by Marlin Eller,
written some time in high school 1969-70
Campaigns, political campaigns, are run by computers. Attitudes of the voters are measured, matched, and manipulated by the advice of number crunching ad firms that tell the politician what to do and what to say at the right time in order to please the greatest number of people. These computer given instructions by no means stop at the end of a campaign as they once did, but now pervade the entire political and social spectrum. For years the accepted attitude has been – why bother the populace with the details all the time, only the leaders need know what is really going on. Now it has been carried one step further. Even the leaders don’t know what is going on, they are simply told what is the most politically expedient course of action in a given situation and they choose whether or not they want to follow it. Of course, if they choose against it they risk loosing popular support, but such is the nature of choosing a less than best choice course of action. All this is well known.
In fact, the only problem arises when some people begin to complain that the computers control everything. Every action you take is planned out by some cold unfeeling machine. The computer takes some incredibly complex issue like racial prejudice, reduces it to two numbers, decides which one is larger, and then tells you what to do. The computer does not know the feelings or the emotions involved. All they know are numbers. Suppose the computer must tell a politician what kind of stance he should take on capital punishment. Can a computer ever know what it means to have a best friend murdered? Can it know the desire for revenge? Is it able to understand sorrow, lust, fear, anger, hatred, or love? People have been trying to understand these things for all of time and have come nowhere. Are we to expect a machine composed of nuts and bolts to come up with a reasonable decision on any issue that is so deeply rooted in human emotion?
These complaints about computers are quite legitimate and need careful consideration. Perhaps you have felt some of this resentment of computer control yourself. Those who share those complaints are absolutely correct in claiming that computers are incapable of feeling human emotion. All they can do is compare numbers. In emotionally charged issues they compare large numbers but the fact remains that they are only comparing numbers and do not feel one way or the other about the issues.
But let us take the example of a person deciding what stand he should take on something like capital punishment. He considers both sides. It is very complex, yet he must choose, pro or con, for or against. When it is finished he has chosen one side or the other and supports it. When the opposition contends his choice he admits that both sides have valid arguments and that his choice what based on rather fine points. When he describes these points to the opposition they point out that the fine points are contestable and may not even be true. He may flip flop to the other side or he may stick to his original decision.
In either case he is not absolutely sure of his decision and has succeeded in developing an ulcer over an issue which deals with strong feelings but is so evenly weighed that his decision pro or con is as reasonable as his choice of heads or tails in the flip of a coin. And that is where the computer fits in. The computer can correlate data much faster and more completely than any human being possibly can and because it can predict the outcome of its actions much better than any human, the coin that is flipped is carefully loaded and the odds balanced to perfectly match the final decision of an ideal human being deciding on an issue. In fact, when the computer’s decision is announced the people can relax, knowing that the proscribed policy is the best possible course of action that will do the most for the most people on any given issue.
It is precisely for this reason that computers are used. Not because computers want to take over (recall, they have no feelings), but rather because people are coming to recognize their superiority in decision making and want them to take over.
The next time you run across a computer analysis of something you will have the satisfaction of knowing that it is the best possible analysis of the situation and cannot be improved upon by human reasoning. Computers, unfeeling computers, will stay and continue to influence more and more of your daily lives for the simple reason that you will want them to.
THIS IS COMPUANALYSIS 601-973482-00 :
REACTION TO HYPOTHETICAL ANTI-COMPUTER SENTIMENT (SEE SUMMARY IN PARAGRAPH TWO)
ANTICIPATED RESPONSE: 78% TOTAL POPULATION FAVORABLE IF HUMAN DELIVERY IS USED. 69.5% IF COMPUTER DELIVERY IS USED.
PREDICTION HALF-LIFE: 6 MONTHS
DECAY TIME: 0.13 FOR HUMAN DELIVERY
3.20 FOR COMPUTER DELIVERY
SUMMARY & RECOMMENDATIONS:
WAIT APPROXIMATELY THREE WEEKS FOR DELIVERY (HUMAN) OF ANTI-COMPUTER SPEECH FOLLOW UP WITH DELIVERY (HUMAN) OF REACTION TO ANTI-COMPUTER SENTIMENTS (COMPUANALYSIS 601-973482-00) NOT MORE THAN ONE WEEK LATER. ANTICIPATED SUCCESS RATE: 99.83% (BASED ON CALCULATIONS FROM ANTICIPATED RESPONSE AND FLETCHER-HEISMAN ACCEPTANCE CURVES)