While the image sank in for his audience, Pierre picked up the glass of ice water in front of him and sipped enough to wet his whistle. The crowd ate him up. He was weaving a web, drawing a picture, and only the artist knew what the climax would be.
"Excuse me." Pierre cleared his throat. "We as a people believe a computer printout is the closest thing to God on earth. Di- vinely accurate, piously error-free. Computerized bank state- ments, credit card reports, phone bills, our life is stored away in computer memories, and we trust that the information residing there is accurate. We want, we need to believe, that the ma- chines that switch the street lights, the ones that run the elevator, the one that tells us we have to go to traffic court, we want to believe that they are right.
"Then on yet another hand, we all experience the frustration of the omnipresent complaint, 'I'm sorry the computer is down. Can you call back?'" Again the audience emotionally related to what Pierre was saying. They nodded at each other and in Pierre's direction to indicate concurrence.
"I, as many of us have I am sure, arrived at a hotel, or an airport, or a car rental agency and been told that we don't have a reservation. For me there is an initial embarrassment of having my hand slapped by the computer terminal via the clerk. Then, I react strongly. I will raise my voice and say that I made a reservation, two days ago. I did it myself. Then the clerk will say something like, 'It's not in the computer'. How do you react to that statement?
"Suddenly your integrity is being questioned by an agglomeration of wire and silicon. Your veracity comes into immediate doubt. The clerk might think that you never even made a reservation. You become a liar because the computer disagrees with you. And to argue about it is an exercise in futility. The computer cannot reason. The computer has no ability to make a judgment about you, or me. It is a case of being totally black or white. And for the human of the species, that value system is unfathoma- ble, paradoxical. Nothing is black and white. Yes, the computer is black and white. Herein again, the mind prefers the analog, the continuous, rather than the digitally discreet.
"In these cases, the role is reversed, we blame the computer for making errors. We tend to be verbally graphic in the comments we make about computers when they don't appear to work the way we expect them to. We distrust them." Pierre gestured with his arms to emphasize his point. The crescendo had begun.
"The sociological implications are incredible. As a people we have an inherent distrust of computers; they become an easy scapegoat for modern irritations. However, the balancing side of the scale is an implicit trust in their abilities. The inherent trust we maintain in computers is a deeply emotional one, much as a helpless infant trusts the warmth of contact with his parents. Such is the trust that we have in our computers, because, like the baby, without that trust, we could not survive."
He let the words sink in. A low rumbling began throughout the gallery and hall. Pierre couldn't hear any of the comments, but he was sure he was starting a stink.
"It is our faith in computers that lets us continue. The reli- gious parallels are obvious. The evangelical computer is also the subject of fiction, but trust and faith are inextricably meshed into flavors and degrees. A brief sampling of common everyday items and events that are dependent on computers might prove enlightening.
"Without computers, many of lifes' simple pleasures and conven- iences would disappear. Cable television. Movies like Star Wars. Special effects by computer. Magic Money Cards. Imagine life without them." A nervous giggle met Pierre's social slam. "Call holding. Remember dial phones? No computers needed. CD's? The staple diet of teenage America is the bread and butter of the music industry. Mail. Let's not forget the Post Office and other shippers. Without computers Federal Express would be no better than the Honest-We'll-Be-Here-Tomorrow Cargo Company."