human-nets@cca.UUCP (06/05/83)
>From Human-Nets-Request@Rutgers Sun Jun 5 15:19:06 1983
HUMAN-NETS Digest Sunday, 5 Jun 1983 Volume 6 : Issue 32
Today's Topics:
Computers and People - The Effects of Automation on Jobs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thursday, 2 Jun 1983 23:30-PDT
From: lauren at rand-unix
(Financial Commentary)
By STEVEN J. MARCUS
c. 1983 N.Y. Times News Service
NEW YORK - Automation is not dehumanizing, at least not for those
who buy what automatons make, says Michael Dertouzos, director of the
Laboratory for Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. He likes to say, in fact, that it is inherently
''re-humanizing'' because it permits the manufacture of low-cost,
high-quality goods of enormous variety with capital equipment that
need not be replaced, only reprogrammed.
Enthusiasts, who invariably speak in acronyms, contend that CAD,
CAP and CAM, when combined in a factory to achieve CIP, may well bring
on the consumer's Golden Age. They are promoting computer-aided
design, computer-aided planning and computer-aided manufacturing to
arrive at computer-integrated production.
Moreover, they say, the United States needs such factories to
regain its industrial leadership, and they often cite the warning by
James A. Baker, a vice president of the General Electric Co., that
American manufacturers must ''automate, emigrate or evaporate.''
But for the worker, the factory of the future may be literally
dehumanized, with few human beings inside. And if plants nationwide
become computerized, says Stephen A. Merrill, senior research
associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in
Washington, ''the consensus in the United States is that large numbers
of workers will be laid off.''
Merrill's remarks were made last week in Detroit during the annual
meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
They were part of a major agenda item that addressed the issue of
technological unemployment.
According to Joel D. Goldhar, dean of the School of Business
Administration at the Illinois Institute of Technology, the factory of
the future ''is already here and coming faster.'' ''The technology has
an imperative of its own,'' he said, and there is little to be done to
lessen its human impact. ''We're talking unmanned,'' he said. ''To
suggest otherwise is to pander to current social thought.''
Moreover, displaced blue-collar workers will hardly be candidates
for the few jobs remaining, which will require sophistication and
advanced degrees, he said.
Some at the meeting maintained that even without a transition to
automation, job prospects would be dim. If the change is not made,
said Frank P. Stafford, chairman of the economics department at the
University of Michigan, ''jobs will be lost to foreign producers.''
Worker-displacement conflicts have so far been confined in the
United States to the few automated facilities that exist. And they
have been addressed by collective bargaining, case-by-case, instead of
being embraced by the national political process. Even under these
circumstances, Merrill maintained, organized labor has been too meek:
''It has been more concerned with smoothing the adjustment than with
influencing basic change.''
But the basic changes required are far beyond the abilities of any
union - or company, city or state, for that matter - to carry out by
itself, said Donald F. Ephlin, vice president of the United Automobile
Workers. ''The impact of technology would be much easier to address,''
he said, ''if a full-employment economy were the centerpiece of a
national policy.''
The union official said that in West Germany, for example,
government and industry work together to reduce the work force, when
necessary, by attrition, and workers are either retrained for the
remaining jobs or are shifted to related industries. ''The workers
cooperate,'' Mr. Ephlin said, ''because they know there is a national
commitment to employment security.''
There were similar observations made about Norway, Japan and
Austria.
Federal intervention is clearly required in the transition to
automation, said Prof. Edward Blakely and a researcher, Phil Shapira,
of the city and regional planning department at the University of
California at Berkeley. But they cautioned that a powerful centralized
agency modeled after Japan's Ministry of International Trade and
Industry would serve the country no better than a policy of
laissez-faire. What is needed, they argued, is direct involvement and
control by the workers themselves and their communities, with Federal
support.
Melvin Kranzberg, professor of the history of technology at
Georgia Tech, suggested that the ''automate, emigrate or evaporate''
choice is specious. ''We are potentially wise and creative enough to
develop subtler alternatives,'' he said. ''and the technologies give
us the options.''
