T A Pie traci, chairman of Elliot Automation Ltd., is giving this from addiction to radia BAe sb age — “Paps ingest ey by anywhere byt by a wireless set on a Sikh ai nt it is ees Betecd fro Bert wigs some of the remarkable issue raised Sir Leon ces a made a point, first, that the scale of computers is shrinking all the time =n 1950 a computer filled a bigzish rooms; now you can fit one into a suitcase; in ten year's time it will be possible to fit one into a box the size of a packet of 100 cigarettes. This means that it becomes possible to think of individual computers, fitting into people's pockets or handbags, or carried easily in a car. Such personal computers could be plugged Lite national or even international grid, providing an instant entry into an almost unlimited bank of information. The possibilities for insightful action which this might open up are almost beyond imagination, = At the simple level, traffic problems could be computed out of existence. With a traffic control computer grid, drivers could be informed in advance of any holdups or road works, and offered alternative routes, They could feed their own intentions into the bank, and allow calculations to be made which would cover the effect of their ow activities. : 4n extension of the principle would allow the creation of an economic grid, This could store a labyrinth of information, from which individuals workers, or firms, could obtein all the necessary facts to allow them to solve a problem or arrive at a decision, At this point of his argument, Sir Leon hit a snag: in a community in which opposed interests did not exist, there would be no incentive for people to withold information upon which other people's decisions might need to be based. But in our society, riven into opposing classes and fragmented into warring interest-groups, this is simply not true. Sir Leon must have allowed this thought to cross his mind: because he went off his path to make the point that if this grid were to work there would probably have to be a law compelling people who used the computer bank to feed their own decisions back into it, thus keeping it constantly up-to-date. Unfortunately, a law wouldn't be enough, Sir Leon is an eminent businessman, He is successful, respected, and important enough in today's scciety to be allowed to deliver the Reith lectures. But he is also, in spite, perhaps, of his better judgement, launching revolution on us as fast as his factory can run.
In some fields it is perhaps just possible to imagine computer-grids at work within our present sociel order. Sir Leon speaks of the possibility of an electronic library of symptoms which could be created for doctors, In hospitals doctors' and nurses! time could be drastically saved by autcmating the transmission, collection and storage of patients' medical records. Given a huge money infusion, perhaps the health service could begin to use these devices.
But the economy is a completely different story. These masnificient tools would allow us, very easily, to come to scrips with the problens of. democratic planning. All the key problem areas could be isolated with their help, and the issues easily condensed into choices, into alternative policies upon which popular decisions could be taken, Pigs also could fly, if certain structural modifications were made to thene Capitalism could only use such marvellous achievements if it could jell out a monolithic elite completely separate from the mass of the people in which case there would be two classes: computerised slave-owners and computerless helots. Until then, capitalism demands the restriction of the circulation of information, because other men's ignorance