’t do much to
reduce inequality if the big rewards simply go to those with the most assets.
Creating an “opportunity society”, or whatever it is the likes of Paul Ryan
etc. are selling this week, won’t do much if the most important asset you can
have in life is, well, lots of assets inherited from your parents. And so on.

I think our eyes have been averted from the capital/labor dimension of
inequality, for several reasons. It didn’t seem crucial back in the 1990s, and
not enough people (me included!) have looked up to notice that things have
changed. It has echoes of old-fashioned Marxism — which shouldn’t be a reason
to ignore facts, but too often is. And it has really uncomfortable
implications."

Also:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/opinion/krugman-
sympathy-f...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/opinion/krugman-sympathy-for-
the-luddites.html)

"Mechanization eventually — that is, after a couple of generations — led to a
broad rise in British living standards. But it’s far from clear whether
typical workers reaped any benefits during the early stages of the Industrial
Revolution; many workers were clearly hurt. And often the workers hurt most
were those who had, with effort, acquired valuable skills — only to find those
skills suddenly devalued."

Also, the typical analysis of the Industrial Revolution only looks at workers
in one country, rather than studying the impact that cheap exports from
England had on nations such as India or China. The reality is that a small
number of rapidly industrializing nations were able to export their
unemployment overseas. The devastation caused by the Industrial Revolution
lasted for centuries and some countries (India) have still not recovered even
now.

------
bjackman
Wow! This article was fantastically well-informed and insightful, and
beautifully written. It tempts me to make a fallacious remark like
"journalists were just _better_ in those days"!

Seeing how well this author was able to reason about the future gives me hope
that our current predictions about tech might not be so far off.

~~~
desdiv
_Martin Greenberger, who is associate professor at the School of Industrial
Management of M.I.T., has been working with computers for fourteen years._

He wasn't a journalist.

------
lkrubner
This is a surprising thing to see written in 1964:

"Given the advanced state of development of present communications lines, it
is unlikely that information utilities will wish to invest in their own
communication networks. This may be taken as an argument against the necessity
for stifling free competition and placing information utilities under public
regulation; yet, there is another massive investment that the information
utilities will not be able to sidestep as easily, if at all -- namely,
investment in the large programming systems required to supervise the
operation of the information utility and provide its services. The information
utility should be able to shift part of this burden to the shoulders of its
customers, but it will have to bear responsibility itself for the design,
maintenance, and modification of the core of the programming system. The vast
potential magnitude of this system, plus the fact that its usefulness may not
extend beyond the physical machinery for which it was constructed, plus the
possibility of programming waste from having too many entries in the field,
may tip the balance in favor of a regulated monopoly."

They foresaw much of the current debate regarding the market power of cloud
providers such as Amazon, and how much government regulation is needed.

And note that this bit was written before credit cards had become commonplace
in the USA (and at a time when debit cards were wholly unknown):

"Suppose, for example, that businesses of all sizes have simple terminals
linking them electronically to a central information exchange. Then each
business can make instantaneous credit checks and offer its customers the
convenience of universal credit cards. These cards, referred to by some as
"money keys." together with the simple terminals and information exchange, can
all but eliminate the need for currency, checks, cash registers, sales slips,
and making change. "

------
johnohara
_An agent can act as intermediary if self-service turned out to be
unprofitable; or the computer may be able to sell its own insurance policies
via persuasive discourse with the customer._

In their wildest dreams, nobody could have predicted that in fifty years,
legions of insurance reps would be replaced by animated gekkos, teleported
good neighbors, retired comic strip characters, office camels, and ruby-lipped
deli clerks. Nobody.

------
TheCoreh
> Research investigators will specify their precise data requirements and will
> requisition custom studies from the files of the information utility. [...]
> It is not a mere flight of fancy to anticipate _the day when information
> automatically acquired during the operation of the information utility feeds
> directly into decision mechanisms that regulate the economy and the activity
> of companies_.

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