By SUSAN B. GARLAND
Newhouse News Service
WASHINGTON - The world of work today for 32-year-old Henry
Pieczynski is quite different from the din, heat and grime of the
steel mill.
Every morning, he dons a necktie and visits the quiet, carpeted
classrooms of Control Data Institute in Pittsburgh where he and 125
other laid-off steelworkers are learning the skills they will need to
win the jobs of the future.
Until last July, Pieczynski was a machinist for the Edgewater
Steel Co. in Oakmont, Pa. By the fall, after completing an
eight-month, state-funded program, he and his classmates will embark
on new careers, as computer technicians.
Perhaps some will return to the steel mills to watch over the
robots that may assume many of their own former tasks.
''There's a trade-off. My income won't be as high, but the
computer industry won't collapse overnight like the steel or auto
industries,'' Pieczynski said in a recent telephone interview. ''The
future is what I'm shooting for.''
The steelworkers in this small program are symbols of the winds of
change sweeping across the occupational landscape of the United
States. Advancing technology and foreign competition are causing a
rewriting of job descriptions, and frequent career changes are
expected to become common as occupations become more complex and
require different skills.
This upheaval in the job market is a pressing issue for all of
today's adult workers because most of the emerging skilled jobs will
have to be filled by them. People who are adults now will make up more
than 75 percent of the work force in the year 2000.
But it also is a problem facing the institutions that prepare the
workers. The education and training workers receive will determine
whether they will adapt to this stunning metamorphosis of the
workplace.
''The challenge is, how do you keep worker skills in an era of
fast-paced technological change?'' says Pat Choate, senior policy
analyst for economics at TRW Inc. ''It's not a question of more skills
or fewer skills. It's a question of making sure they have the right
skills.''
Not only are technological advances creating new types of
industries and occupations - in computers, genetic engineering,
robotics, lasers and fiber optics. They also are transforming the way
people are doing the jobs they already have.
Some of the changes are occurring gradually, although ultimately
they will mean a overhaul of the workplace. Take the secretary's job.
Within 15 years, the secretary has moved from the manual typewriter to
the electric typewriter to the electric typewriter with a memory to
the computerized word processor. Office personnel eventually will
simply dictate into a machine that will type the letter itself.
Some of the changes are more dramatic. Smokestack industries - in
steel, automobiles, rubber and textiles - are declining rapidly,
forcing more than 2 million out of work in the past several years.
Many will never return to their blue-collar jobs. Within these
industries, the kinds of work will change as robots, computer-aided
design and manufacturing, and other forms of automation enable factory
workers to remove their hard hats.
By the year 2000, heavy manufacturing is expected to comprise 11
percent of the workforce, down from 28 percent in 1980. Farming jobs
will decline from 4 percent to 3 percent. Jobs in the service
industries - medicine, leisure, business and finance services, real
estate and education - will catapult to 86 percent from 68 percent.
But jobs in the heavy manufacturing and farming sectors are not
the only ones that will vanish. Choate estimates that 2 million to 3
million workers each year will be permanently displaced in every area
of the economy, including the growing high-technology and service
industries.
''The dimensions of the change are such that most workers will
find themselves like many workers who are now in the automobile
assembly lines: Their jobs just won't be there because their jobs are
being automated or because the market is being overtaken by foreign
competition,'' Choate says.
Yet, according to Choate and other forecasters, the automation
that causes massive displacement is not expected also to cause
widespread unemployment. There will be enough jobs, they say, but
people will have to be ready and willing to change jobs as the jobs
change, to be retrained and to relocate.
For one thing, technology will create millions of new jobs. A
robot may replace several human workers on the assembly line, but the
humans could become robot designers, installers, sales personnel and
repairers.
Also, changing demographics will create new occupations. An aging
and growing population is causing an explosion in health services, and
an increase in the number of two-worker households is leading to
similar gains in the fast-food industry. Predicted shorter work weeks
and two-income families should create new occupations in a booming
recreation industry.
But the unskilled and undereducated worker may find harder times
ahead because some form of computer literacy may be necessary for most
workers.
''There will be fewer and fewer unskilled jobs,'' says Norman
Feingold, president of the National Career and Counseling Services.
