fn case you hadn't noticed. computers are eveJYWhere. If you Editorial Coordinator don't use one at work or own one at home, chances are good Seth Shulman Magazine Coordinator that you deal directly with one when you go to the bank, shop at Leslie Fraser the supermarket, or even. in many places. dial directory assistance. Business Manager The arrival of the "computer revolution" has been trumpeted with Gary Keenan much fanfare in the media, most often for the "convenience and Cover efficiency" it is supposed to bring with it. But this is only part of Wen-ti Tsen Art & Photos the story. As this collection of articles shows. a deeper look also R. Crumb, Andrew Joslin, Keith McHenry, uncovers the computer's many other subtle and sometimes insidi­ Jane Morris, Ellen Shub, Nick Thorkelson, Ray ous impacts on our lives. Valdes Production The clean image of the high-tech industry, for example, hides Audrey Borus, Rachel DeCarlo, Leslie Fraser, the harsh truth about its effects on our environment and our Gert Freedman, Mel Freedman, Jess Gugino, Roger Karapin, Gary Keenan, Laura Reed, workers. The mad rush by many states in this country to attract Joseph Regna, Sholeh Regna, Robert Rotstein, high-tech firms obscures the true effects of this new industry on Nancy Shulman, Seth Shulman, Dale Sylvain, our jobs. Ken Geiser exposes the health dangers behind the high­ Cathy Wenthe Circulation tech industry's clean image and several authors in our special sec­ Richard Aichelmann tion on computers and education investigate what kind of jobs Material Requests computers and the high-tech industry will really bring. Jim Barton Meanwhile, as the computer revolution marches on, schools Advertising are buying computer hardware almost as fast as they can. while Leslie Fraser, Charles Puccia Editorial Committee other areas of the education budget face severe cuts. 1What are Audrey Borus, Rachel DeCarlo, Kay Edwards, teachers doing with these machines? Are students learning new Roger Felix, Leslie Fraser, Dan Grossman, Jess Gugino. Joseph Regna, Seth Shulman, Dale creative skills. or are they being drilled and dehumanized? Who Sylvain, Cathy Wenthe gets access to computers. and when they do. what are they being Editorial Advisory Board taught? It is questions such as these that we set out to answer in Joe Alper, Rita Arditti, Jon Beckwith, Philip L. Bereano, Edith Brickman, Stephen Chorover, the education section. Fran Conrad, Eric Entemann, Roslyn Feldberg, While we were looking, we came across an "educational" Ross Feldberg, Marilyn Frankenstein, Douglas Futyama, Ted Goldfarb, Rae Goodell, Stephen usage of computers so onerous that it demanded attention. As Jay Gould, William Haseltine, David Thomas Bartholomay details, Control Data Corporation has been Himmelstein, Eric Holtzman, Ruth Hubbard, David Kahn, Charles Koplik, Richard Levins, working with the apartheid government of South Africa to estab­ Richard Lewontin, Karen Messing, Frank Mirer, lish a massive computerized education system that will help to David Noble, Richard Novick, Connie Phillips, Alvin F. Poussaint, Stephen Risch, Richard further repress blacks and maintain white rule. It is a painful exam­ Rosen, Virginia Schaefer, Scott P. Schneider, ple of the frightening potential of computers to repress and control, Miriam Struck, Sue Tafler, Michael Tanzer, Scott Thacher, John Vandermeer, Gerry Waneck, to track and monitor. South Africa is not alone in this respect. As Joseph Weizenbaum, Sandy Wiper, Stephie we have covered previously, similarly repressive uses of computer Woolhandler systems are already in place in West Germany, and pose a TYpesetting Platform Studio, 636 Beacon St., growing threat here in the U.S. as well. Boston, MA 02215 But of all the impacts of computers, perhaps the most devas­ Printing tating is also one of the least known, and the least reported: their Rowley Printing, 395 Main St., deadly role in current military plans. As three separate articles in Rowley, MA 01969 SUBSCRIPTIONS: U.S. one year/six issues: S15. this issue reveal. the increasing computerization of our weapons Foreign surface mail: S20. Air mail to Canada: S20.50. Air mail to Latin America: S24.50. Air mail to Europe: systems portends many ominous possibilities for the future, all of S28. Air mail to Asia and Africa: S31.50. which threaten to bring us closer to violent conflict. These articles Institutional/library rate: S24. Member subscriptions (Includes the magazine, our newsletter and other provide cause for concern and a call to action. internal communications): S25. Foreign subscribers must remit in U.S. currency, with either an Unquestionably, the computer is a powerful tool. But powerful International Money Order or a check drawn on a tools are often dangerous tools, especially in the wrong hands, or U.S. bank. SCIENCE FOR THE PEOPLE Is available to bookstores used carelessly. The concerns raised in these pages are mainly con­ on consignment from the publisher or through Carrier Pigeon Distributors, P.O. Box 2783, Boston, MA cerns about control, both control over the technology itself, and its 02208. The magazine is available on microfilm from uses. They are. from this vantage point questions of crucial import­ Xerox Microfilms, 300 North Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor, Ml 48109. Science tor the People is Indexed In Alternative ance as we collectively try our hand at computing the future. Press Index, P.O. Box 7229, Baltimore, MD 21218. March/April 1985 Volume J 7, Numbers J & 2

Computing the Future

8 THE CHIPS ARE FALLING by Ken Geiser Health hazards in the microelectronics industry J 2 ET GO HOME by Derek Rasmussen The revolution in not-so-conventional weapons J 7 THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO HIGH TECH by Ray Valdes How to floppy to that disko beat 2 J THE STRATEGIC COMPUTER INITIATIVE by Jonathan Tucker The military's double-edged sword 2 6 COMPUTERS IN UNIFORM by Joseph Weizenbaum A good fit? 3 J CONTROL DATA AND APARTHEID by Thomas Bartholomay PLATOnic control of South Africa's Blacks COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION 36 WHOSE COMPUTER IS IT, ANYWAY? by Sarah Michaels, Courtney Cazden and Bertram Bruce Schools embrace computers without knowing why 3 7 TAKING CONTROL OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY by Bertram Bruce How to use computers productively and progressively 4 J COMPUTERS IN THE CLASSROOM by Marcia Boruta and Hugh Mehan Social stratifiers or liberating equalizers? DEPARTMENTS

2 Preview 56 In Brief 4 Letters 58 Resources 5 Newsnotes 59 Network REVIEWS 5 I Technostress: The Human Cost of the Computer Revolution 53 The Rise of the Computer State

SCIENCE FOR THE PEOPLE fiSSN 0048-9662) is published bimonthly by the Science Resource Center, Inc., a nonprofit corporation. at 897 Main St .. Cambridge, MA 02139, telephone (617) 547-0370. Edited and produced by the national organization of Science for the People. We offer a progressive view of science and technology. Articles, letters, book reviews, newsnotes. photos and artwork are welcome. Please send three copies of double spaced, typed manuscripts. Unless otherwise stated, all material© 1985 by Science for the People. t~eoretical issues to work out perspec­ tives for our activities. What's very Euromissiles and U.S. Scientists germane to this discussion but often for­ gotten, is Karl Marx's profound critique of science and technology. On tech­ nology not being neutral, for instance, Dear SftP: of the Atomic Scientists, invited me to ~ake Marx's painstakingly detailed proof This letter has been slow in coming to m vol. 1 of Capital that machinery not write an article for them based on my express enormous appreciation for the only causes unemployment but "is the book The Bias of Science (reviewed in article "Euromissiles and U.S. Scientists" SftP, volume 12, number 6). I submitted a m~st powerful weapon for suppressing by John Harris (SftP Vol. 16, No. 5). I've stnkes, those periodic revolts of the short simple article, discussing state and reproduced it in many copies and have workers against the autocracy of corporate inf~ue~ces on research topics, ?een sending them to appropriate groups capital." on the orgamzatwn of the scientific m order to call attention to its crucial As Bereano and Marx both show tech­ commu~ity, and on scientific knowledge. information. nology is not "'neutral" but an integral I also d1scussed the possibilities of a more Herbert York addressed a huge part of society. Marx goes on to show community-based science. But this was gath:r~ng in Los Angeles organized by how in capitalism this produces not just a rejected by Bulletin of the Atomic Phys1C1ans for Social Responsibility which "sense of alienation" but alienated labor Scienti~ts, allegedly due to lack of space. I attended. He presented truths, half wherein the worker is reduced to "an ' The 1deas I was presenting are old hat truths, and a general pattern of disinfor­ appendage to the machine." to most SftP readers. They are also well m~tion. His Scientific American magazine Where Bereano points to "a very long understood-if not fully subscribed to-in article, Oct. 10, 1983, while better on and intricate kind of process to raise the some academic circles, such as the some data, essentially went along with consciousness of people," the Marxian soph~sticat:d though academic analyses the administration's propaganda by dialectic shows that process as the very of sc1ence m the British journal Social dragging in the subject of the invasion of law of motion of capitalist society: as the ~tudies of Science. So I decided to try to Afghanistan. This type of rhetoric under­ machine comes more and more to dom­ fmd an outlet in North America among mines the important need to work for inate and fragment the worker, so grows more orthodox journals where these US-USSR nuclear weapons disarmament the worker's "quest for universality." In views are seldom presented. agreements. Should the USSR inject the fact, history shows (and any factory Rejections came quickly from the Pro­ US invasion of Vietnam or Grenada to gressive (too academic for them) and worker knows) that it i~ precisely when obstruct a US-USSR nuclear weapons new forms of technology are introduced Commentary. Technology Review took freeze? that new forms of revolt arise. mor: interest. After a 7-month delay, 1 Unfortunately, too many in the To see this in our age, SftP readers rece1ved suggestions for rewriting. The bilateral nuclear weapons freeze would be interested in A 1980s View: article was to be somewhat shorter movement and nuclear disarmament The Coal Miners' General Strike of much more convincing and answe; a effort have fallen prey to these tactics 1949-50 and the Birth of Marxist­ number of other points. My revision was and haven't yet figured out how to Humanism in the U.S., published in 1984 rejected. It seemed to me from the com­ disentangle themselves. John Harris' by News & Letters, 59 E. Van Buren ments I received that I was required to article should help people see this most Suite 707, Chicago, JL 60605. The ' d~ the impossible: provide a critique of basic aspect of the process more clearly. authors describe both the first U.S. strike sc1ence and an alternative perspective Herbert York must have learned soon against Automation and the new philo­ fully convincing to tough conventionai after 1978 that Carter, Callaghan, Giscard sophy expressed in the striking miners' scientists, all in 2,000 words! D'Estaing, and Helmut Schmidt signed a question: "What kind of labor should Not too much weight can be placed on secret agreement that year without human beings do?" these particular experiences. After all consultation of their parliaments, Franklin Dmitryev my article wasn't the world's best. But congresses, bundestags, deputies, to Chicago, Jllinois ?ther in.formation also confirms my deploy Cruise and Pershing II missiles in 1mpr:ss1~n that the radical science per­ Europe. spective IS thoroughly marginalized in Molly Siegel the US more so than in the UK for Manhattan Beach, CA example. There seem to be fewer outlets Impermeable U.S. Media for even mild criticisms of science. There are good reasons why this should be the Dear SftP: cas: in the US: the stronger power of Important Dialogue I appreciated your issue on"Science cap1tal, lack of a major social democratic media and Policymaking" (Volume 16: party, weakness of the labor movement. ~o. 4). It reminded me of my efforts to All of t~ese help inhibit critical thought Dear SftP: fmd a North American journal to publish and actwn among scientists and those I was very glad to see "The Limits of a short article critical of present science. who study science. Science" by Steven Rose and "Tech­ ~y experiences illustrate, I believe, the . All of this just underlines the important nology a~d Human Freedom" by Philip Impermeability of U.S. journals to the JOb you at SftP are doing: keep up the Bereano m the Nov./Dec. issue. As a radical science perspective. good work! scientist and activist, I find it important My saga began in January 1981 when Brian Martin to have this kind of dialogue on broader Bernard Feld, editor-in-chief of Bulletin Canberra, Australia

4 Science for the People As any telephone operator or data entry good conscience, and workers who would of "fornicate" or "amputate": an unseemly clerk can testify, the stresses associated consequently be spared the invasive ques­ act of the last resort. While the CBEMA with VDT work are varied: eyestrain, tions of epidemiologists and disruptions of president acknowledges that there are backaches, nausea, even heart disease and their keystroke quotas by health and "comfort problems" with VDT worksta­ clusters of miscarriages among VDT work­ safety inspectors. tions, he maintains that "legislative man­ ers have been reported. For some time Henriques' testimony was offered in re­ dates would force citizens to conform to a NIOSH and the Center for Disease Control sponse to legislative action in several legislator's supposition about what will would not investigate such reports. But states to regulate VDT operators' working make them feel better." Apparently, forc­ after a group of long distance operators in conditions. In the lexicon of Reagankultur, ing citizens to conform is the private sec­ Michigan counted 17 miscarriages among "regulate" seems to carry the moral tenor tor's duty. -Gary Keenan 32 pregnancies, NIOSH changed its mind; an epidemiological study of VDT work be­ came a high priority. Other studies have previously noted that working at an automated clerk can be more stressful than even an air traffic controller's job. One fascinating response to such job hazards is that of the Computer and Busi­ ness Equipment Manufacturers Associa­ tion (CBEMA). CBEMA president, Vico Henriques, testified in Washington before the House Subcommittees on Health and Safety that "advice to managers and users is the best way to make people more com­ fortable in the office, reduce stress, and let people know that visual displays are com­ pletely safe." In order to spread such advice and good feeling throughout the computer and high tech industries, CBEMA plans a largescale promotional campaign through 1985. Radio and TV announcements, "educa­ tional" advertisements in print media, and brochures are in the works, aimed at countering what Henriques terms the "public's delight in the sensational" stories about miscarriages and the widespread "misconception" that computer work isn't mentally stimulating. Conspicuously absent from Henriques recommendations are any examination of computer technology itself or the structure of workplace authority. Other testimony, used for decontamination and the Red such as that from the American College of In yet another misguided nuclear power Cross would have a hand in relocating the Obstetricians and Gynecologists dis­ plant evacuation scheme, the Long Island poeple who were evacuated from the first counted radiation as the cause of miscar­ Lighting Company (LILCO) announced perimeter near the plan. riages clustering in VDT workers, but their plans to use Long Island's Nassau Coliseum There's only one hitch: the Coliseum spokesperson was careful not to extend as a staging and relocation area in the management apparently told LILCO that such claims to include other work-related event of an accident at its Shoreham access to the area would have to be restric­ factors. Nuclear Facility. ted to those times when the Circus, the Ice But at CBEMA, public relations remains According to the evacuation plan filed Show, or the Islanders were not perform­ the key. If it worked for nuclear power (re­ with th~ Nuclear Regulatory Agency, ing. Let's just hope LILCO has enough member "too cheap to meter"?), then why LILCO, working without the participation sense to schedule any Shoreham accidents not the VDT? Brochures would pose much of state or county authorities, established accordingly. less of an inconvenience to both industry, the agreement with Nassau Coliseum man­ -information from the Oceanside Trader which could continue to computerize in agement. The Coliseum would also be Jan. 5, 1985.

Computing the Future 5 MILITARY R&D FUNDS AS% OF TOTAL R&D SPENDING 100% 90% 80% Science for the People has consistently and W. Germany where military R&D reported on the stranglehold military fund­ makes up 10% or less) the figures for 1985 60% ing for research and development has show spending to be over 70% of the total, SO% over the broader scientific community. An or almost $37 billion. Close to three quar­ 40% important guage of this effect can always ters of all government funding for R&D is 30% be found in the yearly appropriations. As funding for military research. the table and graph below illustrate, fund­ 20% ing for military R&D has doubled in dollar And if that weren't enough, it is impor­ 10% amounts since the beginning of the Rea­ tant to point out. that these figures don't 0 even tell the whole story of government gan Administration, more than tripled in 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 the past decade. But even more impor­ R&D funding. The remaining 30% of the tantly, the past five years have seen mili­ total includes expenditures for space re- r======----1 tary R&D steadily and markedly increase search and technology, and energy, both as a portion of the total government ex­ areas that sponsor research with many penditure on R&D. military applications. One thing is clear: if While military R&D has long consumed we are to ever be able to make science roughly 50% of the total U.S. budget (gi­ and technology more closely serve human We see a lot of strange science stories at gantic as compared to many other West­ needs, these ominous trends must quickly the SftP office, but this one caught us up: ern, capitalist countries, such as Japan, be reversed. according to a column in NewScientist, la­ boratory-created urine is to be used this FEDERAL FUNDS FOR R&D BY BUDGET FUNCTION winter in some areas of the Midlands in Britain to de-ice roads. $Millions 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 It remains unclear exactly what the ad­ vantages of the plan are. Proponents say National Defense $i3,791 $14,946 $18,413 $22,070 $24,936 $29,275 $36,975 fermenting urine converts it into a liquid, Health 3,401 3,694 3,871 3,869 4,298 4,801 4,913 alkaline salt solution with effective de-ic­ Space research &r technology 3,009 2,981 2,696 2,584 2,134 2,286 2,683 ing properties. We are willing to take their Energy 3,461 3,603 3,501 3,012 2,578 2,565 2,422 word for it, but for the sake of whoever is General Science 1,119 1,223 1,340 1,359 1,502 1,717 1,942 behind this move, the de-icing capabilities Transportation 798 888 870 791 876 1,091 1,148 of this new concoction had better be excel­ Natural resources &r environment 1,010 999 1,061 965 952 985 900 lent: not only does the scheme have an in­ AJriculture 552 583 659 693 745 760 795 herent public relations problem, it is pro­ TOTAL $28,080 $30,017 $33,319 $35,988 $38,768 $44,367 $52,660 jected to cost ten times as much as salt.

Why should the military and govern­ gather and disseminate information about to rebut, say, an editorial contending that ment be the only ones benefiting from nuclear weapons, arms control, and alter­ the U.S. is 'behind' the Russians in nuclear new developments in computer techno­ native security strategies. weapons." logy? The Center for Innovative Diplo­ "In political organizing or research, C-NET's host computer is being shared macy (CID), in Palo Alto, California, is everything boils down to information," with Community Data Processing of Palo trying to decentralize technical informa­ said CID Project Director Hal Harvey in an Alto, an organization that helps nonprofit tion about the arms race. Last August, in a interview in the August/September 1984 groups take advantage of computers for joint project launched with members of issue of The CID Report. "You write things, data processing and office automation. At Computer Professionals for Social Respon­ you talk to people, you meet with people, present, most of the direct users of C-NET sibility (CPSR), CID began to lay the and so on, but what you're really doing is are from the San Francisco Bay area, and groundwork for an experimental com­ developing and moving information. We contact C-NET by local telephone calls. puter network dedicated exclusively to now have technologies which can drastic­ Direct use is faster and more convenient, nuclear weapons issues and designed to ally increase the efficiency of doing this. giving access to C-NET's database in a help those concerned with the very real With C-NET, we intend to harness these "real-time" interactive manner that allows threat of nuclear war. C-NET, once fully es­ technologies for the peace movement. the user to engage another person in a live tablished, will allow anyone with a com­ Using the database, a concerned citizen computer conversation or get instant puter terminal and a telephone modem to could tap into a rich library of information responses to database requests. Indirect

