Computers and the people who make them work

Abstract

Most people now alive were born after the development of the modern computer. We are by now used to the fact that our electric bills, bank statements, and income tax returns are processed by high-speed machines for whom we represent a pattern of electric charges and nothing else. We are also aware, if somewhat more dimly, that the subway we take to work or school, the traffic lights that regulate our daily commute, and the elevators that take us up and down skyscrapers are likely to be controlled by automatic machines instead of people. We tend to be even less aware of how, with the help of computers, our workplaces have been taken apart and reassembled to change the way we make things. Yet, these are only the most visible changes wrought by the widespread application of computer-based technology. Automated subways and computer-controlled production lines are hard to miss if we happen to deal with them every day. The consequences of econometric modeling and computerized war-games are harder to see and even harder to properly appreciate.