''There was a time in this country when you didn't need to read and
to write to work, but that's fast disappearing.''
While many warn of a major economic transformation in the next
several years, some are more skeptical about its pace and its effect
on the average worker.
Economist Sar A. Levitan, director of the Center for Social Policy
Studies at George Washington University, notes that 50 years ago one
out of every five Americans was a farm worker.
''If anybody told us in 1933 that only 3 percent of the labor
force would be in agriculture today, we would have foreseen all sorts
of cataclysmic problems in terms of what would those poor farmers do
with their skills in the big cities,'' Levitan says.
''But ever so slowly the economy absorbed them.''
''It's expensive to automate, plus the technology is still in its
infancy,'' says Neal H. Rosenthal, chief of the occupational outlook
division of the federal government's Bureau of Labor Statistics.
''Some of the larger companies are in the forefront, but others have
to wait until they know it's developed.''
The question of which occupations are expected to grow raises some
debate.
Occupations expected to have the fastest proportionate increase,
although not necessarily the largest numbers, during this decade are
in computer programming, the fast-food industry, health services,
leisure industries and engineering fields, according to the Bureau of
Labor Statistics.
However, the government agency says, most of the new jobs
generated during the 1980s will be traditional and low-paying:
secretaries, nurses' aides and orderlies, janitors, cashiers, nurses,
truck drivers, fast-food restaurant workers, office clerks, waiters
and waitresses, elementary school teachers, kitchen helpers,
accountants and auditors and car mechanics.
Declines are projected for farmers and farm laborers, graduate
assistants, shoemaking machine operators, secondary school and college
teachers, typesetters, private servants, ticket agents, taxi drivers,
clergy and postal clerks.
Marvin Cetron, president of Forecasting International Ltd., in
Arlington, Va., disagrees with some of the bureau's projections.
''They live in the past, not in the future,'' he says.
For example, Cetron says, many secretaries and office clerks will
be replaced by sopisticated machines, and the need for sales clerks
will decline as consumers start using home computers to make
purchases.
Cetron has his own list of occupations for the 1990s:
New diagnostic tools will eliminate the need for many doctors and
create jobs for paramedics and medical-machine technicians. Geriatric
workers will be needed to meet the social, mental and physical
requirements of the growing aging population. Mechanics will be hired
to manufacture bionic limbs.
Jobs for energy technicians and auditors will increase as new
energy sources become available and as energy conservation systems
become more sophisticated. Hazardous-waste technicians will be needed
to treat and dispose of industrial and biological wastes. Laser
technicians will replace today's tool-and-die makers.
Genetic engineering will take off, requiring chemists, biologists
and lesser-trained production technicians. The computer field will
spawn hundreds of thousands of jobs in computer-aided manufacture and
design and software writing.
The demand for housing rehabilitation technicians will grow as the
world population increases and new construction materials and
techniques develop. Battery technicians will be needed to service new
types of fuel cells used in vehicles and homes.
Many occupational forecasters believe the jobs will be cleaner,
easier and safer; new discoveries will lead to more career choices and
variety; the workweek will be shorter and hours more flexible;
job-sharing will increase; and increasing numbers of workers will be
able to do their jobs from their homes on computers, a particular
advantage to the handicapped.
Isabel V. Sawhill, an economist with the Urban Institute, predicts
workers will ''increasingly trade off higher wages for various kinds
of non-wage benefits,'' such as better working conditions, job
training and mobility, more flexible hours and locations and day care
facilities. These demands, she says, will be caused in part by an
increase in the number of two-earner and single-parent households,
''where conflicts between work and family responsibilities loom
large.''
The work force also will look different. As the baby-boom
generation matures, the labor force will be older. The ranks of
younger workers (ages 16 to 25) are shrinking by about 16 percent this
decade, and a greater percentage of this smaller group will be black
and Hispanic. Also, two-thirds of the new workers in this decade will
be women.
Retooling the American labor force is necessary not only to ensure
that workers have the technical skills to keep up with new
developments, but also to enable them to actually set the pace of
these developments in the world market.