6 Science for the People users have access to most of C-NET's re­ sources and communicate with the system via electronic mail, but responses to requests for information may take several hours. ..,.. Although C-NET doesn't have access to On November 28, 1984, the Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors this month. In a land­ restricted databases, it is currently con­ County California Planning Commission, mark decision, coming after a five hour nected, or gatewayed, into three large in a 3-2 vote, denied a building permit to meeting attended by some 300 citizens, computer networks: ARPANET, CSNET, Lockheed Missile and Space Company the supervisors voted, also by a 3-2 mar­ and USENET. ARPANET was created by thereby blocking production of parts for gin, to uphold the Planning Commission's the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense the Trident II missile. Members of Citizens decision. Voting finally at midnight after Advanced Research and Projects Agency for Industrial Accounting (CFIA) in Santa hearing the testimony of over thirty speak­ and its database is limited to official gov­ Cruz, a group which helped organize the ers the Board found that there were "signi­ ernment business and research. CSNET is opposition to Trident II, claim that this ficant and reasonable land-use reasons to a network formed by the National Science vote marks the first time anywhere in this deny the permit." Foundation Computer Science Research. country that elected officials have used the As Doug Rand, one of the CFIA organiz­ USENET, an operating system developed power of building permits to block nuclear ers, stated, "we're encouraging others by AT & T, is decentralized, with no restric­ weapons expansion. elsewhere to challenge these weapons tions or policing, and is free. These con­ Lockheed officials, calling the board's every step of the way. We must take re­ nections have already allowed mail to be decision an "inconvenience" that would sponsibility for what goes on in our own exchanged between C-NET and users in force the company to find another produc­ backyard before expecting people to make Europe within several hours. tion site, appealed the issue to the county changes elsewhere." C-NET's developers are negotiating to gain access to the legislative database of the Arms Control and Computer Network (ACCN), a Washington, D.C. coalition of eight major arms control and peace groups (Friends of the Earth, SANE, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Greenpeace, Law­ yers Alliance for Nuclear Arms Control, "Alternative policies would have differ­ The cost-effectiveness of a "break­ the Freeze Campaign, and the Coalition ent health and cost consequences that through" cholesterol-reducing drug was for a New Foreign and Military Policy), to should be analyzed, made explicit and compared to the cost effectiveness of free begin using their legislative database. This publicly debated. Perhaps the American health care (with its accompanying mortal­ database, which is updated regularly, people and their physicians would choose ity reductions) which some called "not suf­ includes Congressional voting records on to condemn 30 people to early deaths for ficient to justify free care." The difference bills related to the military or international lack of free care so that three well-insured between the mortality rates of the at risk affairs and a list of key congressional staff patients could take cholestyramine and control group and the at risk cholestyra­ members working on these bills. live, or a hospital might [buy a computer mine therapy patients was so small that Preliminary discussions have also been to] maxime its DRG (Diagnosis Related the authors of the study found that it took held with the Stanford Center for Interna­ Group Reimbursement) income." over $9 million of this "breakthrough" tional Security on the possibility of jointly therapy to prevent each death, whereas, building a new database containing recent So wrote Drs. David Himmelstein and in fact, $156,000 paid for free medical care books, articles, and monographs concern­ Steffie Woolhandler, authors o( a recent re­ for the same age population prevented ing arms control and international diplo­ port in the New England Journal of Medi­ each additional death above its control macy. Because only a select group of cine which points out the biases inherent group. people at the Pentagon, the Senate Intelli­ in decisions about where our health dol­ While the cholestyramine therapy was gence Agency, and various think tanks lars are spent. Himmelstein and Woolhan­ reported as a great success on the front now have access to these kinds of data­ dler compared two well-publicized studies page of The New York Times and other bases, the opening of these resources to to demonstrate that when there are pow­ newspapers, only six weeks earlier the the public would be a significant step in erful constituencies behind a health policy, free health care study was reported as democratizing nuclear policymaking. the cost of it is often not even considered. proving "health does not seem improved Jess Gugino when care is free." Through such a comparison, Himmel­ Upcoming Issues of Science for the People stein and Woolhandler did a service by il­ The next two issues of Science for the People promise to be some of the lustrating that it is only when widely dif­ fering policies are put to the same compar­ best ever. Slated for May /june 1985 is a special issue assessing the current ison of deaths prevented and cost of ther­ state of genetic technologies. The East Coast editorial committee is cur­ apy that the public can become truly in­ rently soliciting articles for the issue following that: July/August 1985, formed of health care choices. Without which marks SftP's IOOth Issue published. Specifically sought is information such perspective we can too easily remain about current grassroots struggles around the world to strive for a science unaware of the bias and hidden value and technology which more closely meet human needs. Please send articles, judgements that determine where our outlines, graphics and other materials to: Science for the People, 897 Main medical dollars are spent. St., Cambridge, MA 02139. Nancy Shulman

Computing the Future 7 THE CHIPS ARE FALLING

Health Hazards in the Microelectronics Industry

by Ken Geiser

n May of 1984, Jay Zemotel died of an overexposure to arsine gas at one of Massachusetts' leading semicon­ ductor plants. His death sparked a local controversy that has added fuel to an emerging national debate about the health and environmental hazards posed by Amer­ ica's high-tech industry. 1 Joseph Bothwell, a vice president at M/A­ It is contrasted with older industries like steel Com's Burlington, Massachusetts plant where and chemical where work is risky and Jay Zemotel worked, called Zemotel's death smokestacks belch out odors and soot. The an apparent suicide. Alleging that Zemotel popular image of high-tech work envisions deliberately exposed himself, Bothwell technicians in white lab coats working on in­ points to a state investigation that concludes tricate tasks at comfortable lab benches. It is that the plant was operating within govern­ this image that attracts prospective job appli­ mental guidelines. But others dispute these cants and it is this image that encourages findings. The Massachusetts Coalition for Oc­ local community planners across the country cupational Safety and Health challenges the to try to lure high-tech firms to their new in­ state study, and Rand Wilson, an organizer dustrial parks. But as gradually as pollutants for the Communication Workers of America, percolate into groundwater, an alternative claims that the company was negligent in its image of the high-tech industry as a toxic and employee training and in its management of hazardous workplace is seeping into national toxic chemical procedures in the plant. Wilson is not hesitant: "This is not a suicide as the company alleged to the press. It's a case of industrial homicide."2 The high-tech industry is often praised for having clean facilities with bright, attractive labs and safe and comfortable work settings.

Ken Geiser teaches in the Urban and Envir­ onmental Policy Program at Tufts University. He is actively involved in hazardous waste is­ sues, and has participated in efforts to pass state Right to Know legislation.

8 Science for the People The evidence of toxic and hazardous chemicals in high-tech firms did not originate in Burlington, but, rather, on the West Coast in America's other major center of high-tech industry, Santa Clara County's fabled "Silicon Valley." In this rapidly industrialized valley south of San Francisco, among orchards and quiet subdivisions, the first alarm about high­ tech chemicals arose not about deaths, but about reproductive failure. June Ross and her neighbors in South San Jose first began by joking about their propensity for miscar­ riages. The jokes soon grew humorless when the news media revealed that the ground­ water from which they received their drink­ ing water had been contaminated with tri­ chloroethane, a toxin to internal organs and a suspected carcinogen. The trichloroethane was found to be leaking from underground storage tanks at a nearby Fairchild micro­ electronics production plant.3 While events have moved dramatically in California and Massachusetts, consciousness and science have lagged. Health profession­ als, public officials and corporate manage­ ment have been hesitant to acknowledge that high-tech production may be hazardous tions: oxidation, photo-etching, and diffusion. to workers and local neighbors. The myth A small sheet or wafer of silicon is oxidized that high-tech is clean is not easily retired. and then coated with a polymer sensitive to Yet, there is increasing evidence that the ultraviolet photographic light. A desired pat­ high-tech industry manifests significant tern of circuitry is then photographed onto health and environmental hazards. It is not the surface making the pattern vulnerable to that the high-tech industry is dramatically certain etching chemicals. Next the etching more dangerous than other industries. It is chemicals are applied to cut into the silicon the perception that it is cleaner and safer that oxide underneath. Thus, after a solvent bath, is dangerous. the pattern is etched into the wafer. Highly conductive chemicals are then washed over, What is the Microelectronics or diffused, into the rawly exposed pattern Industry? and the wafer now has a conductive circuit etched upon it. While the term "high-tech" is used loosely This etching and diffusion process can be by a wide range of manufacturers, microelec­ repeated several times to build up intricate tronics is central to the industry. 4 The micro­ layers of currents before the wafer is finely electronics industry has largely developed in cut into tiny little circuit disks called "semi­ the past 30 years, with roots in the early post­ conductor chips." Such chips are typically no World War II development of the transistor at larger than a stamp. Hundreds of these little Bell Laboratories. This little amplifier, first chips may then be inserted, or "stuffed," into made of a germanium chip and later pro­ laminated insulators called printed circuit duced more cheaply with silicon, revolution­ boards or "PC boards."5 ized everything from radios and hearing aids While the first semiconductors were used to military armaments. In the 1950s, many in telephone equipment and hearing aids, the now well-recognized corporations were real revolution in the industry occurred in small highly innovative garage-scale labora­ computers. The development of the stored tories. Texas Instruments produced the first program digital computer and the semicon­ silicon transistor in 1954, and Fairchild Semi­ ductor chip was synergistic. The chip made it conductor produced the first silicon transistor possible to reduce the size and cost of the by the planar method in 1957. computer from the room-sized equipment of The so-called "planar technique" became the 1950s to the desktop models of today. the standard production process for the in­ Computer production created the voracious dustry. This process involves three opera- market for millions of chips.

Computing the Future 9 From its beginning the microelectronics hazards, organ damage, skin, throat and cers of the larynx and respiratory industry has been highly innovative and eye harm, cancer, and death, there is very system. 10 During the mid-1970s, the U.S. profitable. By 1968, Intel had become the little scientific study; a search of the litera­ National Institute of Occupational Safety leader in chip production and IBM was the ture reveals little research of consequence. and Health (NIOSH) completed specific giant of the computer business. Fairchild health hazard evaluations of firms in the and National Semiconductor in California The best work to date comes from electronics industry. At the conclusion of and Digital and Wang in Massachusetts be­ Sweden which maintains the best occupa­ the study, NIOSH reported: "It is NIOSH's came the seed bed for the spinning off of tional statistics covering toxic chemical opinion that a significant occupationally­ hundreds of small firms. Many of these exposure. A longitudinal study of Swedish related health problem exists." 11 failed within several years, but others workers in the electronics industry re­ Two U.S. studies sponsored by NIOSH prospered and grew. Two industrial cen­ vealed a slightly elevated incidence of all since then have explored health problems ters soon emerged in the country: the cancers among workers, particularly can- in the semiconductor industry. One study Santa Clara, Silicon Valley area and the Route 128 region around Boston. Both these areas provided the right combinaion of venture capital, creative entrepreneurs, skilled labor and access to major technical Health Hazards in High-Tech Production universities needed by the growing indus­ try. The significant role played by Stanford Type of work Chemicals commonly used Health effects University in California and MIT in Massa­ degreasing and cleaning methylene chloride dermatitis (skin disease), nausea, eye chusetts combined with the easy access to damage narcosis (stupor, unconsciousness), federal Department of Defense contracts methylethyl ketone in determining the rapid growth of the two anesthesia depression, suspected carcinogen centers. Defense contracts for missile sys­ carbon tetrachloride tems, fire control mechanisms, radar sys­ (cancer

10 Science for the People by the Battelle Institute found that etching chemicals are considered individually. 13 46.9% of all occupational illnesses among equipment can produce above-standard In 1981, the California Division of Occu­ semiconductor workers resulted from exposure to radiation. Further, production pational Safety and Health completed a systemic poisoning (mostly toxic chemical and maintenance workers can be exposed study based on 42 California semiconduc­ exposure). 14 to large doses of arsenic and toxic gases tor firms. Not only did the data indicate such as arsine and phosphine under nor­ three times as many cases of occupational Why is the Microelectronics mal working conditions. 12 A second study illness in semiconductor production as in by the Research Triangle Institute sugges­ general manufacturing (1.3 illnesses per Industry Particularly Risky? ted that synergistic effects of exposure to 100 workers for semiconductors compared Myths persist where facts are absent. the wide array of toxic chemicals used in with 0.4 cases per 100 workers for all The microelectronics industry is perceived semiconductor production may put work­ manufacturing), but also during the same as clean due to the absence of contrary ers at greater risk than computable when period compensation statistics show that facts, and because there is so much to be gained by neglecting the bad news about high-tech. The high-tech industry is touted by both liberal and conservative politi­ cians as the industrial salvation of the U.S. economy - the jobs and investment re­ placement for the faltering American steel and auto industries. 15 Local politicians promise jobless workers new employment opportunities as high-tech firms are lured to new industrial parks and recycled mill buildings. And, beyond hope and rhetoric, high-tech firms are highly profitable. A re­ cent report in Massachusetts found that the top nine Massachusetts firms earned $939 million in profits in 1981 or a return on investment of 13.3 %.16 With so much to be gained by maintain­ ing a positive popular image of high-tech, it is not surprising that so little citicism exists. But, while political and corporate leaders may consciously neglect the poten­ tial costs of high-tech production, it is not personal malevolence that leads high-tech production to be particularly risky. In­ stead, these risks are a consequence of the industry's current state of development. Capitalist enterprises develop around par­ ticular technological innovations and this development occurs within the context of certain social relations between corporate owners, workers, financers and consum­ ers. The particular combination of these factors that has made the high-tech indus­ try boom, is also responsible for the signifi­ cant health and environmental hazards that have resulted. First, the microelectronics industry is de­ veloping in a new age of synthetic chemi­ cals. Since World War II, major technical innovations in the petrochemical industry have produced a wide range of synthetic chemicals for industrial production. Early work by the National Bureau of Standards and the American Petroleum Institute dur­ ing the 1930s shifted the focus of hydrocar­ bon production from coal to petroleum. Combined with the heavy defense invest­ ments in chemical research during the war, this led to an explosion of new chemi­ cals on the market following 1945. The to­ tal U.S. production of synthetic chemicals

continued on page 45

Computing the Future II E.T.GOHOME

The Revolution In Not-So-Conventional Weapons by Derek Rasmussen

for military "emerging technologies," peo­ ple-killing devices which will not be avail­ able until the 1990s.4

From "McNamara's Wall to RPVs "Smart" weapons first drew attention in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war when Egyptian soldiers carrying portable wire-guided missiles destroyed many Israeli tanks. Smart weapons had been used previously in the Vietnam war with little notice, with the exception of the infamous "McNamara Wall," a fence of bombs, computers and sensors between North and South Vietnam which killed as many or more refugees and civilians than it did guerrillas. Nonetheless, smart weapons and their closest offspring, Precision Guided Munitions (PGMs), became popular in the and led to the motto "if you can see the target, you can kill it." Wire-guided bombs led to T.V.-and laser guided bombs, but all were susceptible to bad weather. What the new high-tech weapons will offer is a third generation of PGMs whose sensors use microwaves, millimeter waves and other forms of radiation to make them all­ "It isn't God, but it's pretty close to it."- Major Duffy McCallum on weather capable. With these new "fire and the new $20 million high-tech test range at Cold Lake, Alberta. 1 forget" weapons, the motto being offered is: "Even if you can't see the target, you can kill it."5 Hyped as "Star Wars" gadgetry and as generals, make their present arsenals look The real turning point for smart weap­ the answer to the West's nuclear "depend­ like "sixteenth century bombs"3 in com­ ons was the Falklands war and the Israeli ence," new high-tech "conventional" parison. Demonstrating his gift for insight invasion of Lebanon-mostly the latter. weapons are beginning to roll off assembly and understatement, U.S. Army General Stocks in electronic warfare companies lines and into U.S. and NATO arsenals. 2 James H. Merryman had this to say about shot up and their executives were ecstatic. More weapons systems than weapons, the accuracy of modern weapons: "War is "Star Wars of the future is what it's all these new "smart" devices are armed with getting very lethal." dozens and often hundreds of high explo­ While these new "smart" weapons are sive mini-warheads connected to complex based on Western advances in microelec­ Derek Rasmussen is a researcher for the arrays of sensors, communication links, tronics and computers, the United States is Ottawa Microtechnology Working Group targeting and delivery systems, and com­ banking on future advances in biotech­ in Canada and is writing a book on the Ot­ puterized "brains." With the destructive nology, artificial intelligence, large space tawa high-tech industry. potential of three to four kiloton nuclear structures and other areas to give it the The author wishes to thank Julia Morri­ bombs, these new "conventional" weap­ lead in "ET" systems. "ET" is the acronym gan and Andrew Van Velzcn for research ons, according to awestruck NATO coined by cynical minds in the Pentagon assistance and preparation of this article.

12 Science for the People ------~

about," said Bernard Schwartz, chairman fields. MLRS rockets loaded with "Skeet" for electronics in weapons and communi­ and CEO of Lora! (one of the U.S. high-tech submunitions have been favorably com­ cations.13 The U.S. wants NATO-and firms which supplied Israel), "The lessons pared with low-yield nuclear weapons. Canada in particular-to share the cost of of Lebanon will dominate military researching, developing and producing thinking for the next ten years."6 the "guts" of the new ET and high-tech The lessons included the Israeli use of The Pentagon Appeals for Canadian weapons. small pilotless aircraft called RVPs Help The parade of top brass has included the (Remotely Piloted Vehicles). Equipped This last example, the MLRS, is very two most prominent proponents of the with T.V. cameras and sensors, the RPVs popular with the Reagan administration new weaponry: Dr. Richard DeLaurer, were used to get instant pictures of battle­ because it is one of the first of these head of Research and Engineering for the fields, or even of particular intersections in "revolutionary" new weapons to be Defense Department, and James P. Wade, the city of Beirut, and to then guide PGMs deployed. This is how the MLRS was Jr., his principal deputy. Canada, they say, straight to their targets. 7 described by the Pentagon's head of NATO is a "stable," secure neighbor which can be affairs, Frank Cevasco: trusted with secret military R&D, the only The New High-Tech Weapons [Each MLRS rocket could have] six terminal­ country whose war industry is considered to be part of the U.S. military-industrial The soon-to-be-available high-tech "con­ ly guided missiles, four inches in diameter, two feet long. The things fly out over a pat­ base. "Our nations have," as James Wade ventional" weapons will be even more tern-they hunt, they scan, they do basic noted, "for all practical purposes, joined "impressive." In the new U.S. "Apache" signal processing decision-making: "is this a together in a North American defense AH64 attack helicopter, movements in the real target?" They run a series of computa- industry base." 14 pilot's cornea while he watches a target are measured by a laser and used to guide missiles to the target. The Apache will carry 16 laser-guided Hellfire missiles, 76 rockets, or 1,200 rounds for its 30 mm With these new "fire and forget" weapons, cannon, and it will be the first helicopter the motto being offered is: "even if you can't with night vision and all-weather capabil­ ity. The cost? $7.4 billion for 572 helicop­ see the target, you can kill it." ters.8 The long list of high-tech "conven­ tional" weapons systems is mind-boggling, with names like WAAM, BOSS, and "In­ credible Hulk"; but here are a few high­ tiona! checks. If a determination is made "See-Cubed-Eye" lights:9 that it's a target or probable target, then they go down and kill it. From the top, As Canadian companies repeatedly Assault Breaker: The star of this new where it's softer. We don't steer it. We don't point out, however, none of this equip­ generation of weapons; the Assault look through an eyepiece. We put it out ment actually kills people. It's just com­ Breaker's almost unknown to the public. there and it finds the target itself if we're munications equipment, sensors, satellites smart enough to know to point it, then it One of the Reagan administration's three or computers-all lumped together in mili­ takes over, you lose control. That's the kind 3 top-priority armaments, along with the of thing microelectronics can do for us that tary terms as C 1, or Command, Control, MX missile and the B-1 Bomber, Assault was not possible in the past. A two foot Communications and Intelligence. Breaker belongs to the "standoff" group of long, four inch wide missile [that] I can hold Canadian C31 has a good reputation world­ weapons (weapons with longer ranges and in my hand flies a whole buildingful of com­ wide and it is C31, coincidentally, which the greater destructiveness than PGMs). It will putational equipment and all the apparatus Reagan administration has recently be loaded with "smart" submunitions that go with it. That's what's promoted to equal priority with arma­ (small, highly explosive charges) and revolutionary! 12 ments.15 The Pentagon's former chief advanced guidance systems and sensors, Cevasco made these remarks at a high­ scientist for C31, Dr. Neil Birch, spoke at the and will seek targets deep in enemy terri­ tech conference and trade show in first CATA/NSIA conference in Ottawa last tory after being fired from a safe distance Ottawa, Canada, this May. The conference, year and gave the following frank apprais­ (100-200 km). 10 the second in two years, was organized by al of the Canadian military technology Fuel-Air Explosives (F AEs): These are the Canadian Advanced Technology Asso­ scene: among the most potent of the revolution­ ciation, representing over 150 Canadian ary new explosives and warhead technolo­ firms, and the National Security Industrial gies. FAEs dispense a cloud of highly vola­ Association, whose membership list­ All right, let me get to the bottom line. I tile fuel which, when ignited, can produce think that the potential here is great. The Boeing, Control Data, IBM, Lockheed, atmosphere is good ... it's very high-tech, atmospheric overpressures similar to those Litton, United Technologies, etc.­ the political risks are minimal [and] the developed by nuclear weapons. A near­ reads like a "Who's Who" of top U.S. war quality of your products is excellent. 16 miss can sink an aircraft carrier or level contractors. The U.S. government has entire city blocks. An advanced version, shown a lot of interest in these confer­ At the moment the most important FAE2, is now being developed by the ences-much more than its Canadian American C31 system is the NAVSTAR Pentagon. 11 counterpart-sending up planeloads of top eighteen satellite Global Positioning Sys­ Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS): Pentagon officials and scientists. tem (GPS) to be completed in 1987. This system can fire its 12 rockets in less This apparently unprecedented atten­ NAVSTAR's three-dimensional locating than one minute, scattering 8,000 submu­ tion to a specific area of Canadian industry accuracy (within 10 metres) will give nitions (each with the power of a hand can be explained by a glance at the Penta­ nuclear missiles first-strike precision, give grenade) over an area as big as six football gon's budget: 50 cents of every dollar goes police and intelligence agencies world-

Computing the Future 13 wide vehicle surveillance capability (Cana­ and the arms end up in the hands of un­ dian Department of Correctional Services savory types which the United States is participating in these preparations as would like to do away with? This was the well), 17 and have a variety of tactical uses. case in Iran, for example, where the U.S. Helicopters could land on a dime in the could have found itself up against some of dark, planes would have increased the best weapons in the world-it's own. bombing accuracy, and Special Forces Lt. Col. William T. McLarty, head of the "advisors," in Central America for ex­ Combat Vehicle Technology for the U.S. ample, could direct military strikes with­ Army, puts the problem this way: "Third out needing large forward patrols. 18 Why World countries are increasingly acquiring send the Marines if you don't have to? substantial combat power ... Within arms

Additional Information

U.S. corporations involved in Emerging Technology (E.T.) and high­ tech weapons: • Advanced Cluster Munitions "Skeet" made by Avco. Other Companies: Honeywell, General Dynamics. • Assault Breaker: candidates are versions of Vought's T-22 missile, and Martin Marietta's T-16. • AH-64 Advanced Attack Heli­ copter: Hughes Helicopters. • MLRS:S Vought. • Electronic Warfare (biggies): IBM, RCA, Eaton, TRW, GTE, Sylvania, Raytheon, Grumman, Hughes Aircraft, Litton, I.T.T., Westinghouse, Ford Aerospace, Northrup, Lockheed, Boeing, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, and National Semiconductor.

