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THE WAY I SEE IT By NEVILLE WILLIAMS Are computers turning us into automatons? Computers and computer-related devices are popping up everywhere, breeding like mice in a plague. They're taking over everyday tasks, doing our arithmetic, and defining our options with machine-like efficiency. But the more we rely on them, according to one reader, the more we behave like them; like automatons! So that you'll know what the correspondent is on about, I suggest that you read the letter set out in the accompanying panel. You've read it? Good! "Knickers in a knot", "Oliver Twist"! Get it? At least our correspondent can scarcely qualify as an automaton. That'll be the day when a humanoid can come up with spontaneous one-line gags. A whole generation of TV and radio presenters would become redundant. But what is an automaton? According to my dictionary, it has two principle meanings: (1). A mechanical figure or contrivance constructed so as to act, as if spontaneously, through concealed motive power; (2). A person who acts in a monotonous routine manner, without active intelligence. I imagine that our friend "Oliver" has the second definition in mind. He's fearful for all of us who use computers and computer based devices but his immediate and stated concern is for office workers, people who operate automated supermarket "chuckouts", attendants at self-service petrol stations and employees of the 18 SILICON CHIP Taxation Department. That's a fair cross-section of present-day wage earners! I must agree that, if one wants to ridicule and attack our burgeoning, computer-based society, there is no shortage of brickbats ready to hand. On the very day that I sat down to react in print to Oliver's letter, April 22, the following snippet appeared in "Column 8" of the Sydney Morning Herald. I quote it exactly as it appeared: A Kirribilli reader has been receiving letters for her late father from the Advance Banlc addressed to "Mr John K. R. Donavon Dec'd". The letters to the late Mr Donavon demand payment of his health insurance premiums. Undoubtedly, the above letters are being issued routinely by a computer-based system but again, one can hardly blame the machine for doing what it's been instructed to do. A human operator, a bit short on brainpower, has apparently failed to react correctly to formal notification of a person's death, such that the entry has ended up as a spurious name in the list of defaulters. That sort of thing can happen easily enough but if repeated, it ceases to be an oddity and becomes a source of annoyance. Three people, two addresses! For some time, my wife and I have contributed to a particular welfare organisation, quite routinely, until they were computerised. Then we suddenly found ourselves to be three separate people living at two adjacent addresses - presumably because one or other of us had signed the cheque on different occasions and because, at some other time, a door-knocker had confused our own and a neighbour's address. Concerned that they were wasting two lots of stationery and postage, we sought to bring the matter to their notice by indicating on a particular return slip that the other two were redundant and that, in any case, one had a wrong initial and the other a wrong address. But they didn't react to the information nor, apparently, did their system alert them to the fact that two of the three supposedly different people were consistently ignoring their literature. A similar experience with another organisation served to confirm the impression that their staff had become part of the system unwilling or unable to react outside their new "computerised" routine. As I see it, there is a real danger that the goodwill for a welfare cause will be undermined if the computer is allowed to replace rather than supplement human in- Why do computers inhibit common sense? Dear Mr Williams, Most of us have enjoyed a good laugh, at one time or another, at the expense of the unfortunate clerks in a Dickensian office, with their black coats, high stools, massive ledgers and quill pens. But I wonder whether we've noticed their counterparts in modern offices - young women mostly, in regulation uniform, perched behind plastic counters and seemingly hypnotised by a fluorescent screen. You want to know something, buy something, go somewhere, pay an account, draw money and it's always the same routine. They listen impassively, push a few buttons and intone what appears on the screen. It's the ultimate authority; they don't question it. Neither should you! I'm well aware that computers and their derivatives can speed up, rationalise, mechanise and automate a whole range of human activities but there's a problem: they're also eroding our very humanity. They're slowly turning us into automatons - users and victims alike. The supermarket where we do our family shopping has recently been redesigned, rebuilt and fitted out with all the latest gee-whiz technology. At the check-outs (chuck-outs?) they grab things as fast as you can unload your trolley volvement; if supporters begin to perceive that they are corresponding with a machine rather than a person. Self-service petrol stations? They're OK when you're in a hurry but I enjoy the rare experience of pulling into a country service station and having someone offer to fill the tank, check the oil and clean the windscreen. After three or four hours of pounding down the highway, a little human interest and conversation is welcome relaxation before heading out again onto the bitumen. Bar code "chuck-outs" As for bar code check-outs, I and swish them past a laser gismo. It goes beep-beep-beep, flickerflicker-flicker and you, in turn, have to grab your change and run before the next pile of groceries lands on top of your own. Perhaps it's too much to hope for the return of the friendly family grocer but, before this latest hurryup gadget appeared