MAN AND THE COMPUTER Release, not replace, is the keyword
. emember your activities, experiences, and feelings on December 7, 1941? O r any other momentous day in your life? Instantly, perhaps, you can bring back the vivid memories and substance of that day. T o the man versed in computer work this is fast, random, and total or partial recall. Had you thought of it that way? Perspective is one of the things we try to provide in these pages. Our readers see the technical, CPI approach to computer use often in IgLEC and its companion research quarterlies. In a coming issue, computer programming in heat exchanger design will offer some very practical possibilities. As members of the consuming public, these same readers see the numerous “authoritative” articles for public consumption, with such titles as “Can Machines Really Think,” or ‘*Will Computers Take Over the World.” A pattern of thought very interesting LO us has emerged from random items of the past several months. Conversations with a fellow rail commuter, a young Marine lieutenant who we hope is typical of the new engineering generation, left us with a renewed appreciation for maintaining perspective. A graduate of the University of California, this young man actually lives computers in a special job for the Department of Defense. But he raises his voice in rebuttal to those harbingers of concepts of machines replacing man. A few observations from the Marine : “Livid titles may raise circulation, but they contribute to an erroneous picture of the capabilities and place in society these masses of transistors, wire, and blinking lights will have . . . for financial as well as technical reasons, high speed storage in computers will most probably remain finite . . . a machine can more effectively manipulate millions of numbers through complicated eGuations, but man is still best suited 10 conduct a symphony orchestra. . . no more dramatic events than the astronauts’ flights are needed to demonstrate man’s unique ability to adapt and function under unexpected and adverse circumstances, as machines yet cannot. . . although experiments are being made with electronic devices and computers that learn by experience (the machine is punished by the operator for wrong answers or procedures), I cannot visualize a computer capable of the abstraction and creative thinking necessary for the evolution of concepts of the magnitude of Einstein’s theory of relativity , . . De-
spite the unlimited file capacity available to computers through magnetic tape, it is presently inconceivable that a computer will be able to store the lifetime of images, events, and emotions that are the formative and underlying sources of a man’s creative talents. . . the goal of scientists who are trying to achieve a human-like computer is exciting and stimulating. Through such research we are certain to learn more about man and how he thinks, as well as to contribute to advanced computer techniques. But it is difficult to conceive of a computer producing the warmth of a Rembrandt, or the beauty of a Beethoven symphony. Computers have a definite role in our modern world-replacing man in the tedious and mechanical, sometimes so time consuming as to be impossible, thus releasing him for tasks he alonr can best fulfill: the creative, the warm, the human problems.” E. E. Morison, MIT ProfTssor of Industrial History, and Norbert Wiener, father of cybernetics, were the principals in an M I T exchange recorded and reported in The Saturday Review this spring. Dr. Morison said, among many other things, “I have the impression that as time goes by we may begin to lose somewhat our sense of the significance of the qualitative eiements in a situation -such things as the loyalties, memories, affections, and feelings men bring to any situation, things which make situations more messy but, for men, more real. My apprehension is that the computer, which feeds on quantifiable data, may give too much aid and comfort to those who think you can learn all the important things in life by breaking down experience into its measurable parts.” Perhaps he might take some hope from the thinking of our Marine friend. The comment by Norbert Wiener most interesting to us and most relevant to the man us. machine control question was: “If you do not put into the programming the restrictions you do not want, you cannot expect the machine to think of these conditions itself.” Dr. R. W. Hamming, of Bell Telephone Laboratories. apparently not only believes man will not be replaced: he even has some warnings about areas in which man will be released. Speaking to the Southwest Universities Computers Organization, he listed three objections to mechanizing information : By delegating to machines the more mechanical aspects of mathematics (and other branches of science) we will also lose the experience of detailed examination, which in the past has been much of the source of inspiration. Some scientists feel that the solution of a problem is not complete until some human has understood it. Mechanization would tend to use a standard approach, and we have found in the past that a varied approach is much the best. “The final result of scientific mechanization,” Dr. Hamming said, “will be that the burden on the human, of learning a lot of mechanical aspects, will be carried by the machines. I n the process there will inevitably be some losses and many misuses of the new tools, but in the balance I see a great gain.”
wclett. S L 3 L VOL. 5 4
NO. 8
AUGUST 1962
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