19 20 1be Need for Ef and High-Tech Weapons writers than miliary planners." These Ellsberg's writings). But with the peace solutions are the new smart weapons movement focusing on Europe the The reasons for this increased emphasis systems. solution was obvious. ET and high-tech on ET, high-tech weapons and C31 are sim­ Third, and finally, is the problem that weapons, say the enthusiasts, will raise the ple. First, the U.S. military wants to over­ has turned out to be more help than hin­ nuclear threshold in Europe and lessen the come the "Vietnam Syndrome." A quick drance: the nuclear disarmament move- chances of all-out nuclear war. This claim victory in Grenada notwithstanding, polls show that the American public is still "suf- fering" from an unwillingness to support Even debated on their own terms, these new long, drawn-out, high-casualty U.S. wars in Third World countries, thus, the shift from weapons will increase the chances of nuclear labor-intensive battles to capital-intensive war, not lessen it. high-tech weapons for fighting quick, brutal wars.

Second is the dilemma of "horizontal ment and the Euromissile controversy. is wrong on a number of counts, but has arms proliferation." With industrialized The problem was the possibility of restric­ nonetheless earned the support of many nations peddling all sorts of sophisticated tions on the use of nuclear weapons-the influential voices in the "peace" and weapons to various shaky regimes, what's weapons which have been so important in nuclear freeze movements. Robert the U.S. to do when these governments fall keeping the U.S.S.R. at bay and as a back­ McNamara, late of "McNamara's Wall' reach, however," he adds, "are solutions up to American intervention forces (for fame (but now a dove), praises the new [which] involve the application of techno­ more on the frequent use of the "nuclear weaponry because it will do "with conven­ logical innovations that were, until recent­ threat" during American interventions in tional weapons what previously had re­ ly, more the purview of science fiction the Third World, see for example, Daniel quired nuclear munitions." The U.S.

14 Science for the People ------~

Democratic Party and the Union of Con­ electronic means." General Bernard rent aggression and stop future subversion cerned Scientists have also come out Rogers, the proponent of his own . . . Congos, Cubas, Vietnams and the strongly in favor of the new high-tech "Rogers Plan" and the "Strike Deep" like." 25 "conventional" arms. 21 doctrines, has admitted that these doc­ trines rely on nuclear weapons for suc­ Pentagon planners have the same pur­ cess. Furthermore, while pushing these pose in mind for the new high-tech con­ ventional weapons and their chemical and The Nuclear Risk new doctrines through congressional committees, military officials have nuclear "reinforcements." The official Even debated on their own terms, how­ repeatedly requested "nuclear predele­ adoption of the AirLand Battle doctrine ever, these new weapons will increase the gation authority" to allow field com­ was preceded in 1981 by the AirLand Bat­ chances of nuclear war, not lessen it: 22 tle and Corps 86 Study conceived for manders to order the use of nukes with­ Europe, the Middle East and Korea, but • Many of the new weapons will use out Presidential approval-but they the wider geographical focus was hushed delivery vehicles common to nuclear have so far been denied. up before the doctrine reached its final weapons (e.g. Cruise, Trident, Lance, form. and Pershing 2 missiles). Soviet forces are unlikely to hang onto their nukes The European Theater: Red Herring? The AirLand Battle 2000, an official while waiting to see if the missiles fired Army concept but not yet doctrine, at them have conventional or nuclear The new high-tech conventional weap­ assumes a high-tech, virtually automated warheads. ons, in any case, aren't really intended for battlefield by the year 2000. It calls for • The deadliness of the new high-tech use in the European theater at all. NATO to look "southeastwards," where weapons verges on 3-4 kiloton nuclear effects, thus lowering inhibitions on the use of nukes, and blurring any so-called "firebreak."23 'We don't steer it. We don't look through an • The temptation to add nuclear warheads eyepiece. We put it out there and it finds the to the high-tech weapons has already proven too great to resist. Proponents of target itself ... That's what's revolutionaryl" the new systems were shocked to learn last November that Lawrence Livermore Labs had already tested a nuclear war­ head for the Assault Breaker. Certainly it's hoped that with a few of dependence on Middle East oil is called a • The three new fighting doctrines meant threat to Central Europe of "equal impor­ to accompany these weapons all insist them in Europe some steam might be knocked out of the peace movement, but tance" to the threat of Warsaw Pact that the use of nuclear weapons is vital 26 to the successful use of the new conven­ their real usefulness is elsewhere. As attack. tional arms-a point downplayed by Eisenhower's chief of staff, Nathan B. Finally, a Pentagon study called Air their proponents. The already-imple­ Twining, said in reference to battlefield Force 2000, leaked to Reuters, warns that mented AirLand Battle doctrine, de­ nukes (another weapon which was "the U.S. is much more apt to be drawn scribed as "the first fundamental change claimed as necessary for the European into wars involving Third World nations in Army doctrine since World War 11,"24 theater but used elsewhere), "If employed than into a war in Europe, where combat calls for the full integration and first use once or twice in the right targets ... with Soviet forces is not likely in this cen­ of "conventional, nuclear, chemical and [tactical nuclear weapons] would stop cur- tury." The most likely battleground, the report says, is "the area plus or minus 30 degrees from the equator. For example ... war in the Middle East is virtually Nuclear Refinements: inevitable. "27 Shrinking Firebreak Obviously, as these reports and doctrines At the same time as conventional and thus more 'usable' as everyday indicate, the U.S. sees new high-tech con­ ventional weapons as a means of policing weapons are being upgraded, nuclear weapons." The converging forces of its empire without giving rise to domestic weapons are also being transformed. conventional upgrading and nuclear resistance.28 Justifying these weapons as a Scientists at Lawrence Livermore Lab­ downgrading may wipe out the so­ non-nuclear defense against the Warsaw oratory in California are developing a called firebreak between the two Pact is (excuse the pun) a red herring. "third generation" of nuclear bombs weapon types completely-lessening Technological fixes propel, not prevent, accentuating either the blast, heat, the inhibitions to "use the nukes." arms races. And given the terrible destruc­ radiation, or EMP (electromagnetic tiveness of the new weapons and the pulse) effects. The neutron bomb is a nuclear tripwire they represent, any * M. Klare, ''The Era of Super-Violence'', claims that they are the "lesser evil" or are crude prototype of these "refined" MERIP Reports, January 1983, p. 17. See weapons. "The aim of all this, of more humane should be exposed for the also: M. Klare, "Conventional Arms, Mili­ lies they are. course" writes defense analyst Michael tary Doctrine, and Nuclear War: The Van­ Klare •, ''is to make nuclear weapons ishing Firebreak", THOUGHT (Fordham Non-nuclear war is changing beyond all appear more controlled in their effects University Quarterly), March 1984. recognition. It is hardly "conventional" anymore.

Computing the Future IS Fateful Triangle by Noam Chomsky, South End ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED Press, Boston, 1983, Chapter 5. 7. R. Halloran, op. cit. In the U.S.: 8. Conversation with Paul Hoag, who "flew" Outside the U.S.: AH-64 simulatorat 1983 U.S. Army show in Computer Professionals for Washington, D.C.; also: Martha Wenger, "Air INPUT Social Responsibility (CPSR) Land Battle Doctrine", MERIP Reports, January Box 248, Station B Box 717 1983, p. 15. Ottawam CANADA 9. Canadian Marconi Co. Annual Report Palo Alto, CA 94301 1982-83. KIP 6C4 415-3 22-3 778 10. For a good overview see: David C. Morri­ 613-230-6678 Federation of American son, "Conventional Madness," Inquiry, Febru­ Science for Peace Scientists ary 1984, p. 21-24. 11. Mark Hewish, "The Assault Breaker Pro­ University College 307 Massachusetts Ave., NE University of Toronto gram", International Defense Reviell.l Septem­ Washington, DC 20002 ber 1982, p. 1207-1211. Toronto, CANADA 202-546-3000 12. Leonard Bertin, "Warfare by M5S IAI High-Tech Professionals for Technology", Toronto Globe and Mail, Novem­ Scientists for Social Peace AND Bay State Center ber 19, 1982, p. 7. Responsibility 13. Francis M. Cevasco, "Emerging Technol­ for Economic Conversion ogies" speech at CATA/NSIA conference, May c/o David Suzuki 639 Massachusetts Ave. #316 9, 1984, Ottawa, Canada. University of British Columbia Cambridge, MA 02139 14. Dirk Hanson, op. cit., p. 283. Vancouver, CANADA 617-497-0605 15. James P. Wade, Jr., speech to first V6T, IZ2 CATA/NSIA conference, May 10, 1983, Ottawa, Mid-Pennisula Conversion Canada. Centre for Alternative Industrial Project 16. J. Chevreau, op. cit.; Stephen Straus, and Technical Systems 222 View St. "Canada considers taking role of repairman for NE London Polytechnic Mountain View, CA 94041 the space age", Toronto Globe and Mail, June Science for the People 21, 1984, p. 4. Dagenham, Essex 17. J. Chevreau, op. cit. GREAT BRITAIN 897 Main St. 18. Dr. Neil Birch, speech to first CATA/NSIA Electronics for Peace Cambridge, MA 02139 conference, May 10, 1983, Ottawa, Canada. 151 Courthouse Rd. 617-547-0370 19. Carnahan Electronic CounterMeasures The Technology and Society Conference Abstracts, 1982. Maidenhead 20. Thomas H. Karas, "The Star Wars Scen­ Berks SL6 6HY Committee ario", NATION, op. cit. GREAT BRITAIN Box 1526 21. Lt. Col. Wm. T. McLarty, Jr., "Technology CPSR-Italy Mountain View, CA 94042 Implications: The need for change", Military Re­ c/o Dr. Mario Bolognani United Campuses to Prevent view, January 1983, p. 48. Nuclear War (UCAM) 22. For more on this see D. Ellsberg's intro­ via Tasso 428/A ducion to Protest and Survive (E.P. Thompson 80127 Napoli 1346 Connecticut Ave. #1019 and Dan Smith, eds.), MR Press, 1981; and Kon­ ITALY Washington, DC 20036 rad Ege and Arjun Makhijani, "U.S. Nuclear 202-223-6206 Threats: A Documentary History," CounterSpy, Computing and Social July-August 1982. Responsibility (CSR) 23. David Morrison, op. cit. c/o Jane Hesketh REFERENCES 25. Michael Klare, "Conventional Arms, Mili­ tary Doctrine and Nuclear War: The Vanishing Edinburgh, EH8 9NB I. Ron Lowman. "Star War's gadetry but it Firebreak", THOUGHT (Fordham University SCOTLAND fires no shots", Toronto Star, May 19, 1984, p. Quarterly), March 1984. Forum lnformatker fuer Frieden Ml3. 26. Deborah Shapley, "The army's new fight­ und Gesellschaftliche 2. The best primer on the new weaponry is ing doctrine", New York Times Magazine, NATION's special issue "The New Arms Technol­ November 28, 1982, p. 37 ft. Verantwortung (FIFF) ogy," April 9, 1983; and MERIP (Middle East Re­ 27. Nathan B. Twining, Neither Liberty nor per Adresse Helga Genrich search and Information Project) Reports issue Safety, Holt, 1966, p. 245. Thanks to Noam lm Spicher Garten #3 on "Rapid Deployment and Nuclear War," Jan­ Chomsky for this reference. 5330 Koenigswinter 21 uary 1983. 28. Laurens Hogebrink, "Airland Battle and WEST GERMANY 3. B.F. Schemmer, "Strike Deep", Armed what else have you," Disarmament Campaigns, Forces Journal International, November 1982, March 1984, p. 6. Computer People for the p. 62. 29. This important report was given no cov­ Prevention of Nuclear War 4. J. Chevreau, "Canadian Input sought for 7 erage in the U.S.A. I strongly urge those inter­ (CPPNW) weapons", Toronto Globe and Mail, May 11, ested to read it: Christopher Hanson, "US More c/o Barbara Leonard 1984, p. Bl; Richard Halloran, "Pentagon Apt to Fight in Third World States, air force Debating Commitment to Complex Computer­ study says", Toronto Globe and Mail, October 25 Ramahana Rd. ized Arms", New York Times, August 23, 1983, 3, 1983, p. I. Christchurch 2 p.Al. 30. For more on domestic resistance and on NEW ZEALAND 5. Dirk Hanson, The New Alchemists, Avon lack of analysis in the Freeze movement, see: Books, New York, !982, p. 284-5. Jon Saxton, "Disarmament in a Vacuum", WIN 6. Leslie Wayne, "High-Tech Companies magazine, December I, 1981; and Frank Brod­ Cashing In", New York Times, June 20, 1982, p. head, "Dissention on Intervention", WIN maga­ Dl; for more on the Mideast connection see The zine, April 1, 1982.

16 Science for the People THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO HIGH TECH ~ by Ray Valdes ~

n recent years many of us have been overwhelmed by a flood of new pro­ ducts whose major virtue appears to be the label "High-Tech." From com­ puters to Cuisinarts, manufacturers proudly tout their latest widget as being indubitably superior to the competition because their particular widget has the key quality of being High-Tech. But some of us may wonder why one brand of squash racquet or tampon deserves to be Materials called High-Tech while another does not. A distinction that is presented as being intui­ One of the first steps in designing a High­ tively obvious does not seem to stand up to Tech product is choosing what it's made out continued scrutiny. of. Unusual or exotic materials are of great Take, for example, your average homely help in elevating a product from "low-tech" phone from Bell Telephone. Even though it to High-Tech. has worked faithfully and reliably through Take, for example, running shoes. Running years of being dropped on the floor, getting shoes are basically sneakers made out of singed on the kitchen stove, and falling with nylon instead of cloth. This fact alone was the diapers into the washing maehine, it can able to provide High-Tech status to these by no stretch of the imagination be called shoes when they were first introduced to the High-Teeh. consumer market in the early 1970s. On the other hand, that swept-back phone After a while, however, nylon as a material design with the cherry-red racing stripes that for running shoes was no longer so unusual. set you back $199 at the Electronics Boutique Sears and Bradlees began making and selling in your local shopping mall definitely is High­ the shoes, and now the shoes are threatening Tech, regardless of the fact that it stopped to become a low-tech commodity item like working after the first week. galoshes or baking soda. However, one for­ What is the distinguishing factor? After ward-looking product designer had been able many weeks of research, we at Science for to secure his brand's High-Tech status by the People have come up with the answer to adding graphite as a reinforcing material to this vexing question. We proudly set forth the soles-and by jacking up the price. below some principles and guidelines that Currently, graphite is a genuine High-Tech will enable vou, too, to move confidently material in almost any product, from squash through the ~id-1980s, secure in your ability racquets to windsurfboards. The single ex­ to recognize whether a particular item is or is ception, of course, is pencils, which can only not High-Tech. In fact, if you study these be High-Tech if they don't have graphite. principles carefully, you may even be able to design your own successful High-Tech Stainless steel is another material that can products. be High-Tech if it is in products that don't normally use it. For example, a stainless steel table lamp is definitely High-Tech. So is a Ray Valdes works in the high-tech industry. stainless steel sports car. Of course, a stain­ He is an active member of the SftP Computer less steel fork or tablespoon definitely could Group, and a former Science for the People not be considered High-Tech. staffer.

Computing the Future 17 Chrome is no longer a High-Tech Location The Person material although it could be seen as a pre­ cursor from the 1950s. Boron is High-Tech Putting things in unusual places The best, most High-Tech location of all in everything but gasoline. Plexiglas is illustrates another method of making is "the Person." Take almost any product High-Tech in cookbook holders but not in something High-Tech: the importance of and put it on "the Person" and you can windows. "Hot new" materials like Kevlar location cannot be stressed enough. confidently call it High-Tech. and Mylar are High-Tech in almost every­ Almost anything you move from your First Sony came out with the Walkman thing. house to your car will become High-Tech. Personal Stereo. Then came IBM with the A TV set or telephone is not High-Tech in Personal Computer, and Canon with the your house. But put it in your car and it Personal Copier. The reason this concept is Computers magically becomes High-Tech. Product so popular with industry is, of course, that designers are now scouring the home for you can sell many more widgets if every­ Computers are the ultimate material to other things to move into cars. Look for body thinks they have to have their own incorporate into a product. If anything is the new generation of cars to have dispos­ individual unit. intrinsically High-Tech it is these over­ als and food processors. There are now personal exercise tread­ grown calculators. By themselves they are Another good location is your ceiling. mills for the home, and personal tele­ good. They can elevate the most proletari­ Take an ordinary high-intensity desk lamp. phones you can carry with you wherever an product to the realm of High-Techdom. Hang it from the ceiling, call it track you go. Look for personal portable air­ You can take your old Maytag washing lighting and you have entered the world of conditioners coming soon to a store near machine from its current location in the High-Tech. The same is true if you dust off you. backyard near the outhouse, and move it your old Magnavox stereo speakers and respectably and confidently into your kit­ hang them above the doorway (remember Combinations chen (or even your living room) if you put to dress them up with Mylar or Kevlar). Or a computer in it. take your entire body and hang it from the If you try the above methods of location ceiling, upside down, of course, using and materials and still can't come up with High-Tech Gravity Boots. a High-Tech product, then try c0mbining You've seen computers added to copiers, One thing that doesn't belong on the or joining together existing prosaic typewriters, cars, and stereos. Look for ceiling, however, is the ceiling fan. That products. them in unusual places like abacuses, should be mounted sideways on the wall. In sports, once bicycling, running and wastebaskets, and sewing kits. The ulti­ There are an infinite amount of permu­ swimming became activities for the mate is to put a computer inside another tations. Product designers have been masses (i.e., commodity sports), the com­ computer, in order to make that computer playing musical chairs for years now. First, bination of the three was created and easier to use. Then, as with a Chinese box, you take the TV and put it on the wrist­ given the name Triathlon. The Triathlon put another computer inside that whole watch. Then you take t~ wristwatch and opens up a whole new market for expen­ kaboodle. The only limits to taking this put it on the lamp. Take the lamp and put it sive exotic gear (special shoes that can be process further is the size of the customer's on the ceiling. Take the ceiling fan and put worn in the water, on a bike and on the wallet. it on your TV ... Well, you get the picture. road, special shirts made out of exotic

18 Science for the People Royal Ronald Reagan Blue, or Pin-Stripe Grey. These colors are for background mostly, and are accented by any of the bright Chroma-Carcinogen colors. The product name has to be a Synthetic­ Word. That is, it has to be a combination of two separate words joined together in upper-and-lower case: LaserDisc, Walk­ Man, VisiCalc, or ColecoVision. Anything else is just not acceptable. Make sure that your company name is as up-to-date as the rest of your packaging. You can no longer get away with General Electric or Amalgamated Can. Even start­ ing your company name with the letter Z, as in Zenith, no longer helps. Nowadays, your company name has to be a set of ini­ tials like TRW or IBM, unless it is a Syn­ thetic Word, like MicroSoft. The best company name of all starts and ends with the letter X, has at most one vowel in it, and is a Synthetic Word. If you send in a small fee, we will let you use what we at Science for the People have de­ termined to be the most High-Tech name of all: Xytex.

Manufacturing Many people think there is an antiseptic, Space Shuttle White factory where High­ Tech products are made. In this factory, robot-controlled energy-efficient machin­ ery extrudes each product in one piece and in one step, with no muss or fuss. This, however, is a gross misconception. High­ Tech products do not have to be produced in a High-Tech fashion.

