Daniel S. Halacy

“ Mathematician John Williams believes that existing human intelligence can preserve its distinction only by withdrawing from competition with the machine and defining human intelligence rigorously enough to exclude that of the machines. He suggests using the computer not just for a molecular theory of thinking, but also in the science of genetics to design our children!
Whatever lies ahead, it seems obvious that one of the most important things the computer can help us think about is the computer itself. It is a big part of our future. ”

“ As we move into a technology that embraces communication at a distance of millions of miles, survival under death-dealing radiation, and travel at fantastic speeds, man’s natural equipment falters and he must rely on the machine both as muscle and brain. Intelligence arose from life but does not necessarily need life, in the sense we think of it, to continue. Thus the extension of man’s intellect by electronics as hailed by Dr. Ramo will lead ultimately to our extinction. ”

“ We seem to have done more with the discoveries than our feathered friends; at least no one has yet observed a robin with a slide rule or a snowy egret punching the controls of an electronic digital computer. However, the very notion of mere birds being tool and number users does give us an idea of the antiquity and lengthy heritage of the computer.
The computer was inevitable when man first began to make his own problems. When he lived as an animal, life was far simpler, and all he had to worry about was finding game and plants to eat, and keeping from being eaten or otherwise killed himself. ”

“ What will remain will be the intelligent machine, reduced as time goes on to “pure” intelligence free to roam where it will and do what it wants, a matterless state of affairs that even Clarke modestly disclaims the imagination to speculate upon.
Before writing man off as a lost cause, we should investigate a strong argument against such a take-over by the machine. Man stands apart from other creatures in his consciousness of himself. He alone seems to have the ability to ponder his fate, to reflect, and to write books about his thoughts and dreams. ”

“ The Computer in Literature Even as Plato had viewed with suspicion the infringement of mechanical devices on man’s domain of higher thought, other men have continued to eye the growth of “mechanisms” with mounting alarm. The scientist and inventor battled not merely technical difficulties, but the scornful satire and righteous condemnation of some of their fellow men. Jonathan Swift, the Irish satirist who took a swipe at many things that did not set well with his views, lambasted the computing machine as a substitute for the brain. ”

“ The fact that the digital computer is just such a rigorously logical and unbending machine poses problems for it in certain of its dealings with its human masters. Language ideally should be logical in its structure. In general it probably is, but man is so perverse that he has warped and twisted his communications to the point that a computer sticking strictly to book logic will hit snags almost as soon as it starts to translate human talk into other human talk, or into a logical machine command or answer. ”

“ As population grows and business expands in physical size and complexity, it is obvious that the computer and its data-processing ability will be called upon more and more. There is another factor, that of the internationalizing of business. Despite temporary setbacks of war, protective tariffs, insular tendencies, and the like, in the long run we will live in one integrated world shrunk by data links that can get information from here to there and back again so fast it will be like conversing with someone across the room. ”

“ The computer uses power, far more than the brain. A single transistor, which forms only part of a neuron, may use a tenth of a watt; the brain is ahead on this score by a factor of millions to one.
Electronic switches have an advantage over the neuron in that they are much faster acting. So fast have they become that engineers have had to coin new terms like nanosecond and picosecond, for a billionth and a trillionth of a second. Thus, the computer’s individual elements are perhaps 100,000 times faster than those of the brain. ”

“ The Designing Computer It seems strange that the computer was a bookkeeper and clerk for years before anyone seriously considered that it might be an engineer as well, yet the men who themselves designed the computer were loath to use it in their other work. Part of this resistance stems from the high premium placed on the creativity of research and design work. The engineer uses science in his work, to be sure, but he professes to use it as an artist, or with the personal touch of, say, a brewmaster. ”

“ Using the thumbprint again, and the speed of electronics, government of our country will be truly by the people as they make their feelings known daily if necessary.
Intellectronic legislation will extend beyond a single country’s boundaries in international cooperation. It will smash the language and communication barriers. It will permit and implement not only global prediction of weather, but global control as well. Because of the rapid handling of vast amounts of information, man can form more accurate and more logical concepts that will lead to better relations throughout the world. ”