As U.S. high-technology industries become targets of other
industrialized nations, many business executives, economists and
government officials are calling for a massive retraining program and
national industrial policy.
''If in the 1980s, these nations achieve a domination of these
industries, as they have in the past in basic metals, consumer
electronics and automobiles, the U.S. will face profoundly serious
economic problems and choices in the 1990s,'' Choate says.
New skills are needed at all levels, economists warn. At the high
end of the scale, there are shortages of scientists, engineers and
other highly educated and skilled workers. In the middle are millions
of workers who will need retraining as their current jobs disappear or
change. And at the bottom are the millions of adults who are
functionally illiterate.
Yet, many say, the public and private sectors are not geared up to
turn an obsolete workforce into a workable one. The Pennsylvania
program that is teaching former steelworker Pieczynski to become a
computer technician appears more an exception than the norm.
------------------------------
End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
************************Human-Nets-Request%rutgers@brl-bmd.UUCP (07/09/83)
HUMAN-NETS Digest Saturday, 9 Jul 1983 Volume 6 : Issue 32
Today's Topics:
Queries - Request for Famous Bugs &
Keyboards (2 messages),
Programming - Debuggers,
Computers and People - Jobs in the future,
News Articles - DOD To Join Co-Op For Semicon Research &
AP article on Computer Security,
Announcements - 1984 National Computer Conference: Call for Papers &
Bulletin Board For Micro Users Set Up By NBS
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Shore <shore@NRL-CSS>
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 83 11:17:14 EDT
Subject: Request for Famous Bugs
In discussions of software and software engineering, it sometimes
helps to cite famous bugs. To this end, I am collecting a list. I
have in mind bugs that caused major problems as well as bugs that
could have but were prevented by suitable human intervention.
Some examples of bugs I've heard about but for which I don't have
documentation: (a) bug forced a Mercury astronaut to fly a manual
re-entry; (b) bugs were problems in the first two Apollo moon
landings; (c) bug caused NORAD to alert U.S. forces about incoming
Soviet missiles (the moon); (d) process synchronization bugs delayed
the first space shuttle launch.
Can you help? I would appreciate receiving brief descriptions of
famous or should-have-been famous bugs of all types (space program,
banking, nuclear power, census, etc.). If possible, please include
references that will help me to filter out the apocryphal bugs.
Please pass this message on to others who might be interested. I
will send a copy of the resulting bug-list to all who contribute.
Thanks in advance.
John Shore
Code 7591
Naval Research Laboratory
Washington, D.C. 20375
(202)767-3056
shore@nrl-css
------------------------------
Date: 3 Jun 1983 1200-PDT
From: Lynn Gold <FIGMO at KESTREL>
Subject: Keyboards
Is there an ANSI standard on this? If so, could someone please
direct me to it?
My husband and I have been debating over where a few keys are
supposed to be placed.
--Lynn
------------------------------
Date: 4 Jun 1983 0:51-PDT
From: Greg Davidson <sdcsvax!davidson@nosc>
Subject: Keyboards are a very personal thing
Spare me from having to use anyone else's ideal keyboard. I'd much
rather use their toothbrush! In fact, having to use two different
keyboards that I both like is terrible.
I think that the best thing that could happen to keyboards is for
ANSI to define a standard ASCII keyboard interface, so that people
can own their own keyboards & plug them in anywhere. Once I can
count on not having to go back, I'll eagerly try chord keyboards,
DSK keyboards, etc., until I find the one I like best.
-Greg
------------------------------
Date: 14 Jun 1983 03:20:13-PST
From: whm.arizona@Rand-Relay
Subject: Debuggers
I have developed a recent interest in debuggers for high-level
languages. I'm looking for references on source-level debuggers of
various sorts. The primary interest is in novel ideas in debuggers,
for instance, screen-oriented debuggers, and debuggers written in the
language they serve as debuggers for. Also of interest are debuggers
for unconventional languages. A secondary issue is that of
interactive program development environments such as those associated
with Lisp, APL, and Mainsail.