The name of the game is lowest cost for materials, etc.). The Triathlon is rapidly with putting it into any plain old box or highest profit. The space suits for the becoming the hottest sport for the package. Any high-tech product worth its Shuttle astronauts are stitched on an old mid-1980s, two magazines now available salt has to have genuine High-Tech pack­ Singer sewing maching by a group of little on supermarket newsstands. aging. old ladies in New Jersey. (This is true! It This method of combining things has was shown on TV.) More commonly, high­ been used a lot with wristwatches. There The first rule of high-tech packaging is: If tech products are produced in sweatshops are now watches that are also calculators it doesn't have a grid on it, it isn't High­ in the Philippines, Taiwan, Korea, Puerto and appointment books. There are radio­ Tech. Whether it's a new food processor, Rico and (until recently) El Salvador. Many watches, TV-watches, biofeedback­ squash racquet, or personal computer soft­ of these shops were previously producing watches and watches that let you play Pac­ ware, the package has to have a grid on it low-tech commodities like earmuffs or Man. Actually, there is not too much more as a background for the label and other galoshes. that you can add to a watch that hasn't product information. been added. It is best to look at other prod­ Also, no matter what product you're It is also a misconception that any of ucts that have not yet been combined. selling, it helps to have pictures of other these factories have to be environmentally Swiss army knives, one of the original high-tech products on it. This is why Apple clean. They say that Silicon Valley is just product combinations, are not High-Tech has a picture of a running shoe on its Gary, Indiana, with the smokestacks going because they were introduced so long ago. Macintosh computer or why a running underground. These new "smokestacks" If they were introduced now, they would shoe manfacturer has a computer sitting are the sewer conduits that pour High­ definitely be High-Tech, especially if they underneath its product. Tech chemicals into the sewer system and were made of graphite. As for package colors, if it were the water table. Look for interesting results 1960s, you'd have Tie-Dye Purple on when these fluids combine with wastes Packaging Denim Blue. In the 1970s it was respect­ from the biotechnology firms now moving able to use Butcher-Block Beige or Fern­ into full-scale production. We may end up Now that you've designed your high­ Bar Green. For the 1980s, however, the with High-Tech products that design them­ tech product, don't think you can get away required colors are Space Shuttle White, selves, so we won't have to.

Computing the Future 19 Productivity and Profits machine, however, because it lent an un­ mistakably High-Tech aura to the recep­ Another common misconception is that tion area. Diehard High-Techies will do High-Tech has something to do with in­ their taxes at home on their personal com­ creasing productivity and efficiency. The puters even though it takes twice as long fact is that there is little or no relationship. and you still have to check everything by High-Tech doesn't have to work efficiently hand. or reliably for the buyer. It just has to gen­ erate profits for the seller. Conclusion Biotechnology was High-Tech a couple of years ago, when it was making money This brings us back to our original ques­ for investors who were selling shares of it tion of why our home phone from Bell to other investors. This all happened with­ Telephone is not High-Tech, and a post­ out a single firm producing a real product, modern design from the new AT&T is much less one that actually worked. Artifi­ High-Tech. The determining factor, we cial intelligence is now heavily High-Tech have concluded, is the size of the profits. for the business community and will be as Old-fashioned, reliable profits may have long as shares can be sold by AI com­ been good enough for Ma Bell and the panies even though they have yet to pro­ 1950s. For the mid-1980s, however, unless duce usable products. it makes MegaProfits, it's not High-Tech. But what about the buyer? The buyer is The whole concept of High-Tech is a often buying image and elitism rather than tribute to American industry and many productivity. Recently, a large printing status-conscious American consumers. company bought a $60,000 graphics work­ Where else can you get a buyer to jump station. They found it took an operator on through hoops, run on treadmills, hang that machine longer to do their typical job from the ceiling, say it's wonderful than an operator using $100 worth of and-most important-pay through the drafting equipment. They kept the nose for it?

Do our genes control our destiny? Are sex roles, math and science abilities and JQ determined by biological inheritance? Are there biologically inferior and superior races? •·•···•····················•········•••••···••·· FATE OR FICTION: Biological Theories of Human Behavior •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• examines these questions in a 30-minute slide-tape presentation produced by Science for the People. It explores the history of biological explanations of human behavior, while taking a critical look at the misuse of science for promoting social inequalities.

''This slide show uses humor and vivid illustrations in a way that increases students' interest in nature/nurture controversies, while it helps them to understand the arguments advanced by critics of bio· logical determinism." -Mary Ann Wolff, high school social studies teacher

Comes with synchronized sound track, script, discussion guide, bibliography and resources. Sale Price: $150 Rental: $35 Send orders with payment to Science Resource Center, 897 Main St., Cambridge, MA 02139

20 Science for the People THE STRATEGIC COMPUTER INITIATIVE

A Double-Edged Sword

Jonathan B. Tucker

n the 1980s, computers have assumed a central role in the conduct of warfare. Electronic brains are now deeply involved in such diverse military activities as early warning and intelligence, communications, weap­ ons guidance, simulated war games, and the command and control of forces in the field. These developments have greatly increased the complexity and lethality of (IPTO) has been the primary sponsor of opposing forces will rarely be engaged the high-technology battlefield. computer-science research at universities along orderly, distinct lines. Instead, Now the Department of Defense (DOD) and industrial labs, investing some $500 battalion and regimental formations will is seeking to apply artificial intelligence million to develop a large base of widely be highly dispersed throughout the area of technology to warfare. On October 28, applicable hardware and software. In the conflict, making it impossible to differenti­ 1983, the DOD announced the Strategic field of artificial intelligence (AI), DARPA ate between rear and forward battle areas. Computing Initiative (SCI), a ten-year, has funded research on knowledge repre­ Moreover, the use of highly sophisticated coordinated effort by industry, academia sentation, natural-language under­ and lethal weapons that can be fired from and government laboratories to develop a standing, learning, vision, and other beyond the horizon will mean that an new generation of superintelligent com­ general problem areas with both civilian attack could come from any direction with puters with the ability to see, reason, plan, and military applications. But now the virtually no warning. In such a scenario, and supervise the actions of military sys­ agency has decided to apply the results of events on the battlefield would be so rapid tems in the field. Although many comput­ this basic research to develop systems of and unpredictable that human soldiers and er scientists remain unconvinced of the more direct military utility. their rigidly programmed weapons sys­ program's feasibility and military justifica­ tems could well be unable to react in time. tion, the SCI is proceeding at a rapid pace. Quantum Leap Sought To address this potential vulnerability, Already, SCI contracts have been let to DOD seeks "intelligent machines" capable Texas Instruments, Martin Marietta Aero­ The SCI seeks a quantum leap in com­ of processing huge amounts of tactical space, Rockwell International, and other puter technology with potential strategic information in real time and of adapting to firms. implications as great as the development complex, rapidly changing battlefield The program is being managed by the of nuclear weapons in the 1940s. Accord­ situations. Rather than simply automating Defense Advanced Research Projects ing to the initial SCI proposal published by routine tasks, these computers would Agency (DARPA), which funds research DARPA, if the technology evolves as plan­ assist and even replace decision-making and development on "high-risk, high­ ned, "instead of fielding simple guided mis­ by experienced soldiers and commanders. payoff" technologies with potential siles or remotely piloted vehicles, we military applications. Congress authorized might launch completely autonomous A second factor driving military interest $95 million for the SCI in fiscal year 1985 land, sea, and air vehicles capable of in AI and robotics is the perceived need to (which began last October 1), and DARPA complex, far-ranging reconnaissance and "conserve manpower," both in combat plans to spend approximately $1 billion on attack missions. The possibilities are quite roles and in noncombat operations such as the program by the end of the decade. startling, and suggest that new generation logistics and maintenance. The declining Over the past two decades, DARPA's In­ computing could fundamentally alter the proportion of 19-20 year olds in the popu­ formation Processing Techniques Office nature of future conflicts." lation implies a shrinking demographic DOD's rationale for the SCI is twofold. base of candidates for the armed services. Jonathan Tucker is a Senior Editor at First, new military scenarios such as the Military personnel is also very expensive; High Technology magazine. He writes fre­ U.S. Army's "Air Land Battle 2000" con­ salaries and benefits consumed nearly a quently about high-tech military issues. tend that in future conventional wars, third of the entire Army budget in fiscal-

Computing the Future 21 year 1983. In light of these demographic "expert systems," which attempt to speech recognition technology, to give the and financial constraints, a National Re­ simulate the thought processes of a human computer copilot the ability to respond to search Council study performed for the expert. These programs encode deep commands in spoken English. The com­ Army in 1983 recommended replacing knowledge of a highly specialized subject puter would automatically activate sen­ human soldiers with intelligent computers area, employing rules of thumb, factual sors, interpret intelligence data, and pre­ and robots in order to conserve manpower data, and reasoning mechanisms to help pare the appropriate weapons systems to and reduce battlefield casualties. solve problems in this narrow domain. counter hostile aircraft or missiles. Expert systems have been developed in According to the DARPA proposal, the Program Goals such areas as medical diagnosis, molecular human pilot, freed from having to deal genetics, and mineral exploration, as well with many of the technical minutiae of Developing the truly intelligent com­ as a number of military applications. flying, would be able to concentrate on puters and robots proposed by DARPA Examples of the latter include AIRPLAN, strategy and tactics. will require major advances in computer for planning flight operations around air­ For the Navy, the SCI proposes an expert hardware and software. DARPA's re­ craft-carrier battle groups; HASP/SlAP, for system to help commanders of carrier search plan is three-pronged, including in­ tracking and identifying submarines with battle groups plan and conduct major tensive efforts in microelectronics, com­ sonar signals; TATR, for tactical air tar­ battles at sea. Interacting with human puter architectures, and AI software, all of geting; and prototype systems for ana­ commanders through graphics displays which will be closely tied to specific mili­ lyzing tactical battlefield communications and synthesized speech, this system would tary applications. and strategic indicators and warnings. analyze enemy force movements by inter­ The microelectronics research program DARPA contends that expert systems preting data from intelligence sensors. It will focus on designing integrated circuits could aid military decision-makers in such would then simulate the effects of various containing a high density of functional ele­ areas as nuclear planning, logistics, flight courses of military action and recommend ments, an approach known as Very Large operations, equipment maintenance, and responses such as dispatching fighters or Scale Integration (VLSI). The SCI also management of complex battle situations. firing missiles. The program would be envisions gradually replacing silicon inte­ designed to adapt to changing battle grated circuits with chips made of a dif­ conditions and to resolve conflicts ferent semiconductor material known as Initial Projects between competing goals. DARPA gallium arsenide, which offers faster com­ believes such a system would require puting speeds, lower power consumption, DARPA seeks to initiate the use of 20,000 rules; current expert systems rarely and greater resistance to nuclear radia­ advanced AI and robotics technology for contain more than 1,000 rules. tion, making it more "survivable" in a military applications with three demon­ The SCI proposal does not specify the nuclear war. Meanwhile, tqe computer stration projects, one for each branch of extent to which the battle management architecture program will focus on the armed services. For: the Army, DARPA system would be autonomous. But building "massively parallel" computers in proposes an autonomous land vehicle that although military commanders may be which large numbers of microprocessors could serve as a self-driving tank, a robot loathe to delegate decisionmaking to com­ work simultaneously on different facets of soldier, or a remotely piloted drone for puters, missile attacks can take place so a problem. The goal of this effort will be to reconnaissance on land, in the air, at sea, rapidly that automated or semi-automated obtain at least a thousand-fold increase in and in space. responses may be necessary. "In general, net computing power. The project specifications include visual it's not easy to draw a clear line between The software development program will sensors working in conjunction with a advice-giving and decision-making, espe­ focus on AI capabilities. Computer vision large databank of codified human knowl­ cially when things are happening very systems will be developed for interpreting edge and experience that would enable fast," says Joseph Weizenbaum, professor intelligence-satellite photographs, termi­ the robot vehicle to sense its environment, of computer science at the Massachusetts nal guidance of missiles and bombs, and detect obstacles, locate and identify land­ Institute of Technology (MID. "Take the autonomous navigation and piloting sys­ marks, and respond effectively to unfore­ air-defense situation. I doubt that a com­ tems. A program in human-machine com­ seen circumstances. The proposed com­ mander will think twice when the comput­ munication will seek to enable people to puter for the autonomous vehicle would er says, 'An enemy missile will be arriving communicate with computers by typing take up less than 15 cubic feet, weigh only in two minutes. I suggest you push button commands in English and other natural a few hundred pounds, and consume no 3."' tongues instead of arcane computer lan­ more than a kilowatt of power. Uraveling The SCI proposal also envisions fully guages. And a program in speech under­ cross-country at speeds of up to 60 kilo­ autonomous command-and-control sys­ standing will aim at enabling computers to meters an hour, the robot vehicle would tems, which would compare real-time respond to spoken language. AI systems navigate to a designated point some 50 sensor data with stored information and that can interpret individual sentences kilometers distant. According to the initiate automatically a sequence of res­ within a limited subject area are already DARPA proposal, such capabilities would ponses. For example, the so-called "Star becoming available, but DARPA wants require a vision system capable of Wars" system for nationwide defense software that can understand fluent executing 10-100 billion instructions per against nuclear ballistic missiles, proposed speech without pauses between words and second compared with 30-40 million in­ by President Reagan in March 1983, is with a vocabulary of 5000-10,000 words. structions per second on today's most intended to destroy enemy missiles or Special emphasis will be given to speech powerful supercomputers. warheads in flight. Such a system would recognition over ordinary telephone lines For the Air Force, the SCI proposes a have at most a few minutes-and perhaps and in the high-noise environment of pilot's associate system to assist fighter as little as seconds-to detect missile fighter-aircraft. pilots in managing avionics and weapons launches, assess the nature of an attack, The SCI research program will also place systems during aerial combat. The plan and track and destroy thousands of tar­ strong emphasis on AI programs known as calls for the use of expert systems and gets. Command and control of the system

22 Science for the People might therefore have to be totally autono­ mous, excluding all human input frrun the "decision-making loop," even that of the President. This notion of a totally autonomous sys­ tem is specifically outlined in DARPA's initial SCI proposal. "Commanders remain particularly concerned about the role auto­ nomous systems would play in the transi­ tion from peace to hostilities, when rules

photos actual weapons systems described are not yet available (the weapons do not yet exist), the photos included are conventional weapons and satellites. of engagement may be altered quickly," probably be met, but that the notion of have to develop computer systems that the report says. "An extremely stressing superintelligent software is unrealistic. are capable of assimilating new informa­ example of such a case is the projected David Waltz, professor of computer sci­ tion from the environment, dealing with defense against strategic nuclear missiles, ence at Brandeis University, is skeptical inconsistent or incomplete data, and plan­ where systems must react so rapidly that it about the ability of expert systems to ning a response. Yet today's AI systems is likely that almost complete reliance progress from highly restricted fields of cannot even take simple dictation, let would have to be placed on automated knowledge to more general forms of intel­ alone converse with a pilot or adapt to systems. At the same time, the complexity ligence. "I think these programs work by changing situations. "Some AI systems can and unpredictability of factors affecting radically different means than the way react and respond in simple-minded ways the decisions will be very great." human experts actually think," he says. to unpredictable contexts," says Steve "The rule-based method assumes that a Berlin of MIT's Laboratory for Computer small number of variables will be sufficient Science, "but no AI system today Criticism Mounts to select from a large number of actions or demonstrates what we would call basic Criticism of the SCI has come from analyses, but that's only likely to be true in common sense." A major obstacle to de­ computer scientists as well as members of very narro\f domains. Probably 30 years veloping truly intelligent computers is the the wider community. Objections range from now, expert systems based on rule­ fact that the complex processes by which from doubts about technical aspects of the based chaining will be viewed as a dead­ human beings learn, reason, and innovate program to broader concerns about its end." are poorly understood. goals. Many computer scientists believe In order to achieve the SCI's extremely The military utility of Allrobotic that the hardware objectives of the SCI can ambitious objectives, AI researchers will systems is also in doubt. First, there would

Computing the Future 23 be substantial concern about sending and Lucy A. Suchman dispute the SCI's particularly true in an environment as robots into battle. "How do you know that implication that computers can eventually complex and unpredictable as high-tech­ a robot is really debugged enough before be made so intelligent and reliable that nology warfare. Thus the computer may you trust the system to choose and fire at they could be entrusted with the power to attempt to carry out the programmer's its own targets?" Waltz asks. "And what intiate acts of war without human inter­ instructions under inappropriate circum­ happens if the enemy devises counter­ vention. In fact, they write, all computers stances, resulting in faulty responses. measures to confuse the system?" Other have inherent limitations and fallibilities; unknown variables include the impact on despite the increased flexibility provided Trends in military technology, such as computer systems of indirect nuclear­ by AI systems, "intelligent" computers the increasing accuracy and speed of weapons effects such as electromagnetic may still respond inappropriately in unan­ nuclear-weapons delivery systems, are pulse- the massive electrical discharge ticipated situations. "Because this limit on placing growing pressures on the leaders induced by a nuclear explosion-and their reliability is fundamental," the CPSR of both the United States and the Soviet intense ionizing radiation. members write, "we argue against using Union to rely more heavily on computer­ Recently, Computer Professionals for them for decision-making in situations of ized command-and-control systems. Flight Social Responsibility (CPSR), a Palo Alto­ potentially devastating consequences." times of intermediate-range missiles based lobbying group, has strongly criti­ The source of the unreliability of com­ deployed in Europe (such as the Soviet cized the SCI by pointing ouf the dangers puters is that their behavior depends en­ SS-20 and the U.S. Pershing II) are as short of automating complex processes of tirely on rules that a human programmer as five minutes, as are those of Soviet sub­ assessment and judgement in an area so has coded in advance by sorting possible marine-launched missiles patrolling off the fraught with momentous consequences. In events into pre-specified categories. Yet coasts of the United States. The shrinking an article in the Bulletin of Atomic except for trivial cases, it is impossible for time interval available for decision-making Scientists, CPSR chairman Severo M. the programmer cannot foresee every situ­ is pushing both the United States and the Ornstein and colleagues Brian C. Smith ation that might occur. This limitation is Soviet Union toward a "launch-on-warn­ ing" strategy, in which preprogrammed computer responses would take the place of human decision-making.

Even in peacetime, however, the massive computers that control the U.S. strategic arsenal are beset by human and mechanical errors. In November 1979 and June 1980, false alarms occurred at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), causing U.S. strategic forces to be placed on alert. The 1979 incident reportedly involved a test tape containing simulated attack data that was fed accidentally into a computer at Strategic Air Command (SAC) Head­ quarters; the 1980 false alert was triggered by a faulty integrated circuit. In both cases timely human intervention was required to prevent escalation to nuclear war. Fortunately, the false alerts took place during a period of low tensions; had they occurred in the midst of a superpower confrontation, accidental nuclear war might well have resulted. The growing reliance by military com­ manders and political leaders on complex and inherently fallible strategic command­ and-control systems is an ominous trend. Fully automating these military systems would clearly open a Pandora's Box of new dangers, including the possibility of accidental war triggered by hardware or software malfunction. For example, one can imagine scenarios in which a comput­ er might misinterpret the coincidental juxtaposition of several unrelated military deployments or exercises as a coordinated attack. Moreover, there is no foolproof way to test and debug large, complex computer systems in advance. Even in highly

24 Science for the People reliable computer systems, subtle flaws Even if the SCI yields results, it will spark partmentalization" or "drawing the line may emerge only after the system has yet another expensive, inconclusive, and somewhere." Instead, they should make been operating for a long period of time destabilizing round of the arms race. Only an informed decision about accepting such and under a wide variety of conditions. a concerted effort to resolve the deep funding on the basis of a clear under­ For example, the Space Shuttle's computer political conflicts underlying the strategic standing of the program's objectives and system is both highly redundant and more competition and to achieve sharp reduc­ of. what they believe is right. "Computer thoroughly tested and simulated than per­ tions in nuclear arms can bring about a scientists should ask themselves if what haps any other computer system in the safer world. they're doing is in the service of life or of world. Yet in 1984 the orbiter's computer The SCI is objectionable on moral death," Weizenbaum concludes. "In many failed during two successive launch grounds as well. Although it is true that re­ instances, the answer will be very clear." attempts in the final seconds of the count­ placing soldiers with robotic devices down. If a computer system can fail under would reduce American casualties, it those ideal conditions, it would be a would also make military intervention in BIBLIOGRAPHY miracle if a vastly larger computer net­ the Third World more acceptable to U.S. work operated reliably in the midst of a public opinion. Indeed, robotic soldiers "New Generation Computing Technology: A nuclear war. "All experience with complex could engage in atrocities that no human Strategic Plan for its Development and Applica­ systems indicates that it is the circum­ eyes would witness, enabling the govern­ tion to Critical Problems in Defense." Defense stances that we totally fail to anticipate ment to wage brutal and secret wars with­ Advanced Research Projects Agency, October 28, 1983. that cause the serious problems," out the knowledge or consent of the American people. More generally, ena­ "Applications of Robotics and Artificial Intel­ Ornstein, Smith and Suchman write. "Yet ligence to Reduce Risk and Improve Effective­ it is an inescapable fact that military sys­ bling military commanders and political ness: A Study for the United States Army." tems-especially nuclear systems-cannot leaders to pass the burden of decision­ Committee on Army Robotics and Artificial be fully tested in advance, nor can crisis making to "intelligent" computers may Intelligence, National Research Council conditions ever be fully simulated." make it easier for them to initiate conven­ (Washington: National Academy Press, 1983). tional or nuclear war, while abdicating "SCS: Toward supersmart computers for the moral responsibility for the consequences. military." RobertS. Cooper and Robert E. Kahn, IEEE Spectrum, November 1983, pp. 53-55. Abdicating Responsibility How should computer scientists respond "DARPA's big push in AI." Willie Schatz and to the tempting funding opportunities John W. Verity, Datamation, February 1984, pp. provided by the SCI? First, they clearly 48-50. The SCI is yet another example of the have a responsibility to expose the deep "Weighing DARPA's AI plans." Datamation, military's penchant for finding techno­ technical flaws in the proposal, such as the August 1, 1984, pp. 34-43. logical solutions to political problems. problem ol computer unreliability, to "Peril of 'intelligent' weapons. Reid Simmons, Karen Sollens, and Dan Carnese. Computers are clearly not the answer to government policymakers and the public Boston Globe, Op/Ed page, July 30, 1984. making nuclear weapons "fail-safe." As at large. As far as working on DARPA­ "Strategic computing." Severo M. Ornstein, long as these awesomely destructive funded projects is concerned, researchers Brian C. Smith, and Lucy A. Suchman, Bulletin weapons exist, neither human nor com­ should resist the temptation to avoid the of the Atomic Scientists, December 1984, pp. puter control can guarantee our safety. moral issues with excuses such as "com- 11-15.