“ Our sum-engines never drop a figure, nor our looms a stitch; the machine is brisk and active, when the man is weary, it is clear-headed and collected, when the man is stupid and dull, it needs no slumber.... May not man himself become a sort of parasite upon the machines? An affectionate machine-tickling aphid?
It can be answered that even though machines should hear never so well and speak never so wisely, they will still always do the one or the other for our advantage, not their own; that man will be the ruling spirit and the machine the servant.... ”

“ The writer’s dream, a typewriter that has a microphone instead of keys and clacks away merrily while you talk into it, is a dream no longer. Scientists at Japan’s Kyoto University have developed a computer that does just this. An early experimental model could handle a hundred Japanese monosyllables, but once the breakthrough was made, the Japanese quickly pushed the design to the point where the “Sonotype” can handle any language. At the same time, Bell Telephone Laboratories works on the problem from the other end and has come up with a system for a typewriter that talks. ”

“ Even today, there are those who insist that such use of the computer by the military or industry offers more potential than an academic teaching machine. Assembly workers have been taught by programmed audiovisual machines such as Hughes Aircraft’s Videosonic trainer, and the government has taught many technicians by computer techniques. A shrewd observer, however, noting that the computer is called stupid, bluntly points out that any untaught student is in the same category, and that perhaps it takes one to teach one. ”

“ In the disadvantage department the digital machine’s only drawback seems to be its childish way of solving problems. About all it knows how to do is to add 1 and 1 and come up with 2. To multiply, it performs repetitive additions, and solving a difficult equation becomes a fantastically complex problem when compared with the instantaneous solution possible in the analog machine. The digital computer redeems itself by performing its multitudinous additions at fabulous speeds. ”

“ The Computer’s Past Although it seemed to burst upon us suddenly, the jet airplane can trace its beginnings back through the fabric wings of the Wrights to the wax wings of Icarus and Daedalus, and the steam aerophile of Hero in ancient Greece. The same thing is true of the computer, the “thinking machine” we are just now becoming uncomfortably aware of. No brash upstart, it has a long and honorable history.
Naturalists tell us that man is not the only animal that counts. Birds, particularly, also have an idea of numbers. Birds, incidentally, use tools too. ”

“ We have mentioned the use of such a tape voice in the computerized ground-controlled-approach landing system for aircraft, and the airline reservation system called Unicall in which a central computer answers a dialed request for space in less than three seconds—not with flashing lights or a printed message but in a loud clear voice. It must pain the computer to answer at the snail-like human speed of 150 words a minute, so it salves its conscience by handling 2,100 inputs without getting flustered. ”

“ The Logical Algebra We come now to another most important reason for the effectiveness of the digital computer; the reason that makes it the “logical” choice for not only mathematics but thinking as well. For the digital computer and logic go hand in hand. ”

“ Another killer of mankind, cancer, is being battled by the computer. Researchers at the University of Philadelphia, supported in part by the American Cancer Society, are programming electronic computers to act as cancer cells! The complexity of the problem is seen in the fact that several man-years of work and 500 hours of computer programming have barely scratched the surface of the problem. A third of a million molecules make up the genes in a human cell, and the actions of these tiny components take place many times faster than even the high-speed computer can operate. ”

“ The Greek engineer Vitruvius made an interesting observation when he said, “All machinery is generated by Nature and the revolution of the universe guides and controls. Our fathers took precedents from Nature—developed the comforts of life by their inventions. They rendered some things more convenient by machines and their revolutions.” Hindsight and language being what they are, today we can make a nice play on the word “revolution” as applied to the machine. The Antikythera computer was a prime example of what Vitruvius was talking about. ”

“ Still there were scientists and designers in other fields who shook their heads loftily and said, “Not for me, thanks.” The computer was but a diligent clerk, they held, relieving the engineer of some onerous chores. It could do nothing really creative; that must be left to man and his brain.
By now many industrial firms had purchased or rented computers for the technical people so that they would not have to fight for a place in line at the payroll computer. Civil engineering agencies, perhaps a hundred strong, used computers to design bridges and plan and lay out highways. ”

