John Diebold

The computer is entering the fourth generation of its history, but it still remains a mystery for most people. It is a constant influence on our lives, having radically altered not only how we do things but also in a large part what we do. In an era of accelerating change, it has been perhaps the single most important factor in fostering that change. But while it has lifted many burdens, it is also widely feared. It has opened wholly new opportunities, but at the same time threatens the jobs of many. It has made possible fantastic achievements, such as landing men on the moon, but it seems to endanger our privacy and even our values. Its basic technology is clearly understood, but the fundamental questions about its role in today's and tomorrow's world have hardly been framed, let alone answered significantly. In The World of the Computer, John Diebold brings together an impressive group of experts from a variety of different fields to survey the development of the computer from its earliest days to the present, and to anticipate some of the future developments and controversies that will accompany computerization in coming years. Where did the idea first originate of "calculating arithmetical tables by machinery," and why did the discovery lie neglected for more than three-quarters of a century? What did the original computers look like, and how have they changed? How can a computer be made to run an automated factory, aid in managing a corporation, run sales-counter check-outs and automated highways, teach children to read, catalog and make available to researchers both scholarly material and scientific data, make long-distance medical diagnoses and direct impulses to battery-operated artificial limbs? And what are the implications of some of these remarkable discoveries? What happens to workers in the automated factory? Is there a place for data banks in a supposedly free society? Can machines be taught to "think," and if so, what does this mean in terms of defining the nature of human intelligence? Jeremy Bernstein, John von Neumann (the "Father of the Computer"), R. Buckminster Fuller, Charles E. Silberman, Michael Crichton, Margaret Mead, Kenneth E. Boulding, Arthur C. Clarke, Norbert Wiener and many others turn their attention to these and other questions. Many of their opinions are speculative and controversial, but the authors agree on one fact about the world of the computer: its development will take us beyond the civilization of an industrial society and will raise an entirely new set of social, economic and moral problems.