Computing the Future 25 111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 Ulllllllllllllll

COMPUTERS IN UNIFORM: A GOOD FIT?

by Joseph Weizenbaum

Wen we consider the connection be­ the basis of the kind of map stored in the tween the computer and the military, the missile itself. This map is compared with As I see first thing to observe is that the computer the ground over which it flies. Moving at was born-in a number of places but more very nearly the speed of sound and at a this autonomous or less simultaneously-as an instrument very low altitude, its "vision" has to be to help in warfare. For example, in the fairly accurate in order to make the com­ combat vehicle, U.S. the UNIVAC was the first computer to parison and the connections between the compute ballistic tables, in other words, to map that it has stored and what the actual it Is sort of a improve the accuracy of artillery. In that terrain looks like. respect it isn't very different from other traveling This is not, however, the only involve­ technologies such as rocketry. ~~free To take a more current example: it is ment of the computer in the cruise missile. fire very clear that modern weapons, particu­ One could question how these maps are larly the most destabilizing wefi.pons such obtained-for example, maps of the Soviet zone." as the cruise or Pershing missiles, would Union-and the answer is, of course, that be impossible without computers. The they are obtained from satellites. Such cruise missile finds its way to its target on satellites would be impossible to put into place, and the signals they send back Joseph Weizenbaum teaches in the Com­ would be impossible to analyze, without puter Science Department at MIT. He is a very large computing power. member of the SftP Editorial Advisory The connection between the computer Board. and the military has been present all the This article is adapted from a talk at a time and continues to this day. I think it is recent Science for the People forum in safe to say that the majority of research Boston. and development in computers-and, to a

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large extent, in computer science-is that began to take the term seriously. They being funded and in many ways directed began to work on it and to siphon off a lot The military by the military. An example of this that is of the money that the government was close to home here at MIT and is, in a cer­ spending on it, and things looked very, sponsors nearly tain sense, prototypical, is the research very dark. and development of artificial intelligence all research (AI). Then the Japanese launched their so­ In artificial The term "artifical intelligence" was called "Fifth Generation" project. This is a coined by a conference in Dartmouth, project to develop very fast computers on intelligence, New Hampshire, in the mid 1950s. What a very large scale-to have their society happened was that a number of people pervaded by these computers. All com­ and the horizon working in an area that today would be munications would be mediated by these identified as AI, recognized that they had computers. All of this would be done using for delivery been doing something in common, and very heavy doses of AI. This made it pos­ held a conference. When it actually hap­ sible to cry "Sputnik" again and to say that of products pened and they went through with it, they "if we don't get on this right away, they're saw that there was indeed "something going to beat us"-the threat being that has become much there," and it was clearly something that "we" will become an inferior nation. This the world should be told about. The ques­ approach has been enormously successful, shorter. tion was where might it be published. and is essentially responsible for the Someone suggested the Bulletin of Cog­ flowering of AI all over the world, and cer­ nitive Science, or some such thing, and tainly in the U.S. that this work be made a branch of cogni­ This history is important because of the tive theory. One of the people attending impact of military funding on the scientific the conference, Tom McCarthy, pointed subdiscipline of AI. When AI first started, out at this juncture that if that were done, the fundamental idea was to build ma­ the funding for this research for the next chines to do things which would be recog­ ten years would be on the order of $10,000 nized as intelligent, if humans did them. -20,000 per year. They needed a much Even more important was that the ma­ "jazzier" name, he said; he coined the chines do these things in the way that term "Artificial Intelligence," and it was humans do them. certainly a very lucky thing for the field The best example is chess playing. The about the way the human mind works. In a that he did so. idea was that one could go to a chess mas­ certain sense, I feel that failure is a great From the beginning, AI proved attrac­ ter and ask how he would make the next crime. tive to the military-to the Department of move or how he would think about it. I bring this up because today the Depart­ Defense (DOD). It was fairly generously Then, one could take the protocol and ment of Defense-! don't like that name, I sponsored for quite a long time, especially what the chess master said and program it prefer to say the military-sponsors nearly at MIT, but certainly also at other places into a machine. If you do a lot of that you all research in AI, and the horizon for like Stanford and Carnegie Tech (now will have, first of all, a machine that plays delivery has become much shorter, that is Carnegie-Mellon). At the time, the chess masterfully, and secondly, you will to say ten years. In other words, some­ "horizon"-so to speak-at which some­ have understanding about certain kinds of thing which fits into a weapons system thing had to be delivered was fairly large. human thinking. This mode of operation should come out at the end of ten years. So It was not the case that AI researchers had of AI was known in those days as theory consequently, what has happened now is to deliver something recognizably "arti­ mode, in which the idea is to learn some­ that the whole field of AI has been skewed ficially intelligent" in, say, three or four or thing about human thinking by playing all together to performance mode. No five years, let alone delivering something with machines and making analogies. work in theory mode is going on-certain­ that might by of military use. The prom­ Then there is another aspect which is ly not by people that would identify them­ ises that were made to generals and called performance mode and this is to get selves as doing so. There are people, such admirals about such a potential of what machines to do clever things-ever more as linguists, etc., who are studying the might be developed were sufficient to clever things-and without regard to material that AI might have studied, but keep the work going for a long time. Some whether the machine did them the way a they are not AI people. years later-some ten or fifteen years ago human being would do them. In fact, what I should say one more thing. Until now-the DOD decided it had forgotten its happened with chess is that it got so inter­ recently, even until around four years ago, major objectives for funding AI, and there esting and machines got bigger and faster researchers in the field of computer sci­ was a terrible letdown and great pessi­ and so on, that it didn't take very long ence in general, and AI in particular, could mism, which was of course felt here at before those people working in chess-in say with some justification (not much, but MIT. theory mode so to speak-got tempted by some justification) that this work which Something had to be done. Tom the various "tricks" they could exploit was being sponsored by the DOD did not McCarthy's trick came to mind, as he had with the m!l.chine to get the machine to tell them what to do, or direct what they previously decided to rename the field. It play chess very well without paying atten­ wanted to do. They could say, essentially, was called "Cognitive Science," and the tion to whether there was any logical basis ''I'm not working on a weapons system, so money flowed again. Unfortunately, that for the methods behind these tricks. if this stuff happens to be used in a weap­ didn't last very long, because psychol­ Hence, today we have very good chess­ ons system, well, that's not my concern; ogists and philosophers and people like playing machines which tell us nothing I'm working purely on science, that's all."

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That was possible with some difficulty until very recently. Contemporary with the current administration-the Reagan administration-the rise in the "new patriotism" and all of that, I think that the DOD has decided that it is possible to drop the euphemisms. There is an example now, a program which started out to be called the Strategic Computing Initiative (see Jonathan Tucker's article in this issue for more on this topic). It started out that way and now it is called Strategic Comput­ er Program and I think that means that it

If you ask yourself has been funded. The plan is to spend One of these is a so-called autonomous $600 million in five years on AI research vehicle. You may imagine it is a very large how it is that of a very specific kind. What will happen, tank which instead of having people inside by the way, is that $600 million will be has AI inside. It gets its instructions, such computers which spent in a very few universities. It is not as "go out there and if you see something going to be spread over 30, 50 or 80 uni­ that looks like this then blast it down, and used to fill versities, but will be given to the principal if it is like this, then do the following and three which conduct AI research, that is whatever." In any case a lot of degrees. of rooms can today Stanford, Cornell, and MIT, and a few freedom are left over to this vehicle. To others. That is an enormous amount of those of you who recall the terminology of be put onto little money and the plan is described without the Vietnam war, and now the terminol­ any euphemisms. Basically, it calls for ogy of El Salvador, you may remember chips, the answer three weapons systems. "free fire zones." As I see this autonomous combat vehicle, it is a sort of traveling free is a need on the fire zone. One is called a "battle management sys­ part of the tem" for an aircraft carrier fleet. You have to understand that an aircraft carrier is The third project is called a pilot's military. surrounded by many ships with sub­ assistant. There are of course many marines underneath and airplanes above computer-type systems today which assist and all that. The idea is that in a real battle pilots, but this is special. This is for a com­ anything that might need to be managed. things happen much, much too fast for bat aircraft that is loaded with electronics Furthermore, the progress of information human beings to monitor the information and again, things happen much, much too between the pilot and this machine would so that therefore we need a computer fast for a single pilot to keep track of. Such also be done in natural language, in system with AI capabilities to make all the airplanes today are staffed by two or three speech in other words. important decisions. That is what a battle people, but here the idea is to have one Now what this means is essentially that management system is. But AI also has ap­ person who has as his or her assistant this these three systems make it possible to plications for land battles as well. wonderful AI machine that can manage justify almost every branch of work in AI:

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restricted field like AI, the rarest resource happen in any society; would it happen on What we get, of all, which is to say human intelligence, Mars if there were computer scimtists up is all soaked up by all that money. there," the answer is clearly, no. The rapid like little For example, if a student were to come progress to increasingly smaller and to an AI laboratory and were to want to smaller computer chips has happened dogs sitting work on something that couldn't be because there was a need on the part of justified in these terms, that had nothing to the military to have computers get very under the do with these things I have been speaking much smaller and very much lighter and of, it is not that the money couldn't con­ so on so that they could be used in situ­ table, are ceivably be found, but that the supervisors ations as I have just described, and more couldn't be found because the whole labo­ particularly having to do with our missiles, spinoffs like ratory is already soaked up by this with rocketry, etc. enormous effort. This is an example of What we get, of course, like little dogs wristwatches. something I feel is quite important. Let me sitting under the table feeding on the say it this way: we often talk about the bones that our masters drop, very occa­ impact of computers on society, but the sionally what we get is wristwatches and robotics for example, speech recognition, important thing is quite the other way: it is things of that kind. And, somehow, we vision and so on and so forth and there­ the impact of society-how we are organ­ think that this is a natural process. I think fore it is becoming harder in my view for ized, what we do to science and tech­ that what has to be remembered is that in people in the field to maintain the nology and how it develops. the end these things are the fallout of rationale that their work has no direct If you ask yourself how it is that comput­ gigantic efforts to make it possible to kill military applications. But that's a sec: ers which used to fill rooms like this can more and more people ever more ondary point. The primary point is that today be put onto little chips, if you ask, efficiently. And it is very sad that our with so much money invested in a fairly "did this happen naturally; would this society's priorities continue in this fashion.

We'ue been keeping our eye on computers . . .

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Computing the Future 29 CONTROL DATA AND APARTHEID

by Thomas Bartholomay

Control Data Corporation (CDC) has stated that it has a plan for South Africa. The plan devised by this U.S. computer company in­ volves the sale to the South African govern­ ment of an enormous, multi-million dollar computer-based education system called PLATO. CDC claims that theirs is a plan to assist blacks in their struggle for equality. The evidence indicates, however, that the apar­ theid regime in South Africa, having pur­ chased the CDC's computer system, is using it to control, rather than educate blacks, and that CDC is deliberately taking advantage of the government's security goals to make pro­ fits it could not realize marketing PLATO solely for educational purposes. PLATO - originally "Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations," but later changed by CDC to stand for "Personal Learning and Training Opportunity" - was developed over a sixteen-year period at the University of Illinois with primary funding from the Department of Defense and the Na­ tional Science Foundation. In 1976, CDC pur­ chased the marketing rights for PLATO and its language TUTOR. Since then the company claims to have sunk $900 million into PLATO, and in the process has created the largest and most so­ phisticated computer-based education system sold on earth. In fact, PLATO has be­ come a behemoth. Literally thousands of re­ mote terminals can access its mainframe, making PLATO a centralized tool for educa­ tion, communication, and research that CDC's chairman, William Norris, describes as "nearly limitless in its versatility." PLATO's software is designed to do everything from instructing students in mathematics to teach-

Thomas Bartholomay is a freelance re­ searcher and writer based in Minneapolis, MN. This article comes from a longer report to be published this year by Africa World Press of the Africa Research and Publications Project, Box 1892, Trenton, NJ 08608.

30 Science for the People ing decisionmaking and even to modifying its users' attitudes, values, and behavior pat­ terns. In addition to its educational capabil­ ities, PLATO performs administrative func­ tions, such as monitoring finances and main­ taining personnel records. All this informa­ tion can be accessed from any terminal with the correct access code. But, despite its supermarket array of func­ tions, and CDC's persistent promotion of PLATO as a useful educational tool, schools and government agencies have been reluc­ tant to purchase the system. Critics contend that students don't retain the lessons taught through PLAT0 1, but the bottom line is that PLATO is too expensive; its capabilities far exceed the needs of standard education. Con­ sequently, CDC, unable to turn a profit on PLATO in what it had anticipated to be its largest market, found itself with a $900 million monkey on its back. It was at this point that CDC's plan for PLATO in South Africa began to take shape. But to under­ stand the progression of events, it is impor­ . - tant to explain further the special needs of I the South African government. The South Mrican Government's "Total Strategy" After the alarming Soweto riots in 1976, the government announced that it was engaged in a "total war" for national security. To help determine the regime's most effec­ tive course of action, in 1979 Premier P.W. Botha launched what was probably the most extensive state-funded and coordinated social research program outside the Com­ munist Bloc. Botha doubled the size of the Human Sciences Research Council {HSRC) to act as a national research coordinator for the program. By 1982, the HSRC employed al­ most one fifth of South Africa's social scien­ tists. The HSRC researched ten priority areas that one Cape Town University official feels reflect "the major anxieties of the ruling group." The number one item on the agenda was education; the second, Iabor. 2 Until recently, South Africa's industry has survived on skilled white labor from other countries, enabling it to limit the admittance of blacks into the white power structure. The demand for expensive foreign skills has grown rapidly, sapping the country's capital and the shortage of skilled labor has driven inflation up. 3 Consequently, the apartheid government is seeking to create a skilled black labor force that does not threaten apar­ theid policy.

Computing the Future 31 The HSRC concocted a "total strategy," tralization of surveillance information, has behavior and attitude of company com­ described by Thomas Conrad, a specialist required the expansion of data processing manders. "This particular type of in security computers, as: equipment throughout the educational sys­ training," explains a military report, a prescription for the militarized na­ tem. To meet this challenge the South Afri­ "would be impossible without an interac­ tional security state which has inte­ can government established an apparatus tive device like the PLATO system."7 This grated all branches and all levels of gov­ for greater monitoring and control of interactive quality includes programmed ernment, the country's industry and schools, and CDC found the lucrative use analysis of its user's responses to course­ businesses, the educational system and other institutions into the struggle to of PLATO it had been looking for. ware. Analyses such as these produce an preserve white political control. 4 extensive file listing the "negative" and PLATO's Role in the "positive" characteristics of its user. The "total strategy" has four general "Total Strategy" The size and sophistication of PLATO is goals: to tighten stringent controls on equalled only by its potential for abuse. black mobility from the homelands to the The key to the exceptional compata­ Recognition of this potential prompted an white cities, using the homelands as con­ bility between South Africa and PLATO alarmed James Gallagher, the technical tainers for the increasing black population; lies in the system's extra-educational capa­ consultant for the U.S. Subcommittee on to relax some urban black restrictions, bilities, capabilities which had been ex­ Domestic and lnt'I Planning to enquire thereby regionalizing government policy plored and developed by one of the sys- during the 1977 hearings on Computers And The Learning Society: ... am I correct that in building this fut­ PLATO's use is not limited to schools. Its uristic network you speak about wiring together a complete city with homes, capabilities appear to be aiding a govern­ factories, and businesses, and a school ment effort to monitor and control the type population and then perhaps interlink­ ing cities? ... who controls all this? Who of black entering the job market. picks the peer reviewer? Who picks the evaluator? I think there will be alot of debate on this on the floor.• for special treatment of particular groups; tern's primary funders, the U.S. military. Concerns like Gallagher's have inhibited to increase control through police power, Beyond its capacity to provide basic in­ PLATO's development in the U.S. Al­ laws and surveillance, using new compu­ struction in subjects ranging from jeep re­ though supporters of PLATO claim that ter developments; and to educate and pair to simulated war games, the system democratic safeguards in the U.S. make train a select group of non-whites to meet has been especially useful in modifying the abuses of the system unlikely, CDC is well the needs of industry, through the creation and co-optation of a so-called "stable black middle class."5 By implementing these policies, the government hopes to stream­ line and strengthen the apartheid system. Education and training are fundamental to the regime's strategy. If an acquiescent "black middle class" can be produced, not only will industry be satisfied, but the ef­ fects will also diminish domestic and inter­ national anti-apartheid pressures. The key for the regime is to maintain close control not only over what is taught in the schools but more importantly over which blacks are put in upper level positions. The regime's educational campaign has consisted of both expanding basic educa­ tional facilities and developing methods of compiling and transmitting information gathered from schools to government agencies. The first aspect of this campaign, the expansion of educational resources, has been unequalled in South Africa's his­ tory. Yet this growth has been riddled with school crackdowns, teacher firings, and student detentions, all of which indicate the government's determination to flush out threatening influences. The exclusion of students and teachers from participation in the government's decisions has exacer­ bated the already unrestful state of academia. The second and more menacing aspect of the government's campaign, the cen-

32 Science for the People aware that PLATO's cost-effectiveness, the government's abrupt willingness to and thus profitability, depends on the use commit themselves to PLATO's capabili­ of its more OrweiJian capabilities. And it is ties in 1979. precisely those capabilities that the Pre­ The powerful potential Lomax saw in toria regime hoped could address its dire such a system was made clear in 1979 economic straits and growing security when, after joining CDC and beginning needs. work with PLATO, he laid out his vision CDC's involvement with the South Afri­ for the role that computer-based education can Government has been long and intri­ could play in South Africa: cate. In 1979, when PLATO was first made . . . recognition that the individual's available to South Africa, CDC Data hired learning capacity is profoundly influ­ a man named Donald Lomax as Senior enced by environmental events, encour­ Education Consultant for their PLATO ages the search for ways in which these marketing efforts. A specialist in educa­ experiences may be scientifically con­ trolled ... It is also our desire to estab­ tional psychology, Lomax initially arrived lish important attitudes towards study. in South Africa from England in 1977 for work, leisure, the self and society ... work on a pilot computer-based education We do have ... long term goals, such as system called Cybercom, a system remark­ that of producing well-adjusted adults ably similar in size and capabilities to who can accommodate the pressures of PLATO. At the University of Witswaters­ complex modern societies, and manifest rand, Lomax researched the potentials of the ability to assimilate our adult culture this system for psychological testing in an ... If we are to go further and establish educational setting. A year later Lomax an ideal model then we may imagine that parents, local communities, schools, enthused in a research paper: colleges, universities, and the armed An interesting technological innovation forces, commerce and industry may co­ is enabling members of the Education operate in the application of a systems Department at the University of Wit­ approach. The orchestration of the en­ watersrand to investigate the attitudes terprise is probably a task for central and aspirations of their students more government ., .. it may be imagined that effectively than has been possible in the educators might make a greater contri­ 9 past. bution to the achievement of national This computer-based education system, goals, help nations to maintain them­ with the full name of Cybercom Multimode selves internally;' and assist all citizens to Education System is surrounded by mys­ adapt to their environment. 10 tery. The system appears nearly identical Not long after Lomax made this state­ to that of PLATO. The construction of this ment, CDC promoted him to National Aca­ very large centralized "education system" demic Program Manager for PLATO in in 1976 curiously follows the beginning of South Africa. The man that CDC chose to CDC's South African advertising of PLATO oversee its entire computer-based educa­ in 1975 (CDC only obtained the marketing tion program in South Africa has a vision rights for PLATO in 1976). A number of clearly much more in line with the CDC's mainframes, called Cyber systems, regime's security than the company's pur­ have been operating for several S.A. gov- ported plans to promote "equal participa-