“ It also solves another problem that plagues the educator today. It is well known that not all of us can learn at the same rate. Since it is economically and culturally impossible except in rare cases to teach children in groups of equal ability, a compromise speed must be established. This is fine for the “average” child, of whom there may actually be none in the classroom; it penalizes the fast student, and the slow student perhaps even more. The teaching machine, its proponents feel, takes care of this difficulty and lets each proceed at his own rate. ”

“ So far we might facetiously describe the difference in the goal-seeking characteristics of man and machine by recalling that man seeks lofty goals like climbing mountains simply because they are there, while the computer seeks its goal much like the steel ball in the pinball machine, impelled by gravity and the built-in springs and chutes of the device. When we come to a more advanced computer, however, we begin to have difficulty in assessing characteristics. ”

“ The Computer in Business and Industry The government, of course, is not the only user of the electronic computer. Business is faced with the same problems as government, plus others perhaps, and can use the same techniques in planning, producing, merchandising, and keeping track of its products. To General Electric goes the distinction of first installing the large-scale electronic computer for its business-data processing. ”

“ Impressed as we may be by an electronic computer, it may take some charity to recognize its forebears in the scratchings on a rock. To call the calendar a computer, we must in honesty add a qualifying term like “passive.” The same applies to the abacus despite its movable counters. But time, which produced the simple calendar, also furnished the incentive for the first “active” computers too. The hourglass is a primitive example, as is the sundial. Both had an input, a power source, and a readout. The clock interestingly ended up with not a decimal scheme, but one with a base of twelve. ”

“ What the steam engine did for muscles, the modern computer is beginning to do for our brains. In their slow climb from caveman days, humans have encountered ever more problems; one of the biggest of these problems eventually came to be merely how to solve all the other problems.
At first man counted on his fingers, and then his toes. As the problems grew in size, he used pebbles and sticks, and finally beads. These became the abacus, a clever calculating device still in constant use in many parts of the world. ”

“ Global weather prediction and worldwide coordination of trade immediately come to mind.
While we envision such far-reaching applications, let’s not lose sight of the possibilities for computer use closer to home—right in our homes, as a matter of fact. Just as early inventors of mechanical power devices did not foresee the day when electric drills and saws for hobbyist would be commonplace and the gasoline engine would do such everyday chores as cutting the grass in our yards, the makers of computers today cannot predict how far the computer will go in this direction. ”

“ Whether or not the computer really thinks remains a controversial question. Some top scientists claim that the computer will eventually be far smarter than its human builder; equally reputable authorities are just as sure that no computer will ever have an original thought in its head. Perhaps a safe middle road is expressed with the title of this book; namely that the machine is simply an extension of the human brain. A high-speed abacus or slide rule, if you will; accurate and foolproof, but a moron nonetheless. ”

“ Can business records on magnetic tape or other storage media be used as evidence? Can companies be charged with mismanagement for not using computers in their business? How can confidential material be handled satisfactorily on computers?
Along with computing machines a whole new technology is growing. Universities and colleges—even high schools—are teaching courses in computers. And the computer itself is getting into the teaching business too. The “teaching machine” is one of the most challenging computer developments to come along so far. ”

“ While one neuron may not be as reliable as a vacuum tube or transistor, the complete brain is millions of times more dependable than any of its single parts. This happy end result is just the reverse of what man has come up with in his complex computer systems. For instance, individual parts in the Minuteman missile must have a reliability factor of 99.9993% so that the system will have a fair chance of working properly. Duplication of the brain’s network may well lead to electronic systems that are many times more reliable than any of their individual parts. ”

“ Auto-parking, now a $500 million a year business, leans ever more heavily on computers for ticket-issuing, car-counting, traffic direction, charge-figuring, and collection. The freeway too has its computers, though there have been minor setbacks like that on the New Jersey Turnpike where an automatic toll-card dispenser was mistaken by slow-thinking people for a collector and its working was jammed with coins and battered by abuse when no change was forthcoming! Man will take some educating as the machine finds wider employment. ”