The trouble with computers

As you have no d oub t noticed , we are trying som ething a little d if­ ferent a t this year’s m eeting; we have invited several groups to share w ith us the ir experiences in developing and using com puter supprt sys­ tems. My purpose here this m orn ing is to give you some background in ­ form ation on why we’re doing this and w hat we hope to achieve. I t’s a surprise to no one th a t com puter technology has been a d ­ vancing at a fan tastic ra te over the past few years. W hat does surprise m e, at least, is th a t it shows no signs of slowing down. I t ’s h a rd enough to keep track of the advances being m ade each week, let alone trying to figure ou t w hat to actually buy!!! I t ’s only too bad th a t o ther areas w ithin our technological society have not m ade sim ilar advances. I recently read a paper by a no ted h istorian th a t suggested th a t if technology and productiv ity in o ther industries had progresses at the sam e ra te as com ­ pu te r technology, a flight around the world would take only 24 m inutes and Cadillacs w ould get 600 miles per gallon!!! W hile such analogies m ay be true on the surface, they d o n ’t tell the whole story. For exam ple, if we were to focus on o ther characteristics of this rapid ly grow ing technology, we would find th a t ou r $600 C adillac could only be driven by certain individuals, could only use one type of gas; would have users m anual th a t only a few people could read or understand , and it would be extrem ely difficult to get anyone to ride w ith you! At the sam e tim e our analytical capabilities are increasing expon ­ entially, costs are decreasing at a sim ilar ra te . Tw enty five years ago it cost about $1.25 to perform 100,000 m ultip lications using a digital com puter. T oday, such a task costs m uch less th a n a penny. I t ’s possible for an individual to ren t tim e on an in te rna tiona l com m unications n e t­ work and send in form ation v irtually anyw here in the world at the ra te of 40 m illion bits per second. This is roughly equal to 480,000 university professors ta lk ing at the sam e tim e. These trem endous technological advances are not w ithout p o ten ­ tially serios side effects, however. T h e n a tu re and severity of these p ro ­ blems depend on w here you stand . From my position, for exam ple, a m ajo r p rob lem w ith com puters is tha t they are getting so affordable, and so easy to use, tha t it is ge tting very d ifficult to im press people with