Individual destinies under this system would be determined not by actions, but by a standardized selective system that classifies some people as "good" (acquiescent) and others as "bad" (radical).

ernment agencies and now make up the tion of all people in South African society." nucleus for PLATO's programming in CDC's interest in bringing security-minded South Africa. The coincidences between personnel to their PLATO staff was even the Cybercom's name and timely develop­ more starkly evidenced when they hired ment points toward a real possibility that John Brett in 1978 to be a senior public re­ the Cybercom is basically a PLATO system lations representative for the PLATO sys­ under a different name, which was and tem. Brett, too, had unique qualifications still is used for testing software that would to further CDC's intent to improve the lot meet the design and needs of the South of black people in South Africa. Before be­ African government. This would explain ing hired by CDC he had spent over

Computing the Future 33 .0 ::J .s::. (/) c .!!1 ijj

twenty years as an agent for South Africa's software and hardware were made avail­ courses the students are doing, the indi­ notorious intelligence agency, formerly able to businesses and government. The vidual lessons the student has done, and known as BOSS. As an employee of CDC, University of the Western Cape had pur­ at the click of a few buttons you can re­ Brett brought his expertise to such tasks as chased from CDC the third largest comput­ ceive all of the information. I feel a great spearheading fundraising efforts within er-based education system in existence, concern because there is no telling that the country and escorting and monitoring there are not say 100 terminals some­ and plans were underway for a mammoth where else in the country that are col­ blacks on U.S. promotional tours. computer network to encompass the en­ lecting information on us just like spying tire Natal/Kwazulu region. on people . . . They could get informa­ tion in five minutes that would take half PLATO System Spreads This proliferation and its frightening po­ a year to put together in other ways. tentials have not gone unnoticed in South The extraordinary applicability of the Africa. Many educators are concerned. PLATO's use, however, is not limited to PLATO system to the regime's needs is evi­ One instructor who trains teachers in the schools. Its capabilities appear to be aiding dent by its rapid growth in South Africa. Natal region expressed her fears over the a government effort to monitor and con­ Within two years of its introduction to the PLATO center there: trol the type of black entering the job mar­ market, a training center (Control Data They have the student's names, home ket. A government organization that re­ Institute) was established in Johannesburg; addresses, ages, date of birth, all the searchs black labor, the National Institute

34 Science for the People for Personnel Research (NIPR), purchased the NIPR purchased its PLATO terminals) spent on computer equipment for schools. an unannounced number of PLATO ter­ that it was considering a plan that would Having no cure for a national uprising, the minals in 1980. This organization is a di­ reduce unemployment "by providing in­ South African government is resorting to vision of the Center for Computing Ser­ stant information on where jobs are and computer surveillance and control for its vices, the principal component of the no­ where workers are who can do the jobs." prevention. CDC, with its $900 million torious Council on Scientific and Industrial The program would be managed by the stockpile of high-tech medicine, is provid­ Research which services military and se­ Department of Manpower Utilization. The ing a timely fix for the regime's security curity needs. Prior to 1980, the division same program would, Conrad maintains: ailments and is gaining for itself a long­ was researching the psychology of black expand computer surveillance of blacks awaited return on its PLATO investment. labor, studying, for example, the needs by establishing a national network link­ Black South Africa, however, is shut out of and attitudes of blacks in industry, and the ing the Administration Boards and the this neat compact, its destiny increasingly role of the black technician. 11 But more police to a central computer in Pretoria directed by the white regime through the pertinent, this division began focusing ... personal details fed into the compu­ pulse of wires and content of micro-chips. much of its resources on personality and ter would include educational qualifica­ tions, test results, employment histories, temperament research, including psycho­ criminal records and ethnic origins of logical testing using a computer resem­ urban blacks and their status under in­ REFERENCES bling the PLATO. flux control laws ... The computer net· This movement toward personality test­ work would [also] be programmed for I. Gegor W. Pinney, "Studies don't confirm ing has permeated the educational system. 'message input' by the police to pinpoint claims for PLATO's Teaching Success," Minnea­ Unless the government can "understand" people who are required for question­ polis Tribune, August 22, 1982. black motivations and culture and select ing. 2. Times Higher Education Supplement, April 16, 1982. 3. Financial Mail, February 12, 1982, page 701; Financial Mail, September 18, 1981. page CDC, unable to turn a profit on PLATO in 1384. 4. Thomas Conrad, Automating Apartheid: what it had anticipated to be its largest U.S. Computer Exports To South Africa and The Arms Embargo, Narmic/ American Friends Ser­ market, found itself with a $900 million vice Committee, 1982. This is probably the best monkey on its back. It was at this point resource available on how U.S. computer sales have aided the maintenance of Apartheid with that CDC's plan for PLATO in S.outh Africa oppressive technology. 5. Two articles that discuss the development began to take shape. of a black middle class are: Times Higher Edu­ cation Supplement, January 15, 1982; and, Philip Frankel, "The Politics of Passes: Control and Change in South Africa," "The Journal of desirable blacks for upper-level positions, The widespread implementation of the Modem African Studies, February 17, 1979. their absorption into the workplace could PLATO system in South Africa could pro­ 6. These employment projections are taken prove fatal to apartheid. In 1981 the De­ vide the government with files containing from Finance Week, August 21-27, 1980. partment of Education and Training re­ everything from a delineation of a 7. Aurther S. Blaiwes, report for the Navy ported that it was collaborating with the person's behavior and career orientation Training and Equipment Center, (No. Human Science Research Council (HSCR) to an analysis of his or her attitude and 74-C-0095-1) 1974. Another good military re­ in a variety of experimental programs that temperament. The possession of such files source about PLATO's individual analysis and value change capabilities is: Application of included several intelligence tests and per­ could vastly strengthen the hand of the Computer-Assisted Instruction to Interpersonal sonality questionaires. In 1982 a "compu­ apartheid regime. Individual destinies Skill Training by Doris Hausser and Arthur terized vocational guidance programme" under this system would be determined Blaiwes, a research project for the Navy was applied to 35,708 pupils at 312 not by actions, but by a standardized selec­ Training and Equipment Center, (No. schools. 12 CDC has said they would aid this tive system that classifies some people as 74-C-0100-1) 1974. effort by establishing "a comprehensive, "good" (acquiescent) and others as "bad" 8. James Gallagher, technical consultant to flexible program with testing to identify in­ (radical). Persons could be carted off for the 1977 hearings before the Subcommittee on terests and skills with counseling leading questioning, denied education, shut out of Domestic and International Scientific Planning, to a job goal." The information that is de­ the job market, restricted in mobility, or Analysis and Cooperation of the Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Repre­ rived by the education department is avail­ even imprisoned, merely under the suspi­ sentatives. Topic: "Computers And The Learn­ able to other government agencies. cion of a computer's character indictment. ing Society," U.S. Government Printing Office, The NIPR's parent, the Center for Com­ What CDC claims to be a PLATOnic solu­ 1978, page 194. puting Services, is coordinating this re­ tion to black inequality in South Africa 9. Donald Lomax and Sandra Bayne, "Com­ search with the development of a govern­ seems, in fact, to be a solution to the re­ puter Assessment of Student Attitudes," Jour­ ment-controlled computerized employ­ gime's present shortage of skilled labor, its nal of Education, University of Natal, October, ment placement program. As early as 1978 conflict with increasingly politicized stu­ 1978, pages 55-58. the department was processing 20,000 dents and educators, and its self-preserva­ 10. Donald Lomax, "Social Change and the jobs per month. "It may be forseen that a tory need to centralize and augment secur­ Technology of Education,"South African Jour­ nal of Science, Vol. 75, May, 1979. large proportion of all jobs in the future ity information. In a country where black I I. "Needs and Attitudes of Blacks in Indus­ will be initiated from terminals, remote job teachers seldom have more than an eighth try," 1975; and "Role Of The Black Technician," entry stations or minicomputers linked to grade education and black students must 1975, by NIRP's director, D.J.M. Foster. central computers," explained the struggle to buy textbooks and supplies 12. South Africa Department of Education Center. 13 According to Thomas Conrad, (whites are provided them free of cost), it and Training, Annual Report, 1981. the government announced in 1980 (when is ironic that millions of dollars are being 13. Scientiae, January/March, 1978.

Computing the Future 35 WHOSE COMPUTER IS IT ANYWAY? by Sarah Michaels, Courtney Cazden, and Bertram Bruce

here are now approximately 300,000 microcomputers in schools in the U.S. with most school districts scrambling to purchaseT more. The intensity of this inter­ est in school computers is at least in part attributable to parental concerns about future job prospects for their children. Computer hardware and software makers have tended to reinforce such commonly held, but little substantiated, beliefs about children and computers. Nevertheless the growing evidence is that the high-tech soci­ ety has a greater need for low paid, semi­ skilled factory workers than for high paid systems analysts. There are questionable assumptions be­ ing made about why computers should be in schools, but it is true that there may While these inequalities were not caused if that bill should become law, which well be considerable benefits to having by computers, they may well be repro­ seems unlikely, it will only alleviate ine­ them there. Computers can in principle be duced and even accentuated by their use. quality at one level of the education sys­ used to make educational resources more We examine here three areas in which tem, and there are other ways in which equitably distributed (e.g., through net­ these problems arise: hardware, software, computers aggravate existing inequalities work access to data bases and library re­ and classroom use. We present more ex­ rather than reduce them. sources), to facilitate more active student amples on the third area because it is more Inequalities of Software Usage involvement in and control of learning apt to be overlooked in discussions of (e.g., through the use of computer tools equity in computer use, and because the Even if urban schools should catch up in such as text editors and programming lan­ process by which inequalities are pro­ the number of computers owned and if ac­ guages), and partially to address the needs duced is more subtle. cess to some kind of computer should be­ of students who are victims of educational come equalized from school to school, neglect. Inequalities of Access there may still be substantial educational Unfortunately, the progressive potential "There is a persistent and substantial in­ inequality. The number of computers in a of the computer is all too often unrealized. equality in the access to new technologies school is a poor indicator of the quality of As is so often the case with new technolo­ among both schools and school children." the educational experiences that students gies, computer use is more apt to reinforce So said Tarr-Whelan, the President of the get when they sit down at the terminal. existing patterns than to change them. In National Education Association, before the Here, too, inequalities are already ap­ many ways the introduction of computers House Subcommittee on Science, Re­ parent: appears to maintain or even increase exist­ search and Technology this spring. The in­ While middle class students, especially ing inequalities in education, inequalities equality is in computer/student ratios those who are in advanced programs which predated the availability of compu­ among categories of schools. Not surpris­ (e.g., Gifted and Talented Education) re­ ters. ingly, urban schools with a high propor­ ceive instruction which encourages tion of poverty-level families have fewer learner initiative (programming and computers than either suburban or rural problem solving), low income and eth­ Sarah Michaels is a researcher at the nic minority students recieve instruction Harvard Graduate School of Education. schools. One of the bills on computer education which maintains the control of learning Courtney Cazden teaches at the within the program (computer aided now before Congress - the Computer Ed­ drill and practice). 1 Harvard Graduate School of Education. ucation Assistance Act introduced by Sen­ Bertram Bruce is a longtime member of ator Frank Lautenberg - reserves 50% of SftP, and a scientist at Bolt, Beranek, the Federal funds for hardware purchases and Newman. by poverty area school districts. But even continued on page 43

36 Science for the People TAKING CONTROL sive installation of computers in schools. Large school districts are now purchasing OF EDUCATIONAL computers en masse. Boston, for instance, recently reached an agreement with IBM to purchase 800 computers for its schools. 2 Much of this momentum has occurred with TECHNOLOGY little understanding of the eventual uses and consequences of computers in schools. Parents' legitimate concerns about jobs by Bertram Bruce for their children have also fueled the cur­ rent computer mania. Many parents believe that if their children learn how to program they will automatically become eligible for high-paid, high-tech jobs, not There is no such thing as a neutral educational process. Education either realizing that most of the employment in functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate the integration of the the high-tech field is low-paid, non-union younger generation into the logic of the present sysiem and bring about con­ factory work. formity to it, or it becomes "the practice of freedom," the means by which men In contrast, others, such as the Crab­ and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to par­ apple group, have taken decidedly nega­ ticipate in the transformation of their world. tive positions about the current push for -Richard ShaulP computers in schools. They argue that there are societal needs far more pressing than turning every classroom into a high­ tech center. Moreover, they see the em­ 0 ne of the central debates in education phasis on computer programming as a is how to prepare students to meet the misleading promise about jobs that will not needs of a technologically-oriented be there. They also see computers as em­ society. A companion question concerns phasizing piecemeal learning, rather than supporting more holistic, critical or crea­ the ways technology should be used in 3 teaching traditional subjects. These issues ~ tive education. are usually discussed in terms of the effi­ cil! Finally, some feel that the use of com­ ciency of one teaching method versus ~ puters in schools needs to be encouraged another or in terms of how the limited ~ precisely because it does foster progres­ time within the curriculum should be allo­ o sive education. For example, the Inter- cated. But prior to addressing those ques­ ~ national Council for Computers in Educa- tions, we need to consider a more basic ;;, tion (ICCE), an Oregon-based group that question about the role of computers in ~ publishes The Computing Teacher, pro- education: Will computers make education 3 motes the use of computers in education. more of an instrument for bringing about conformity or can they assist "the practice ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~J b-g WhileApril 1984critical issue, articles for example, are published focuses (the on of freedom?" cr' equity), the general thrust is not to ques- l tion but rather to encourage greater use of To address this question, this article What Role Should Computers computers in schools. At various confer­ takes a practical approach, by considering Play in Education? ences on computers in education, many what computers are and how they might speakers go far beyond the ICCE in insist­ be used most productively in education. Many people see computers as ideal for ing on the value, even the need, for com­ The examples show, among other things, the present educational system, in that puters in schools. They lament the "resist­ that the distinction between learning they can smooth some rough edges: they ance" that others in education still profess. about computers and learning other sub­ can protect against "cheating," they can The problem with all of these views is jects through the use of computers is not ensure that children don't read materials that they tend to locate the source of the that useful. More importantly, the;;e they are not ready for, they can monitor computer's power to affect education in examples are intended to suggest some student progress along pre-defined lines, the computer itself. Thus we hear that ways to think about both progressive uses limit the impact of the "teacher variable" "Computers will teach children to read," of computers in education and the creation (i.e., the power and importance of the indi­ or "Computers will turn schools into of social and political environments in vidual teacher), and, perhaps most impor­ assembly lines." In fact, computers per se which such uses are more easily realized. tantly, they can reduce costs (assuming do nothing; they are simply tools which teachers can be replaced by machines). can amplify the power people have and The alliance of these considerations with the social relations they engage in. In that Bertram Bruce is a consultant, and has the profit motive has resulted in a tremen­ sense, the positive or the negative conse­ worked on a variety of studies of the pros­ dous push for computers in schools. Last quences realized by computers will be pects and potential for computers in edu­ year, for example, major computer manu­ caused by people making use of computers cation. He is also a member of Science for facturers, led by Apple Computer, sought to accomplish ends for change in educa­ the People. substantial tax breaks in return for mas- tion.

Computing the Future 37 What Kind of Tool is a Computer? The biggest impact of computers in classrooms may Although we often associate computers be in terms of the ways they contribute to the with numbers and the repetitive calcula­ social organization of the classroom rather than on tions needed by banks, insurance com­ panies, manufacturers, and so on, the how they teach specific concepts. essence of the digital computer lies not in adding columns of numbers but in its func­ One study found that teachers who had tion as a tool for creating, manipulating a chance to study computer software for The Computer's Effect on Learning: and communicating symbols, in short, as a use in the classroom argued for software We often discuss computers in terms of tool for language and thinking. Many that allowed the student to use the com­ their technological aspects-speed, mem­ teachers have begun to see this and to use puter as a tool for learning rather than for ory size, functions, etc. and neglect to con­ the computer as a tool for expanding chil­ software that put the computer in the dom­ sider how they fit into a social context. Yet dren's opportunities to solve problems inant role, with the student pressing the biggest impact of computers in class­ (using programming languages such as buttons on cue. The "teachers saw the rooms may be in terms of the ways they Logo), to develop ideas (using "micro­ enormous pedagogical differences be­ contribute to the social organization of a world" simulation programs), to gain tween apparent user control and real user classroom rather than on how they control, between answering questions and "teach" specific concepts. formulating them, between recognizing For example, it is often asserted that the someone else's ideas and creating your use of word processors by children will own."3 help them become better writers. The argument is that since good writing Why then do so many classrooms use depends on developing revision skills, a the computer as a manager or a drill mas­ tool which makes revision easier will en­ ter? One reason, of course, is that much of courage children to practice revision the pressure to install computers in schools more. This may well be true, but careful comes from a desire to automate the class­ observations of classrooms where word room, to make it more "efficient." This processors are in use have revealed that means, in the view of the computer's other factors are also at work. 4 proponents, that the teacher's role must be diminished and circumscribed; new management controls need to be introduced. Thus, the computer becomes a device to channel student efforts, to measure and control what students do in school. A corollary of this is that teachers are kept out of the decision-making that directly affects them and the students in access to information (using computer net­ their classrooms. works and public databases), to explore scientific questions (using statistics pro­ grams and computers connected to meas­ Some Ideas for Putting the uring devices, such as thermometers), to Computer in its Place write and to share their writing (using text editors, publishing programs, and net­ The attempt to make computers into the works). This view of computers as a shop foremen of the classroom has not symbol tool emphasizes the creation of been universally successful. But there is contexts in which meaningful activities little support from the educational system are encouraged and supported. Specific or the available software, books, and skills are then learned first in the contexts articles to use computers in more creative in which they are most appropriate. and open-ended ways. By using the com­ The prevalent view of computers for the puter only in the most restricted ways we classroom, however, still seems to be one let the computer become the center of in which the computer "teaches" by con­ attention rather than the student. Below trolling information and managing student are some observations about how comput­ efforts. Such uses limit rather than expand ers relate to education that might help children's possibilities for learning. Within teachers, parents, or learners redress this this restricted view, computers are seen as imbalance and put the computer in its useful solely for teaching specific concepts place. One component of these observa­ or skills: punctuation, spelling, simple tions is that choosing among specific soft­ arithmetic calculations, state capitals, ware products is far less important than subject-verb agreement, etc., or for man­ understanding categories of programs and aging the process of instruction. If we are their contexts of use. As a result, endorse­ to go beyond this view we need to rethink ment of specific programs here has been some assumptions about how to use com­ avoided and only a few programs are puters in the classroom. named where necessary.

38 Science for the People In a classroom in Hartford, Connecticut, On the other hand, some programs not a great amount of revising did occur. But presented as "educational" may be ideal the reasons were not purely technological. for teaching. For example, general com­ Because the computer was a limited re­ munications tools (often catalogued as source, students tended to "mill around" "administrative aids"), such as data base the computer waiting for their turn to use programs, text editors, and electronic mail it. During that waiting period they would can give students the chance to use lan­ read what others had written and decide guage in expanded ways for real commu­ to modify their own early drafts. Also they nication. Programs that plot data or help tended to value highly what was written in constructing tables may be useful in on the computer and felt it was worth the learning scientific methods even though effort to revise. Both of these factors-the they are not strictly defined as educa­ opportunity to read others' writing and the tional. And, general purpose program­ value placed on computer writing-con­ .D ming languages can be used for purposes E tributed to an increased amount of re­ ::> other than developing "computer vision, which may, in the end, have helped u literacy." For example, a language such as 5 the children become better writers. Under­ COMPUTEa-NERO ci "Logo" can be used to study language standing the process that was occurring in structures or mathematical relationships (as well as to draw pictures, its major claim to fame). Finally, a program that appears to be useful for one educational task may have unsuspected uses. There is a text editor These uses of the computer were successful be­ now being marketed which comes with a cause they grew out of real classroom needs and speech synthesizer than can say each let­ ter or word as it is typed. 6 The justification were not restricted to the suggestions for use for the program is that it helps young chil­ given by the teacher's guide. dren learn to read and write. But a teacher of older students might find that such a program would be useful in teaching the concept of symbol-to-sound rules. This could be valuable in learning a foreign lan­ guage or might be a useful adjunct to teaching general linguistics. that classroom, a teacher might conclude have a different educational philosophy that overall the computer had a positive and sensibility about computers. Nor is it Creating Computer Learning impact on learning. But it would be impor­ just that every expert has a limited sample Activities: tant to remember that it was not the com­ of the thousands of programs currently Teachers who are not programmers can puter alone which brought about the available. The core problem is that evalua­ nevertheless create their own computer changes, but rather the way the teacher tions of software do not begin to take into learning activities in a variety of ways. and the students organized themselves for account all the ways that software might They may, as suggested above, find new learning. be used. The recommendations of experts ways to use existing software, especially The major prerequisites for successful can be useful for assessing a program's the more open-ended variety. But equally use of the computer are not characteristics potential as well as its limitations, but the important, teachers can use general pur­ of the software or hardware, per se, but of real worth of a program is determined by pose software, such as word processing the classroom, the teacher, the principal, how it is used in a particular classroom. programs, to mimic many of the packaged and the curriculum. Teachers who have a programs being marketed. For example, clear idea of what they want to have hap­ The Floppy Disk Cover: one new program is a game in which one pen in the classroom can find software Programs are not always successful at student inserts a sentence into a pre­ that facilitates it, but choosing software teaching what the disk cover claims, and existing text and a second student tries to without thinking of educational goals and some of those that are successful tend to guess the added or "suspect" sentence. particular classroom needs first is likely to focus on rapid performance of skills out of This game helps students become more be ineffective at best. €Ontext without helping children in any sensitive to such things as textual coher­ significant way to become better problem ence and authors' style. solvers or users of language. A basic prob­ A teacher-or better yet, a group of stu­ Expert Advice: lem is that most software is produced to dents-could devise a procedure for using The software evaluations published by meet profit goals first, and educational a text editor which retains the significant various organizations, such as the Educa­ goals second, if at all. Most software de­ aspects of this language game. (It is rela­ tional Products Information Exchange signers are not educators and may have tively easy with most text editors to insert (EPIE), and the reviews in magazines such poor intuition about how children learn. a sentence and reformat the paragraph so as Classroom Computer Learning and Educators ~ho design software may like­ that it is not obvious that a sentence has Electronic Learning provide useful infor­ wise do a poor job if they are not familiar been added.) Having the students select mation but should never be taken as the with what a computer can do. Thus, what texts to use and devise scoring procedures sole guide for selecting software. The appears from the cover to be a useful pro­ could be as educationally beneficial as problem is not just that the expert may gram for teaching may be of no use at all. playing the game itself.