I'm familiar with the various debuggers under UNIX (4.1bsd), I've used
some Lisp debuggers, and I've had excruciating amounts of experience
with "symbolic debuggers" of various types. I've heard about a recent
(last year) conference on High-Level Debugging and understand that the
proceedings are due out in a couple of months or so. That's about all
that I know of in the line of debuggers. As for interactive
development environments, I know of the ones mentioned; are there
others?
So, if you know of articles, books, etc., concerning debuggers or
interactive development environments, I'd like pointers to them. If
you have something in mind, please try to reply by about July 7 and
I'll report my findings about a week or so after that.
Thanks,
Bill Mitchell
whm.arizona@rand-relay
{kpno,ihnp4,mcnc,utah-cs}!arizona!whm
------------------------------
From: "CACHE::TS1::BURROWS Jim Burrows c/o" <DEC-HNT at DEC-Marlboro>
Date: 7-JUN-1983 00:38
Subject: Jobs in the future
I doubt things will go much like the experts in the articles
Lauren submitted expect. The guy who said:
"If anybody told us in 1933 that only 3 percent of the
labor force would be in agriculture today, we would have
foreseen all sorts of cataclysmic problems in terms of what
would those poor farmers do with their skills in the big
cities,"
is probably the most realistic of the bunch. I'm especially
skeptical of the union spokesman who claimed that strong government
backed union action is needed to avert the coming disaster. Somehow
I just can't shake the notion that he has a vested interest in that
course of action.
I think the real trend was pointed to by the ex-steel-worker
who's studying to be a computer technician, who said:
"There's a trade-off. My income won't be as high, but the
computer industry won't collapse overnight like the steel or
auto industries. The future is what I'm shooting for."
and the quote that
Isabel V. Sawhill, an economist with the Urban Institute,
predicts workers will "increasingly trade off higher wages for
various kinds of non-wage benefits," such as better working
conditions, job training and mobility, more flexible hours and
locations and day care facilities. These demands, she says, will
be caused in part by an increase in the number of two-earner and
single-parent households, "where conflicts between work and
family responsibilities loom large."
What I see in my crystal ball is more lower paying jobs, many of
them created by the high tech industries. There was an ABC (?) news
report a couple of weeks ago about the "false promise" of high tech.
Their main point was that high tech industry produces low tech jobs.
They showed how many low paying assembly jobs were created in
Austin, Texas by the computer and electronics moving there. What
they failed to notice was that virtually all of the workers and city
government people interviewed were really happy that there were any
new jobs at all. They emphasised how much less the workers were
making in their new high-tech/low-tech jobs, missing the fact that
they were really thrilled to be working at all.
What I think is happening is the American worker is finding that
he has to compete with workers in other countries, and that in order
to compete he's going to have to settle for a wage more like theirs.
This cheaper labor, and automation could put us more in competition
with other high tech countries (where the wages are coming up
towards ours). I expect the lowering of individual incomes will
cause the trend towards multi-income families to continue. I also
suspect it will head off the shortening work week. (You ain't gonna
be happier about working few hours for fewer dollars per hour.
Finally, just to be heretical, I am also skeptical about some of
the claims made for the degree to which computers will dominate our
lives. Specifically I am not expecting either the predictions that
Office personnel eventually will simply dictate into a machine
that will type the letter itself.
or that
the need for sales clerks will decline as consumers start using
home computers to make purchases.
I, for one, don't trust machines enough to let them shop or take
dictation for me.
------------------------------
Date: 20-Jun-83 15:38 PDT
From: WBD.TYM@OFFICE-2
Subject: DOD To Join Co-Op For Semicon Research
i just read that the DOD will be joining the Semiconductor Research
Corp. (SRC) within the next 2 weeks. Does this mean that research
done by the institute will have to be cleared by DOD before it can
be published?
--William Daul
------------------------------
Date: 6 July 1983 00:06 edt
From: TMPLee.DODCSC at MIT-MULTICS
Subject: AP article on Computer Security
Sometime between June 24th and July 5th the Associated Press put out
a story on their wires about a recent article written by a couple of
Naval lieutenants dealing with computer security.
