Science: Come the Revolution

Three years ago Norbert Wiener, professor of mathematics at M.I.T., was a “longhair” who had coined the word “cybernetics”* to wrap up the many-sided science of communication and control devices. Now Wiener’s book, Cybernetics (TIME, Dec. 27, 1948), is a classic, and Wiener is a prophet who is listened to by shorthaired, hardheaded businessmen. Many of them agree wholeheartedly that the “cybernetic revolution” he predicted is already in progress.

Last week, as guest of honor at a Manhattan dinner of the Society for the Advancement of Management, Wiener described briefly the mathematical and electronic tools that are the basis of modern control mechanisms. Then he launched into his standard warning: automatic factories and mechanical “brains” to run them may come into use too quickly and society may not be able to absorb or provide for the human hands and brains that they will replace. This is very likely to happen, said Wiener, if there is a third World War. The armed services will require enormous numbers of men, and the U.S. will have to fill their places on the home front with mechanical men who (being cheaper and more efficient) will keep their jobs after the war is over. The ensuing crisis of unemployment, said Wiener, will threaten the stability of society.

Frankenstein Monster? Mathematician Wiener had often said this before, and been pooh-poohed as an alarmist. Last week he was not laughed at. Allen N. Scares, vice president and general manager of Remington Rand, Inc., told of a machine, UNIVAC, manufactured by his company, that can do most of the numerical tasks now performed by flesh & blood clerks. In computing payroll checks, for instance, it “reads” (at 10,000 characters per second) two magnetic tapes with numbers coded on them. One tape carries all the data about each employee: his wage rate, tax status, pension deductions, etc. The other carries the hours worked by each during the pay period. By comparing the tapes at lightning speed, UNIVAC can compute a complicated payroll for 10,000 employees in only 40 minutes.

How many clerks UNIVAC would replace Scares did not say. He was confident that Remington Rand had not created a “Frankenstein [monster] which can turn upon us and wreck the very foundations of our society. History has demonstrated that there is an ultimate good in every new tool . . . The acceptance is gradual as the new tool proves its worth. It has never occurred as a sudden change.”

The Robots. Luther Gulick, president of the Institute of Public Administration, was not quite so confident. He felt that management has certain responsibilities “in the face of the cybernetic revolution.” Said Gulick: “Machines can now perform most of the routine operations performed by human beings in mass production manufacturing, mass clerical operations, and in the exercise of technical control processes.” They can observe facts and reach conclusions from their observations. They can store facts in their memories. They can make decisions based on observed facts plus remembered facts. They can communicate automatically over any distance. They can set other machines in motion, keep watch over them and correct their action, keep accounts and make reports at any desired stage.

These accomplishments of the new machines, said Gulick, will allow them to replace 78.4% of the men in factories employing more than 100, and 16.5% of the white-collar help. In ten years, he estimated, some 7,500,000 workers will be replaced by the intelligent machines. A national emergency could speed up the process greatly. Both management and government, said Gulick, will have to look sharp, lest a too-quick development of this sort leave a large part of the U.S. population without support or function.

* From Greek for “steersman.”