Computing the Future 39 Recommended Uses: of plant growth and the abstractions of Experience with "Quill"7, a program for their books. These uses of the computer teaching composition, reveal in a direct were successful because they grew out of way how decisions about the use of com­ real classroom needs and were not re­ puters in schools must be informed by the stricted to the suggestions for use given in needs of students and teachers. For exam­ the teacher's guide. If we had assumed ple, a group I helped to lead designed a that our vision alone was sufficient, we part of Quill to assist the planning aspects might have stifled creative, classroom of writing. We saw it as a tool to help in appropriate uses of the computer. organizing a first draft of a piece of writ­ Students can also use programming lan­ ing. Although it has been successfully used guages to create their own learning activi­ in that way, we've found that some teach­ ties such as science simulations, bulletin ers have used the same program more boards, adventure games8 , and so on. This productively in ways we only dimly antici­ last approach has the added value of nar­ pated. rowing the artificial gap now established One teacher had students use it as a tool between learning about computers and to create interview forms. The students learning other subjects through the use of used these forms in doing community computers. Original in paperback studies-interviews with elderly residents about food, clothing and housing needs. The computer is a powerful educational The Information (They could use the computer to revise the tool. It can be used to limit children's Technology Revolution forms easily as needed.) Another teacher access to information, to control the way edited by Tom Forester used the program to create a tool for doing they read and write, and to restrict their Emphasizing actual case studies, exten­ science lab reports. Students then used the modes of learning, or it can allow children sive chapters in this new book deal with computer to record data (from a table-top to communicate easily with others and to greenhouse project) using diagrams in access information in a way that greatly the revolution in telecommunications, artificial intelligence and the "fifth gen­ their science textbooks to help analyze expands their world. If computers are to eration" of supercomputers, personal what was happening. The computer be worthwhile tools, we must never let computer needs or faulty educational computers, and the use of information became a tool for facilitating the connec­ technology in schools, factories, offices, tion between their real world observations ideas embodied in computer programs come before the needs of children. banks, shops, and hospitals that is cur­ rently transforming Western society. Computer crime, privacy, the impact of new technology on women and on the REFERENCES Third World, 'smart' weapons, and the 1. Shaull, R. Foreword to P. Friere's Pedagogy future of work are focal points in this of the Oppressed. New York: The Seabury important collection. Contributors Press, 1970. include Edward Feigenbaum, Sherry 2. "Computers in classrooms," Boston Globe, Aug. 6, 1984, p. 18. Turkle, Joe Weizenbaum, and Seymour 3. Olds, H.F., Jr., Schwartz, J.L., & Willie, N.A. Papert. People and Computers: Who Teaches Whom? The Information Technology Revolution Newton, MA: Education Development Center, is a sequel to Forester's widely-read 1980. 4. Bruce, B., Michaels, S., & Watson-Gegeo, K. paperback collection, The Microelec­ "Reviewing the Black History show: How com­ tronics Revolution: The Complete Guide puters can change the writing process." Lan­ to the New Technology and Its Impact guage Arts, in press. on Society which Computing Reviews 5. Feurzeig, W., Papert, S., Bloom, M., Grant, called "a worthwhile introduction to the R., & Solomon, C. Programming Language as a very complex interactions between our Conceptual Framework for Teaching Mathe­ new microcircuit-based technologies matics (Report No. 1969). Cambridge, MA: Bolt and our evolving society, within which Beranek and Newman, 1969. we may be both participants and victims." 6. Rosegrant, T., & Cooper, R. Talking Screen Textwriting Program Manual: A Word Process­ March 696 pp. $14.95 ing Program for Children Using a Microcom­ {Cloth edition $30.00) puter and a Speech Synthesizer. Glendale, Ari­ zona: Computing Adventures, Ltd., 1983. Both books available at local booksellers 7. Rubin, A., Bruce, B. and the Quill Project. and at The MIT Press Bookstore, Quill: Reading and Writing with a Microcom­ 292 Main Street, Kendall Square. puter (Reading Education Report No. 48). Champaign, lL: Center for the Study of Read­ ing, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, February 1984. 8. Sopp, N.P. Advanced language arts applica­ tions. In R.V. Dusseldorp (Ed.), Alaska's Chal­ lenge: Computers in Education-Strategies and Tile MIT Press Solutions. Anchroage, AK: Alaska Assocation for Computers in Education (P.O. Box 4-652), 1984. 28 Carleton Street, Cambridge, MA 02142

40 Science for the People COMPUTERS IN THE CLASSROOM: Stratifler or Equalizer? by Marcia Boruta and Hugh Mehan

omputers are being promo­ ted as the educational tool of the 1980s. Almost daily, we are being informed of C the dangers of a computer­ illiterate society, and with almost blind faith, schools are taking on the responsibil­ I EDUC.ATION ] ity of supplying computer education. As history has shown us, however, innova­ would be called the "snowball technique." awareness; "we need to raise test scores tions in social systems often have unfore­ We started with the teacher, resource per­ . . . we think computers can help us do 1 seen consequences for those systems. As son, or whomever we could find who that." schools acquire and use computers for knew about computers in the school. We often found that different educators educational purposes several major ques­ When an interview was completed, we in the same district had inconsistent tions arise: asked that person for the name of others answers to our questions. Initially, we • Will students from different strata of involved in computer use, and interviewed treated these responses as indicating the society obtain equal access to com­ them. We continued this procedure until novelty of computers in education which puters? there was no one left to interview. creates discrepancies in the reasons cited • Will students from different strata of Our observations and interviews were for their use. Subsequently, we found that society be taught similar or different uses guided by a common set of orienting ques­ educators' reasons for acquiring and using of computers? tions regarding the relationship between computers were not randomly distributed. In order to get some sense of the rela­ the characteristics of schools, the students They lined up with the sponsorship of tionship between the numbers of comput­ they educate and the policies and practices computers and the students who used ers in schools and students' access to com­ of computer use in the five districts we them. puters, we observed computers being used studied. We found a very strong relation­ in 21 classrooms in five Southern Califor­ ship between (1) the rationale for comput­ Funding for Computer Acquisition nia school districts. er use, (2) the source of funding for com­ We did not select these schools puter acquisition, (3) the type of students The school districts we observed spent according to a formal sampling procedure; who are educated using computers, and (4) very little of their own money to acquire we capitialized on personal contacts to the type of instruction presented to computers, which is not the prevailing na­ facilitate access. Since our schools were students. tional norm. (This finding may be unique not sampled randomly, care must be taken to the districts we studied, or it may be a when generalizing from the information The Rationale for Computer Use function of Proposition 13, the tax initia­ that we obtained. Likewise, we did not tive which reduced the money available to randomly sample the people to be inter­ We asked school officials why they were school districts in California.) Funds from viewed. If there is a formal term to charac­ introducing computers into the school cur­ the state of California and the Federal terize our approach to interviewing, it riculum. Educators' answers included: "we government purchased 93% of the com­ want kids to feel comfortable with comput­ puters in these districts, by the way of Marcia Boruta and Hugh Mehan are ers;" "we 'want students to learn program­ moneys available for education of "gifted members of the Computer Use Study ming ... it is an important skill;" "students and talented" youngsters (GATE), "eco­ GrQup of the University of California, can gain control of the medium by learn­ nomically and culturally disadvantaged" San Diego, which undertook the study ing to program it;" "computers can help students (Chapter 1 of the Educational they describe. teach academic subjects;" "computer Consolidation Act of 1981), School

Computing the Future 41 Improvement Programs (SIP), and the de­ classrooms, each GATE student averages that computers can deliver basic skills bet­ segregation effort. Private funding, most 60-80 minutes per week on the computer, ter than conventional techniques such as notably donations from PTA groups, ac­ and other students have no access to the workbooks or flashcards, and their utility counted for 5% of the computers acquired. computers at all. diminishes when their high cost is taken PTA groups sold land, sponsored "joga­ Computers fortunately were not limited into consideration. 2 thons," collected aluminum cans in order to the groups for which they were ac­ to acquire computers. One enterprising quired originally. After a year or two, com­ The use of computers for computer teacher had a local computer store "spon­ puters acquired for GATE students began literacy emphasizing programming does sor" her classroom in exchange for the appearing in regular classrooms. In the not match the needs of the world of work. loan of microcomputers. schools that rotate computers between While it is true that computers are being GATE classrooms and other classrooms, introduced into a vast number of jobs, the Student Access to Computers each GATE student has 40 minutes per largest number of jobs will continue to be week on the computer, and other students in the service sector.3 Few of the computer The stated policy of many schools that have 20 minutes per week on the comput­ jobs will require high levels of program­ have computers is to give all students er. Clearly not all students in regular ming skill and computer knowledge. In equal access to computers for instructional education gain access to the computer fact, many jobs are simply being elimi­ purposes. However, the disparities be­ under this arrangement. Even in the nated by computers, while others become tween stated policy and observed practice schools where teachers who ask for com­ less creative. The jobs that are being trans­ point to the potentially statifying effects of puters can get them, not all teachers do formed by computers include (I) those computer use. ask. Thus, where computers are being which involve computers but require no We also found that boys and girls had used in regular (that is, not GATE, Special knowledge of computer programming by differential access to computers, especially Education, or Chapter I) classrooms, it is the worker (e.g. supermarket checkers), (2) in secondary schools. In elementary because teachers are highly motivated or jobs that require minimal knowledge of schools with central lab facilities, boys and highly knowledgeable. computer programming (e.g. text editing, girls had equal access. However, observa­ spread sheet analysis and data retrieval), tion of voluntary time on computers (for and (3) jobs that require both knowledge example, at lunch and recess) revealed Instructional Applications and computer use and programming (e.g. more boys than girls using computers in of Computers systems analysis). This third category is their spare time. The statification of boys the smallest in scale and hardly justifies and girls on computers coincides with the We found that the instructional applica­ organizing entire educational curricula curricular divisions of boys and girls in tions of computer use were differentially with computer programming at the pin­ math and science subjects. distributed. Ethnic minority and lower nacle. We also found that there is a relationship class students received a different kind of Thus the use of computers makes a dif­ between the source of funds used for com­ instruction on computers than their white ference in a way that well-intentioned puter acquisition and the students who had middle class and ethnic majority contem­ educators have not considered. By even access to these computers that has a poraries. While white middle class stu­ tracking students from different socio­ stratifying effect. Chapter I and SIP funds dents, especially those who were in GATE economic backgrounds through different were used primarily to educate ethnic programs, received instruction which en­ computer-based curricula, and by encour­ minority and lower class students on couraged learner initiation (programming aging curricular division between boys computers, while GATE and private funds and problem solving), lower class and and girls, the computer can be used as a were used primarily to educate middle and ethnic minority students, especially those tool to contribute further to the stratifica­ upper middle class students. in Chapter I programs, received instruc­ tion of our society. Unless educators For example, Chipotle School, tion which maintained control of learning become more familiar with the strengths established as a computer "magnet" in the machine (computer-aided drill and and limitations of computers and establish school to attract white families to an inner practice.) the uses of computers based on sound edu­ city ethnic neighborhood, functioned Computers were primarily used for basic cational objectives, then we will be faced almost as two separate schools. It provided skills instruction and computer literacy. with a system of stratification based on self-paced computer classes for each of its When computers were used for basic skills technological capital that will make the six grade levels and supporting activities instruction, students were given computer­ one based on economic and cultural capi­ in math and science. Ethnic minority aided drill and practice on material which tal look pale by comparison. students from the local neighborhood supported instruction they received in (who were not part of the magnet their classrooms. When students were ex­ program) only had contact with computers posed to computer literacy, they were REFERENCES in Math and English Skills Labs. The Skills taught how to program computers, mostly Labs stress basic skills using the computer in BASIC. Computers were used for writ­ I. S. Sarason, The Culture and the School for drill and practice and a specialist for ing, music, and art far less often than they and the Problem of Change. Boston: Allyn tutoring. Most of the white students in the were used for CAl (Computer Aided In­ & Bacon, 1982. magnet had access to the computers for struction) and programming. 2. Mark Tucker, "Computers in Schools: programming and problem solving Using computers for drill and practice or A Plan in Time Saves Nine." Theory into activities. Likewise in the Piquin School computer literacy represents educational Practice, vol. 22 no. 4 1983, p. 313-320. District, which has a "multiple use" policy, policy that should be examined for several 3.Russell W. Rumberger and Henry M. there are differences in student access to reasons. The full power and range of com­ Levin, "Forecasting the Impact of New the computers. In the schools where puters is not being exploited when they Technologies on the Future Job Market." computers are assigned exclusively to are used for drill and practice in basic National Institute of Education, Project GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) skills. There is little evidence to suggest Report No. 84-A4, February, 1984.

42 Science for the People Whose Computer? boys; stereotypical use, etc.) are not neces­ computer instruction for minority children continued from page 36 sary in any absolute sense. They occur -is that computers don't see the color of a because existing social and political rela­ children's skin or hear their non-standard speech. Teachers form expectations on the For example, Rand Corporation re­ tionships take precedence over issues of basis of unconscious reactions to cues such searchers conducted an intensive study of fairness or general educational value. The as these; computers do not. That is an im­ 40 elementary and 20 secondary teachers patterns of inequity persist unless they are portant difference. in California who were nominated as ex­ deliberately and systematically countered. But the similarity is that a computer, like emplary computer users in mathematics a teacher, is a scarce resource, and in the and science instruction.2 Four patterns of Inequalities Within a Classroom allocation of this resource within a single computer use emerged from their analy­ classroom, the gap between the haves and ses: orchestration - with the widest vari­ We know from studies of student­ the have-nots can be widened. In our ob­ ety of uses directly linked to the regular teacher interaction that students within servations of two urban sixth grade class­ curriculum; enrichment - which familiar­ any single classroom receive differential rooms, each with a computer used for ized students with computers as a separate treatment from the teacher. Considered writing, we have seen teachers integrate subject; adjunct instruction - that selec­ positively, this differential treatment is the computer very differently into their tively augmented math and science les­ called "individual instruction." Considered writing programs. These observations sons; and drill and practice in basic skills. negatively, it is a source of discrimination have led us to raise some general ques­ On the question of equity, they conclude: and self-fulfilling prophecies. Computers tions about the relationship between com­ classrooms with students above average are very different from teachers in one in ability and low in numbers of minori­ way, and like them in another. The differ­ puter use within a classroom and students' ties tended to be found with teachers ence - often mentioned by advocates of access to computer time and expertise. characterized as "orchestrating" ... [Whereas] the five classrooms with a r------1 high percentage of minority students low in ability employed computers to I JOIN URPE: deliver drill and practice (p. 62). No one claims that computers have crea­ I Union For Radical Political Economics ted this disparity in educational experi­ I Founded in 1968, URPE is an association of people devoted to the study, ences, but they certainly appear to rein­ I development, and application of radical political economics. force it. I Some studies have found greater access I In our work we cooperate with other organizations and publish a journal to and use of computers by boys than by I - THE REVIEW OF RADICAL POLITICAL ECONOMICS, a NEWS­ girls, especially at the high school level I LETTER, and other educational materials. We hold forums for debate and during electives and after-school per­ I and discussion through our national and-regional conferences. We also iods. I have active working groups for study and discussion, as well as an active Boys outnumber girls 2 to 1 in high school programming courses and 3 to 1 women's caucus. in attendance at computer camps. Girls have less access to computers at home NEW MEMBERSHIP AND SUBSCRIPTION RATES and are less likely to participate in free MEMBER and SUBSCRIBER [and NONMEMBER, please specify] time (out of class) computer use at 0 $40 Membership and Subscription to RRPE [U.S. aod Canada]; 0 $45 Foreign school.3 Members are entitled to the following: • Review of Radical Political Economics But here, the type of computer software • Newsletter and computer use makes a difference. • Voting Rights • Be part of a national network- receive and communicate through URPE mailings. Studies of computers used for writing by upper elementary school children have NEW MEMBERS not found girls to be at a disadvantage. In 0 $20 for the first year our own study of computers with writing SUBSCRIBERS - NONMEMBERS software in two urban sixth grade class­ 0 $60 Libraries and Institutions [U.S. and Canada]; 0 $65 Foreign rooms, 4 we found that girls were as likely to be star computer users as boys. And $40 PER MEMBER IS THE PROJECTED AVERAGE COST PER MEMBER TO RUN URPE'S ACTIVITIES. while some boys in each class were prolific We recognize that some members are unable top~~ this much, but it ctoc:s cost us this much per member to continue to operate. We writers on the computer, the girls overall ask that you pay as much as you can afford. The mmtmum rate for a low-mcome member is $25. We actively encourage those who can afford to pay more than $40 to do so since some other members must pay less. did more computer writing than the boys. Moreover, when students were ranked by CONTRIBUTOR amount of computer writing done, and I wish to enclose a contribution of relative ranks were compared across time, 0 $5 0 $10 0 $25 0 $50 0 $100 0 More, if possible. girls in both classrooms tended to move up URPE is a nonprofit, tax exempt organization. Your donations are tax deductible. in rank over time while boys tended to move down. Name------The fact that computers seem to rein­ force rather than change existing patterns Address------still appears. If pre-computer stereotypes of male mathematicians vs. female writers City------State Zip------exist, those patterns (orchestration for the Send to URPE, Room 901,41 Union Square West, New York, New York 10003 rich/ drill for the poor; greater access for