The article, which appeared an an obscure publication called the
Naval Institute Proceedings is entitled "The Eagle's Own Plume" and
deals with a hypothetical set of scenarios reflecting the results of
subversion (trap doors and trojan horses) of Naval combat computer
systems.
Has anyone here seen either the article or the AP story, and, if so,
could they please comment. (comments directly to me; I'll
summarize/redistribute to HNets and to my Security-Forum if that
seems appropriate). It would be even more interesting if one of the
sites that seems to be plugged into the AP wires managed to capture
the story.
Ted Lee
------------------------------
Date: Fri 17 Jun 83 05:09:09-PDT
From: Jim Miller <JMILLER@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: 1984 National Computer Conference: Call for Papers
The call for papers for the 1984 National Computer Conference has
been released; a copy of it is enclosed below. As the program chair
for the artificial intelligence / human-computer interaction track, I
hope that you will give serious thought to preparing papers and
sessions for NCC. This meeting offers us a real voice in the
conference's program, as six program sessions will be devoted to these
topics, far more than in the past. Proposals on any aspect of AI or
human-computer interaction are welcome; I would only note that most of
the people attending the conference will have little familiarity with
these topics. Consequently, extremely technical papers or sessions
are probably not appropriate for this meeting. I am particularly
interested in sessions that would summarize important subareas of AI
or HCI at an introductory or tutorial level, perhaps especially those
that that are beginning to have an impact on the computer industry and
society at large. Please contact me if you have any questions about
the conference; my address, net address, and phone are below.
Jim Miller
------------------------------------------------------------------
A CALL FOR PAPERS, SESSIONS, AND SUGGESTIONS
1984 NATIONAL COMPUTER CONFERENCE
July 9-12, 1984 Convention Center Las Vegas, Nevada
E N H A N C I N G C R E A T I V I T Y
You are invited to attend and to participate in the 1984 NCC
program. The 1984 theme, "Enhancing Creativity," reflects the
increasing personalization of computer systems, and the attendant
focus on individual productivity and innovation. In concert with the
expanded degrees of connectivity resulting from advances in data
communications, this trend is leading to dramatic changes in the
office, the factory, and the home.
The 1983 program will feature informative sessions on
contemporary issues that are critically important to the industry.
Sessions and papers will be selected on the basis of quality,
topicality, and suitability for the NCC audience. All subjects
related to computing technology and applications are suitable.
YOU CAN PARTICIPATE BY:
- Writing a paper
* Send for "Instructions to Authors" TODAY.
* Submit papers by October 31, 1983.
- Organizing and leading a session
* Send preliminary proposal (title, abstract, target
audience) by July 15, 1983.
* After preliminary approval, send final session
proposal by August 30, 1983.
- Serving as a reviewer for submitted papers and sessions
Authors and session leaders will receive final notification of
acceptance by January 31, 1984.
Send all submissions, proposals, correspondence and inquiries
about papers and sessions on ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE or
HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION to:
James R. Miller
Computer * Thought Corporation
1721 West Plano Parkway
Plano, Texas 75075
214-424-3511
JMILLER@SUMEX-AIM
Send all other proposals or inquiries to:
Dennis J. Frailey, Program Chairman
Texas Instruments Incorporated
8642-A Spicewood Springs Road
Suite 1984
P.O. Box 10988
Austin, Texas 78766-1988
512-250-6663
------------------------------
Date: 17-Jun-83 16:42 PDT
From: WBD.TYM@OFFICE-2
Subject: Bulletin Board For Micro Users Set Up By NBS
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- An electronic bulletin board that will inform
microcomputer users about upcoming conferences, seminars and
workshops, as well as update them on the latest telecomputing
services, publications and users groups, has been established by the
Commerce Department's National Bureau of Standards (NBS).
Dubbed the Microcomputer Electronic Information Exchange (MEIE), the
service will be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Both
federal and nonfederal users with Asci terminals that communicate
at 300 bit/sec with eight data bits, no parity and one stop bit can
reach the exchange by calling (301) 948-5718.
Further information on MEIE can be obtained fom the NBS.
From June 13th issue of COMPUTERWORLD
------------------------------
End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
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