taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (03/03/87)
Some time ago (~7 years) I took part in an international discussion at
a large conference; the discussion was about the possible future impact
of computers on education and training, and on society generally, in
global terms. The many contributors split very neatly into two camps,
who had little to say to each other:
(a) "the future looks rosy" .. "bright new world" .. "education can
solve many serious problems, at last we can deliver it" .. "satellite
dish in every third world village" ..
(b) "just another avenue for the local exploiters to control" .. "just
another tool in local power games" .. "that's not the sort of
education/ information that's needed, or wanted" .. "don't
understand the scale of the problem" ..
Nearly all the (a)-types came from USA and Europe, nearly all the
(b)-types came from underdeveloped countries. I felt more in sympathy
with (b), although sometimes I need to treat myself to a dose of the
optimism in (a).
To expand a little, by an example: one speaker had a vision of
TV/computer-delivered training reaching countless Indian farmers,
giving them advice about seeds, simple crop management, selling
surpluses and so on, and access to a wide range of otherwise
inaccessible data. The capital cost of the delivery setup would be
offset against its comparatively long lifetime, making it feasible in
the near future. This brought forth some very scornful comments:
countless Indian farmers are well adapted to their circumstances, and
are already more expert in their local culture than any outsider could
hope to make them; where help is needed, it is not usually information
and training that's the main lack. Moreover, computer-based data and
training systems are ideally controllable; anyone who was politically
or financially unscrupulous would find these a perfect tool, since
absolute control is still the name of the local game in most places.
You may feel that the democratic nature of USENET provides a model of a
counter-example. However, most USENET users have acquired a common
sense about the technology, and have the experience and other sources
of information to make reasonable judgements about the content of what
they read. Despite these advantages, misinformation and planned
orchestration of discussions are fairly regularly to be seen. If USENET
were your sole source of non-local info, and all your contributions
were moderated by someone you didn't know personally, would you still
take the same view of it?
I don't want that to start a discussion about USENET; enough of that
already. I'd be more interested to hear views about whether distance
learning, particularly in the third world, can make much difference to
people's problems, and also whether they will. Enterprises like the
European Project Delta, enabling a courseware provider in southern
Italy to sell specific computer-based training by satellite to customers
in northern Scotland (for example), are going to be interesting to watch.
Peter Ross, Dept of AI, Edinburgh