FUTURE COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY AND ITS IMPACT

Computer potentials are given as the ability 1 to encode information in terms of numeric symbols, 2 to parse sentences, drawing a picture of the sentence structure, or to perform algebraic manipulation, 3 to process symbolic pictorial information and reconstruct a picture, and 4 to model any system, identifying its variables and stating the relations between them, in terms of a set of mathematical relations. The attributes of the computer, or more properly the information processor, are given as follows. It is the most powerful and most flexible tool ever available to man and to society. It is not a replacement for man in any large and encompassing sense it will displace him in many jobs, but it also will offer him many new opportunities. The computer will touch men everwhere and in every way, almost on a minute-to-minute basis. Every man will communicate through a computer whatever he does. It will change and reshape his life, modify his career, and force him to accept a life of continuous change. Paper presented to the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corp. and the Project RAND Air Force Advisory Group in Nov 1965