on the scene, there was at least some opportunity for human pleasantries on the way past the manually operated cash registers. A lot of the cashiers were real people! I don't like self-service petrol stations either - and it's not because I'm shy of pumps. But I find no satisfaction at all in doing all my own chores, finding where things are, and then handing my money to someone whose main function is to compare the amount proffered with that shown in the readout. What stirred me to get down on my butt and write this letter? I'll tell you. A few weeks back, knowing that settlement was due, I sent off a cheque to the Taxation Department, along with the relevant assessment slips and a request for an acknowledgement. None arrived but what I received instead was a pay-up-or-else notice and a statement that the overdue debt was currently incrementing at so many dollars per week. have mixed feelings. They are about as far as one can get from the friendly neighbourhood grocer; efficient but almost totally inhuman and so fast that it's difficult, if not impossible, to compare individual items with the price read-out. Yet technically, they intrigue me no end. I look back to an incident many years ago when an executive I knew in a now-defunct parts manufacturing business confided to me that he had just obtained Australian rights involving the use of bar coding to facilitate automatic identification of products and prices. It would revolutionise retailing, So I phoned my tax agent, who promised to inquire on my behalf. She rang back next day, somewhat incredulous. She was told that the Department had experienced a major computer "crash" and had lost the data covering all money received over a couple of weeks. They were now having to reassemble the information. The trouble was, she said, that another part of the system had kept right on despatching demand letters. My cheque had in fact been received, my file was in order and I should ignore the current correspondence. I may be naive but it seems to me that the automatic reaction of anyone sensing a crash in the "income" side of the system should have been to ensure that the despatch of demand letters was also interrupted. I have little doubt that the black coated-clerks in the Dickensian office would have done just that but what is it about a computer that inhibits human common sense? Could it even be that they're turning un into automatons? Not wishing to invite the wrath of some minor public servant, I would prefer that you did not publish my name and address but, on the grounds that my knickers appear to be in something of a knot, I'll. sign off as: Oliver Twist! he said, by eliminating the need for individual price stickers. Computerised check-outs would itemise, record and charge for purchases automatically, while also up-dating sales and stock records on a realtime basis. Prices could be adjusted instantly, or in as little time as it took to write a new display placard. And so on. While it sounded technically feasible, I failed to generate any instant enthusiasm. He would need to convince a great many people to change their ways and spend their money before he could start to eat. But it's all happened. Optimistic as he was, I doubt that he foresaw the devices that can ]UL Y 1988 19 THE WAY I SEE IT- CTD now read the codes printed on products of all shapes, sizes and colours, as they are whipped past in mid-air. The quickness of the hand may indeed deceive the customer's eye but if the claimed reading accuracy figures are to be believed, it very rarely deceives the laser. And for every "Oliver" who objects there may well be others who respond positively to the "hi-tech" environment. I wonder what happens though, when there's a power failure? Word processors My closest encounters with computers have been in their role as word processors. Until my retirement in mid 1983, all my articles were written on a typewriter, using journalists' copy paper - octavo (half-quarto) sheets. Normal practice was to type one paragraph or two short paragraphs per slip. The idea of doing this was to make subsequent editing easier by making it possible to add, remove, substitute or shuffle individual paragraphs with a minimum of retyping. By mid 1984 however, it became practical to set up a basic word processor and printer for well under $1000 and I did just that, using a VZ-200 (later a VZ-300} computer from DSE. It was subsequently replaced by a more ambitious Apple system, which I've been using ever since. But back in 1984, it needed ,only that first article to convince me that the faithful old Adler had had its day. With a word processor there was less need to analyse every phrase before I typed it; if it subsequently proved to be clumsy or ambiguous, it could changed without mess or hassle. Paragraphs could be deleted, inserted, replaced or shuffled electronically with equal ease. Those Printouts! An effective way of building customer distrust of computerised methods is to economise on ribbons and issue barely readable print-outs. As often as not, the worst offenders are not supermarkets but those poverty ridden banks and other financial institutions! Spare a thought for the aged pensioner who recently complained to me that: "They don't write in your bankbook like they used to. They do it in a machine but you can't read it, even with a magnifying glass". I could just read it; coarse dot matrix letters in the palest grey. As she explained to me: "It's my bankbook and I shouldn't have to ask somebody else to tell me what the figures are". But what really delights the Editor, right now, is when I ring him to say that the next article is ready to "shoot down the line". A few minutes later, the text from my Apple is on his hard disc. He can read, check and encode it, before feeding it down the line to the printer's typesetter, which turns it directly into magazine galley proofs. It's all very convenient and efficient but