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JACK LUDWIG
One thing about automation is clear. It has arrived. Much more
than a beachhead has been established. The reselVes are pouring in.
Automation is the essence of
modern
now, and
modern
in business and
industry and education (and in the arts) is
in.
Massive computers would
be wasted on small units, so massive computers lead inevitably to mas–
sive structures and organizations. A properly programmed computer could
just as well handle an entire industry as the individual unit within that
industry. And a government handling the Computer of Computers could
make the right "mix" out of
all
industries. Not just the tax setup but
the computer revolution is killing off small units and enterprises. This
too is part of the tide no mere broom can ever sweep back.
Nobody has as yet described the new world accurately. It would
take a massive organization working with a massive computer and
having access to all the secret data of automating enterprises merely
to describe
what is happening all around us. Movies are being made
with computers; psychoanalysis is being carried out with computers;
medical diagnoses are being speeded up through use of computers; books
are being translated, texts analyzed, parallels dug up by computers.
Fallible men program computers which, once programmed, frequently
operate as if infallible. The United States, which has upwards of 20,000
computers in action at this 'moment, will, in just a few years, have at
least twice that many, each one with a capacity and a capability far
in advance of the very best machines of this moment.
Sir Leon Bagrit is asking us to prepare for the inevitable, but what
he prophesies is here already for the opening eye
to
see.
Jack Ludwig
