Synnoetics in Modern Society
The speaker proudly refers to the achievement of the faculty mediator and a computer in settling the “famous” strike of 1970.
He simply got both sides first to agree that each would benefit by concentrating attention—not on arguing and finally settling the issues one at a time—but on arguing and finally settling on a program for an automaton. This program would evaluate the thousands of alternative settlements and would recommend a small class of settlements each of which was nearly optimum for both sides. The automaton took only 30 minutes to produce the new contract last year. It would have taken one year to do this manually, and even then it would have been done less exhaustively. Agreeing on the program took one week. Of course, you have already heard that in many areas where people are bargaining or trying to make optimum decisions such as in the World Nations Organization, in the World Court, and in local, federal, and world legislative bodies, there is now serious consideration being given to convincing opposing factions to try to agree on a program and having once agreed on it, the contract or legislation or judgment or decision produced with the program would be accepted as optimum for both sides. Automata may also be provided to judges and juries to advise them of the effects of such factors as weight of evidence on verdicts in civil cases.
Dr. Fein makes an excellent case for the usefulness of the science of synnoetics; the main point of challenge to his paper might be that its date is too conservatively distant. Of interest to us here is the idea of man and machine working in harmony for the good of both.
Another paper, “The Coming Technological Society,” presented by Dr. Simon Ramo at the University of California at Los Angeles, May 1, 1961, also discusses the possible results of man-machine cooperation during the remainder of the twentieth century. He lists more than a dozen specific and important applications for intellectronics in the decades immediately ahead of us. Law, medicine, engineering, libraries, money, and banking are among these. Pointing out that man is as unsuited for “putting little marks on pieces of paper” as he was for building pyramids with his own muscles, he suggests that our thumbprints and electronic scanners will take care of all accounting. Tongue in cheek, he does say that there will continue to be risks associated with life; for instance, a transistor burning out in Kansas City may accidentally wipe out someone’s fortune in Philadelphia.
The making of reservations is onerous busywork man should not have to waste his valuable time on, and the control of moving things too is better left to the machine for the different reason that man’s unaided brain cannot cope with complex and high-speed traffic arteries, be they in space or on Los Angeles freeways. Business and military management will continue to be aided by the electronic machine.
But beyond all these benefits are those more important ones to our brains, our society, and culture. Teaching machines, says Dr. Ramo, can make education ten times more effective, thus increasing our intellect. And this improved intellect, multiplied by the electronic machine into intellectronic brainpower, is the secret of success in the world ahead. Instead of an automated, robotlike regimented world that some predict, Ramo sees greater democracy resulting. 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. Summing up, Dr. Ramo points out that intellectronics benefits not only the technical man but social man as well:
The real bottleneck to progress, to a safe, orderly, and happy transition to the coming technological age, lies in the severe disparity between scientific and sociological advance. Having discussed technology, with emphasis on the future extension of man’s intellect, we should ask: Will intellectronics aid in removing the imbalance? Will technology, properly used, make possible a correction of the very imbalance which causes technology to be in the lead? I believe that the challenging intellectual task of accelerating social progress is for the human mind and not his less intellectual partner. But perhaps there is hope. If the machines do more of the routine, everyday, intellectual tasks and insure the success of the material operation of the world, man’s work will be elevated to the higher mental domains. He will have the time, the intellectual stature, and hence the inclination to solve the world’s social problems. We must believe he has the capability.