yes, use of a word processor does modify a writer's approach. Relieved of the need for scribble pads, manual corrections, typing and re-typing, he/she can aim for "perfection" first up, work to a draft format, or attack the task piecemeal, knowing that the result can be tidied up on screen before printout. As for going back to a conventional typewriter: forget it. I've lost the will and, if the truth's known, I've probably lost the skill and the patience to work any other way. At the same time, one must concede that word processors have their own frustrations. It takes a while to get used to reading text on a screen rather than on paper. And you can't really concentrate on what you're writing until the mechanics of the computer have become routine. Some systems are better than others in this respect, because they use easily remembered commands and present text on screen in essentially the same form that it will take when printed out. The jargon term is "wysiwyg" - what you see is what you get (well, more or less). One also discovers that, in most word processors, the text on the screen and accumulating in the memory is distinctly vulnerable. A heavy switching pulse on the power line or even a brief drop-out can clutter a literary gem with garbage or wipe it out altogether. Careless operation can achieve a similar result, especially if the program has insufficient safeguards or the odd built-in "bug". That's why you very quickly learn to save, save, save, even if you have to interrupt the muse. That way, a switching pulse, a blackout or a bolt of lightning can't rob you of more than a few minutes' work. The rest will always be safely tucked away on disc or tape. Computers are really tools The point I want to make is that computer related devices are basically tools which should allow us to perform various tasks more expeditiously, more thoroughly and more economically - like those specifically mentioned: transf erring funds, retailing groceries and petrol, collecting income tax and writing articles. But like all new tools and methods, we have to come to terms with them. The point I want to make is that computer related devices are basically tools which allow us to perform various tasks more expeditiously. 20 SILICON CHIP As a reader of this magazine, "Oliver" is presumably not antitechnology. What he's on about is the tendency to delegate control of our affairs to machines, at the expense of human intervention. I think he has a valid point. It is reinforced by what may well be the ultimate example of such a situation - the reputed role of computers in last year's world stockmarket crash. In the USA, portfolio managers had set up a network of computers which were programmed to buy and sell automatically in response to sharernarket moves in either direction. According to a US Presidental task force report, issued earlier this year, these computers generated selling orders totalling between twenty and thirty billion US dollars during the week of the crash, adding considerable fuel to the "selling inferno". A typewriter problem By coincidence, a reader from Woodend, Vic, draws my attention to a problem of a different kind he has encountered with an electronic typewriter - this in the context of spare parts, or the lack of them. I quote: Dear Mr Williams, I have purchased all the issues of SILICON CHIP thus far and have enjoyed them very much. By way of response, I would like to add my experience to the "They'll sell you anything" file. Less than two months ago, I received an electronic typewriter as a gift - a Casio CW-16 portable machine with about as many features as can be crammed into a typewriter before it becomes a computer. It's quite a change from the old manual machines that we struggled along with for the past 20 years. There is one thing wrong with it, though: the ribbons are virtually unobtainable. You wouldn't believe the amount of time and money I've expended in the last two weeks trying to get ribbons. I've rung the Melbourne agents three times and, only on the third occasion, was I able to get the name of some local agents. I've spent any amount of time on the phone trying to get something done but so far, with no success. And this is a brand new machine. I hate to think what the situation will be in a few years' time. I agree that obtaining parts nowadays for almost anything is difficult (I send overseas for virtually everything). We hate to think what sort of trouble we'll be in when our 3-year old National VCR needs service. At least the National brand seems extremely reliable. Our 14 year old National TV has hardly had the back off since new. Agreed, its use for TV reception is very limited because TV signals in this area are almost non-existent. Keep up the good work. I have enjoyed your writings for about twenty-five years. T. R. (Woodend, Vic). Thanks for your letter, T.R., and for your kind remarks. Your story reminds me of my own stated problem with a computer printer, although it was ultimately resolved - with no thanks to the distributor. Hopefully, yours will have been sorted out by now or publication of this letter will prompt someone to point you in the right direction. As for your National brand VCR and TV receiver, the company does have a good reputation for quality but like most other suppliers, these days, they cop their share of criticism for a slow turnaround in jobs and parts. ~ Problems? ... and you don't have our 112 page catalogue ... you've got real problems! ARISTA ... your one-stop problem solver. Audio leads ... Batteries ... Chargers ... Battery holders ... Cables ... Car accessories ... CD accessories ... Converters ... "Cutec" ... Earphones ... Fuses ... Headphones ... Intercoms ... Knobs ... Microphones and accessories ... Mixers ... Multimeters ... Plugs/Sockets, etc ... Plug adaptors ... Power packs and leads ... PA ... Disc and Tape care ... 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