Computing the Future 43 If the computer is used in the final stage text-editing commands and fully under­ equity of computer distribution and use, of writing to produce a neat, typewritten stood the mode orientation of the text edi­ we must have ways to evaluate the actual copy (rather than as a text-editing tool), tor. Two other students knew a few com­ usage in real classrooms. Before asking the speed with which a student writes a mands, both of whom were close friends of what impact a computer with a particular first, hand-written draft often determines the student-expert. kind of software will have on student his or her number in line to enter text on In this classroom, voluntary grouping at learning, and whether it is good or not, we the computer. Students who start out writ­ the computer was allowed when students must ask what impact the classroom (and ing better and quicker often are rewarded had free time. As a rule, groupings at the in particular, the teacher) will have on the by a prompt turn, which allows for a computer divided along sex lines (as did way the computer is used. How will stu­ prompt (and probably more meaningful) groupings in the lunchroom and on the dents get a turn? How is computer related connection between what they wrote on playground). Not surprisingly, the student­ information made available to students? paper and what they entered into the com­ expert's knowledge of text-editing com­ These classroom specific factors, overlaid puter. mands diffused narrowly in this classroom, on system-wide factors such as computer and did not cross sex lines. Not a single girl and software availability, ultimately deter­ If access to the computer is strictly con­ in the class knew how to insert or delete mine a student's access (or lack of access) trolled by the teacher (so that students text. to computer related learning opportun­ have scheduled times or have to have Thus how information about the compu­ ities. their writing checked and OK'ed by the ter is made available to students (via wall teacher before writing on the computer), charts, formal instruction by the teacher, REFERENCES then absenteeism is likely to influence or informal teaching by a student expert) I. Boruta, M., Carpenter, C., Harvey, M., how much time a student has on the com­ and how information is passed from Keyser, T., LaBonte, J., Mehan, H., & Rodri­ puter. Students who are absent often (for student to student (through voluntary guez, D. "Computers in schools: Stratifier or whatever reason) are more likely to miss grouping or assigned pair work) limits or equalizer?" The Quarterly Newsletter of the their turn or be denied their turn while enlarges students' command over the tech­ Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, making up other assignments. This is often nology. July 1983, 5, 51-55. the case with students who are pulled out 2. Shavelson, R.J., Winkler, J.D., Stasz, C., Conclusion Feibel, W., Robyn, A.E., and Shaha, S. "Success­ of the classroom for special tutoring (such ful" Teachers' Patterns of Microcomputer-based as students with diagnosed learning disa­ Mathematics and Science Instruction. Report to bilities or Title I status). Thus students who Many children are effectively denied ac­ the National Institute of Education (N-2170- have the most to gain from time on the cess to new educational technologies be­ NIE/RC). Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, computer are often kept off because of in­ cause they live in the wrong school dis­ March 1984. stitutionalized absenteeism (known as trict. Others are able to use computers, but 3. Russell, S.J., Mokros, J.R., and Foster, J.C., "pull-out" programs). Alternatively, some only in the most limited ways. Our class­ "Ten Years and Counting: Who Will Use Com­ teachers have found that by making use of room study suggests that in addition to puters?", Technical Education Research Cen­ innovative approaches such as peer tutor­ these inequalities in educational access, ters, Cambridge. To appear in Classroom Com­ puter Learning, 1984. ing, students do not necessarily fall behind the same computer with the same soft­ ware may be used very differently by dif­ 4. Microcomputers and Literacy: The Impact just because they miss a lesson. of Interactive Technology on Classroom Organ­ ferent teachers, even in the same school ization, Teacher-Student Interaction, and Stu­ Another kind of access to the computer and with the same student population. For dent Writing. Funded by the National Institute comes through students' knowledge of this reason, if was are concerned about of Education, Grant #NIE-G-83-0051. text-editing commands used for inserting, deleting, and rearranging text. Different teachers have different strategies for PAPERBACK! teaching their students text-editing skills. If a teacher becomes fully versed in the commands, groups and individualized in­ NO FIRE, NO THUNDER: struction is possible, so that the entire class The Threat of Chemical and can be given basic information, and ad­ vanced instruction can be provided to Biological Weapons by Se6n Murphy, those students who seem "ready" for it. If Alastair Hay, and Steven Rose a teacher does not become proficient with This important book sounds the alarm about a new generation of the commands, access to necessary skills weapons of death-those planned for use in chemical and biologi­ becomes more problematic. cal warfare. Written by scientists for a nonscientific audience, the book reviews the technologies of the weapons, the occasions on As an example, one of the teachers in our study did not fully master the text-edit­ which they have been used, and potential future developments in ing commands. Instead, she selected one their nature and use. Taking up U.S, allegations that the Soviet student - a boy who seemed interested in Union has used chemical weapons in Afghanistan and Southeast and facile with the computer - to become Asia, the authors argue that these allegations provided President the classroom "expert." She had another Reagan with the rationale for a new U.S. move into chemical weap­ teacher (who was herself an expert) give ons production. PB6623/$7 .50 this student individual instruction, and Please add $1 50 lor the l~rst book and 25¢ for each addohonal when orderong by maol 10 pay W11h then directed the other students to consult MasterCard or VISA please desognate wh•ch card. card number. and exporatoon date $10 00 him with questions about computer com­ At your bookstore or directly from mands. By the end of the school year, only MONTHLY REVIEW FOUNDATION 155 W 23 St, NY, NY 10011 this student had mastered all the basic

44 Science for the People Health Hazards petitive advantage means that such chemi­ Solvents, alkalis and metals. These are continued from page 12 cal inputs, quantities and methods are the basic materials of many production closely guarded trade secrets. The variabil­ operations including electroplating, etch­ increased from about 1 billion pounds in ity of production and products and the ing, stripping, soldering and degreasing. 1940 to 30 billion in 1950 and 300 billion in trade secret protections make it quite diffi­ Substances range from common trichloro­ 1976. 17 cult for health professionals, industrial hy­ ethane and methyl alcohol to lead, arsen­ gienists, toxicologists, and public inspec­ ic, cadmium, sulfuric acid and nitric acid. This rapid increase in the quantity and tors to know or predict what chemicals are Many of these substances can irritate or variety of new chemicals paralleled the de­ used where and in what manner and quan­ burn the skin where exposed, but their velopment of the microelectronics in­ tity. Government regulation is, thus, very more serious effects are derived from dustry. Unlike older industries that devel­ difficult to effectively create or enforce. either inhaling or ingesting small quanti­ oped when resources were more limited ties on one's fingers or lips. Once in the Fourth, workers in the industry, those and naturally occurring, the high-tech in­ most predisposed to show strong concern lungs or stomach, these substances can cause breathing difficulties, cramps and dustry capitalized on new solvents such as over chemical hazards, are seldom organ­ ethylene, toluene, benzene, and styrene, ized in unions and, thus, have little capa­ headaches. Prolonged inhalation or inges­ complex halogenated hydrocarbons like city to protest or defend themselves with­ tion can lead to various kinds of blood or trichloroethylene and methylene chloride, organ damage, cancer and reproductive out risking their employment. Unioniza­ and various new ketones and resins. tion among the high-tech work force is de­ difficulties. In 1979, an acid vat explosion Second, many of the hazards in micro­ at Fairchild Instrument in San Jose hospit­ electronics production are derived from cidedly low. Of the roughly 1.8 million workers in high-tech firms, no more than 5 alized three workers and sent fourteen long-term exposure to toxic chemicals, the home sick. 21 . consequences of which may not be exper­ to 8% are organized. The American Elec­ tronics Association counts no more than Gases and vapors. Gases are used in dop­ ienced for years after the exposure. Such ing, cleaning, decomposing or inhibiting 90 contracts among its 1900 member latency periods are always common with oxidation. Vapors arise from uncontamin­ firms.19 Without contract protections work­ cancers and frequently with other severe ated solvents. Most can cause eye, skin problems such as organ damage, cell dam­ ers are cautious about protesting working conditions. The Occupational Safety and and nose irritation. Prolonged exposure to age, or reproductive disorders. Among the gases like phosphine, arsine or phosgene chemicals commonly used in microelec­ Health Act, and various state regulations set standards for exposure and provide in­ can lead to respiratory damage and blood tronics production there are suspected car­ disorders. High-dose exposures can be im­ cinogens, teratogens and mutagens, and spections, but enforcement is often predi­ cated upon workers knowing enough to mediately lethal. The build-up of gases in chemicals adversely affecting major or­ tight work rooms can lead to combustion gans. Some of these substances have been raise questions and taking the initiative in calling for inspections. and explosions. In June 1982, 61 employ­ known to be hazardous for centuries, but ees at a Massachusetts Analogic plant many of the newer chemicals used in Workers in microelectronics plants who were hospitalized for overexposure to microelectronics have had little effective work the assembly lines and lab benches methylene chloride from leaking storage testing or long-term observation exper­ or who work in maintenance and services tanks. Later testing proved that the chlor­ ience. Finally, workers in the industry are are often the least knowledgeable about inated solvent had been mixed with often exposed not simply to one chemical, toxic chemicals and are the least likely to 1,1,1-trichloroethane, a suspected carcino­ but to a multitude of substances. Workers protest. All of these conditions are typi­ gen.22 exposed to chemicals above standards set cally worse where microelectronics firms Radiation. Both ionizing and non-ioniz­ for individual chemicals may be in signifi­ have established production operations in ing radiation are found in the microelec­ cant jeopardy because of synergistic ef­ Third World countries where regulations tronics industry. X-rays are often used in fects among chemicals or because some are more lax, workers are less educated quality control, microwave radiation is chemicals may inhibit the body's normal and unions are discouraged, sometimes used in etching and lasers are used in resistance to the toxic effects of other brutally. masking and cutting. Standards have not chemicals. been established for radiation, but eye and What are the Hazards? organ damage can result from direct expo­ Third, the large number of firms in the sure and burns and skin irritation can re­ industry with a wide variability in produc­ Much of microelectronics production in­ sult from prolonged indirect exposure. tion makes government regulation diffi­ volves chemical interactions, chemical Stress. Stress results from detailed, repeti­ cult. The microelectronics industry is com­ cleaning and various light and radiation tive, monotonous work done under time posed of thousands of highly competitive exposure. Most work is completed on an pressures. Stress is increased by shiftwork, firms, and production is, thus, spread assembly line and at a very fine scale of overtime and speedups. Microelectronics among them. For instance, the top 26 detail and precision. Hazards range from production and assembly conditions often printed circuit board producers account acute and chronic exposures to toxic involve such conditions. Stress can result for only 41% of the market. 18 With many chemicals to radiation and electric shock in fatigue, irritability, muscle aches and small competitive firms, the emphasis in and to stress and fatigue. In general, over long time periods can lead to ulcers, production is on innovation and experi­ hazards can be categorized as resulting high blood pressure, diabetes, heart at­ mentation. Because competition is fierce, from exposure to solvents, alkalis, and tacks and strokes. innovation and proprietary knowledge are metals, exposure to gases and vapors, and A good example of a high-tech health often key determinants to success. exposure to radiation and workplace hazard is the arsine gas used in gallium ar­ This highly experimental and competi­ stress. 20 The table on health hazards in this senide chip production. 22 It was this over­ tive environment means that hundreds of article displays the range of exposures that exposure that led to Jay Zemotel's death at chemicals are used in the industry with rel­ are presented by various production pro­ M/ A-Com. Gallium arsenide is increas­ atively little experience and testing. Com- cesses. ingly being substituted for silicon oxide as

Computing the Future 45 a base for chips because of its more rapid March of 1984, Robena Ried, a lab techni­ removed from the lab until April, when his conductivity. 24 It is purported to be ad­ cian, began to raise criticism about the arsenic levels had returned to normal. 29 vanced by the Defense Department be­ mishandling of chemicals in the lab. At Working on a late night shift on June 10, cause it will better withstand nuclear first management was resistant, but after 1984, Zemotel apparently entered a closed radiation.25 Arsine gas is used as a dopant she complained to the state Division of Oc­ lab and, alone in the lab, opened a locked in gallium arsenide chip production. In­ cupational Hygiene for an investigation, cabinet and was exposed to arsine gas haled arsine is rapidly dissolved in body the company's insurance agent conducted stored there in a tank. Twelve days later fluids and degraded to trivalent arsenic, its own investigation.27 The result of these he died. which is a well-established carcinogen. Re­ investigations led to the closing of one la­ Who Can Protect Workers? cent studies of the current Occupational boratory found to have an excessive level Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of airborne arsenic.28 The hazardous conditions of microelec­ standard for arsine - 200 milligrams of ar­ Another outcome of these investigations tronics production continue as a result of sine per cubic meter of air - report it may was the discovery of an elevated level of the particular work relations of the indus­ be too high to prevent chronic toxicity. 26 arsenic in the urine of several lab workers, try. The absence of union organization M/ A-Com's Burlington facility is one of including Jay Zemotel. Zemotel, whose means that workers must consider and ne­ five semiconductor manufacturing firms in urine analysis was reported to be three gotiate their safety as individuals. The indi­ the Boston area using gallium arsenide. In times the "occupational threshold," was vidual worker-manager relations mean A SERPENT IN THE HIGH-TECH GARDEN OF EDEN by Michael Eisenscher survey of other area underground storage sites. By the end of the winter of 198l.S2, 21 other leak and spill sites had been discovered. By September 1984, another 71 Uttle remains of the orchards which gave Santa Clara sites were identified as contaminated either by leaking County the reputation as the "Valley of Heart's Delight" underground tanks or accidental spills or purposeful dig. Outside of some older. natives who recall the more charges onto the ground which had seeped into the tranquil years wllen agriculture was Santa Clara ground water. More sites have since been discovered. County's dominant industry, most of the county's 1.4 Tests performed at both public and private water wells million residents know it only as the "Silicon Valley," revealed many to be contaminated, lbxic leaks .at the undisputed Chip Capitol of the world. giant IBM facility in South San Jose (traced back to 1979) Today one of every fpur wage earners in Santa Clara have, to date, contaminated 24 wells, five of which have County takes home a paycheck from an electronics been completely shut down. indnstry job. 70% of all manufacturing work in the The toxic plume from the IBM site has now migrated county is in the electronics industry. More than 1400 high more than five miles in the undergroundaquifier which tech firms, the greatest concentration of electronics com· serves a huge portion of San Jose. Unchecked, it will panies in the nation, now call the area home. More than ultimately migrate to the Bay. 200,000 workers are employed in every facet of high At its heart, semiconductor manufacturing involves a tech work, from computers to medical equipment to con­ series of complex chemical processes utilizing a host of sumer goods. higbly toxic caustics, solvents, acids and gases. A large A tarnish on the industry's reputation first appeared in chip manufacturing facility might have as many as 3,500 the wake of the revelations that underground chemical such chemicals and gases stored in underground, above­ storage tanks installed over the last two decades have ground, and in-plant containers. It is a chemical intensive leaked thousands of gallons of toxics into the Valley's industry. ground water. Contamination was discovered in 1981 The sheer quantity of hazardous chemicals and gases when an underground chemical waste storage facility at used annually by the industry gives some clue to the Fairchild Camera & Instrument Company in South San potential for environmental and occupational disaster. A Jose was found to have leaked 58,000 gallons of 1980 California Industrial Relations Department survey 1,1,1-trichloroethane (TCA) over a period of about 18 of 42 Silicon Valley semiconductor companies revealed months. Tests revealed that levels of TCA were 30 times that they used: the levels considered by the· State to be a health risk. • more·than one-half million gallons of solvents; TCA is a suspected carcinogen and reproductive • more than two million gallons of acid; hazard. But pressure by the solvents manufacturing • more than one-half million gallons of caustics; industry resulted in an earlier, more restrictive standard • more than one and one-half million cubic feet of cylin­ being relaxed to 200 parts per billion (ppb). Tests at the der gases, including highly toxic arsine, phosphine, Great Oaks Wetl *13, which serves 700 people in the and diborane. area, revealed 5,800 ppb and the well was removed from service. Later tests showed the levels of TCA had risen to Three Times the Cases of Occupational Illness 8,800pph. A 1980 survey by the California Dept. of Industrial Contamination of Epide.oJic Proportions Relations found that the electronics industry had a rate of occupational illness that was three times the rate of all News of the Fairchild leak sent a shockwave through manufacturing in the State; 18.6% of all cases that the.Valley. Industry interests and grivernment agencies, resulted in lost time from work were caused by occupa­ $purred by growing public outrage and fear. launched a tionaf illness. 46.Wk of all. occupational illness cases

46 Science for the People that management's only obligation in de­ industry, this group makes up about 40% Without unions, worker protection must signing work settings is meeting govern­ of the work force. 30 depend on governmental regulations and ment standards, which are frequently The other 60% in Massachusetts make enforcement. OSHA is the primary federal vague, absent or unenforced. Thus, all that up the second worker group. This group agency setting standards on workplace really protects workers from toxic expo­ includes production, maintenance, service exposure to toxic chemicals. In the decade sure is the good will of management. workers, and clerks. These workers are following the creation of OSHA, the The U.S.-based electronics industry em­ more likely to be women or young men, agency promulgated hundreds of regula­ ploys two quite distinct classes of workers. often non-white, sometimes non-English tions and set as many standards for expo­ One group includes highly skilled engin­ speaking, and typically with limited sure. But an aggressive OSHA was consid­ .eers, scientists and managers who are education. Almost 30% of the craft ered by much of industry to be a restraint most often well-paid white men with ad­ workers in Massachusetts are of minority on business development, and few vanced education. While these elite em­ background, and over 70% of the opera­ agencies were more directly targeted for ployees are not absent from hazardous tives are women.31 It is workers in this destruction by the incoming Republican work settings, they do have significant second class who are exposed to administration in 1980. Between 1980 and flexibility and job mobility and, often, hazardous work settings and who have the 1982 OSHA inspections dropped by 17 enough training to be aware of hazardous least access to information and the least percent.32 conditions. In the Massachusetts high-tech capacity to protest chemical exposure. The gutting of OSHA at the federal level

among semiconductor employees involved systemic basis for development of federal legislation which ulti;. poisoning from exposure. to toxic materials ... twice the mately was enacted by Congress and signed by President rate among workers in other manufacturing industries. Reagan as the Resource Conservation & Recovery Ad. The rates of occupational illness and systemic pois­ 'fhe. Coalition organized community response ·to the oning cited above are even more alarming in light of the news of widespread contamination of the ground water, fact that there are many in the industry who do not come forcing the Environmental Protection Agency to conduct into contact with these chemicals (about 45% of all semi­ community town hall meetings to hear from the public. conductor corporation employees are engineers, man­ Under intense pressure, EPA listed 19 of the Silicon agers, administrators, sales, and clerical employees, and Valley sites on its Superfund list, giving Santa Clara thus these illness ·rates disproportionally affect the re­ County the dubious distinction ofhaving the most Super· maining workers), fund sites of any county in the nation. In the wake of the hazardous chemical leaks in South The Santa Clara Center for Occupational Safety and San Jose, a significant cluster of congenital cardiac birth Healtb{SCCOSH}was an early pioneer in developing and defects appeared in the area. After pressure mounted disseminating· information to electronies industry from angered and frightened community residents, a employees aboutoccupational safety and health hazards study of birth defects was commissioned in South San in· the .industry. 5CCOSH operated a successful hot:..Iine Jose; which fielded hundreds of calls from electronics workers The study, released in mid-January of this year, reveals who sought information about toxics with which they 1b:at miscarriages and birth defects occur at 2·3 times the worked. SCCOSH also helped organize Disabled Workers normal rate in·the neighborhood surrounding the Fair­ United, which, like its predecessors in textile and coal, child chemical leak site. This is the neighborhood served bas begun organizing tbe victims of chemical and other by the now closed Great Oaks water well, contaminated disabilities in the electronics industry~ . by l,l,l·TCA. Industry Keeps Its Track Record a Secret · :J~Gcfel toxic Storaa~ Onlimmce While public awareness in the Valley is mounting, the leaders ot local·fire· departments and firefighters' industry continues to promote itself across !he natioo tn . unions demanded access to heretofore restricted data on one community after anothet; in state after state, as the just which chemicals and gases were stored at local "hope .f{)t tomorrow." Local governments are ask~d for manufacturing facilities. They argued, justifiably,·that in variances, abatements, Waivers, subsidies or other co~ ·an emergency, they would have no way to protect them­ cessions. Communities are encouraged to compete with .selves {It properly respond if they did not know what one another in elaborate schemes to obtain the lowest ·:hQards tbey.migbt encounter. cost site for industry expansion. 'fhe Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition was organized to Most job-hungry communities are unaware of the les-­ bring to bear public pressure on local government alld sons learned in the Silicon Valley, and are unprepared to . int'lustry for a program of demand which supported the cope with the host of problems which bide bebind the firefighters and went further to call for doubl~ contain- squeaky dean high-tech facade. The industry, which . ment of all underground storage tanks, installation of brags ofits civic responsibility in developing new guide­ · mandatory. monitoring systems on underground con­ lines in the Silicon Valley; does not go out of its way to tainers,.bazardQU5 material inventory maintenance, and volunteer information to new communities it has tar~ . commUJ!jtY tight-to-bow. geted ·for expansion and certainly does not propose SVJ.T. rallied labor unions. community groups, and adoption of Silicon Valley-style regulations and ordi,. •vkonft\ental ~rganizations anfl ultimately &ucceeded nances developed in the wake of its poor track record in forcing the adOption ot $e nation's first Mtldd. here. HazardQusMateriai&Man.ntent.Ordinanee> .which was The ~ns of Bhopal· and Love Canal are the .same enacted by 11 manidpalities in Santa Clara County; and· Should tell· us that Silicon Valley is a. toxic· disast~r Santa Clara's. Toxic Storage Ordinance served a$ a waiting to happen.

Computing the Future 47 has turned occupational health activists' mend that high levels of chemical contam­ that led June Ross and her neighbors to a attention to the state level. One result of inants in laboratory air be remedied by in­ dismaying explanation for the perceived this has been a renewed effort to pass stalling stronger ventilation systems. Such high incidence of miscarriages in their "right to know" laws in state legislatures. ventilation, of course, only transfers air­ neighborhood. Within a year the problem Right to know laws are intended to pro­ borne toxins from the workplace to the of groundwater contamination by high­ vide workers with health hazard informa­ local community. tech firms had been revealed in a report tion about toxic chemicals they may be ex­ by the Regional Water Quality Board to be posed to. While various state laws differ, The Silicon Valley groundwater contam­ common throughout the Silicon Valley. most require that containers of toxic ination provides further evidence of prob­ Revelations about other cases of leaking chemicals be effectively labeled and that lems for the local community. Fairchild In­ storage tanks under high-tech property workers' requests for health hazard infor­ strument first discovered leaks in under­ soon led Ross, her neighbors and a group mation be adequately met with manufac­ ground solvent waste tanks in December of health and legal activists to form the turers' data sheets and various kinds of of 1981. Company tests at the site soon re­ Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. By the education and training. vealed that 1,1,1-trichloroethane had summer of 1984, the Coalition had identi­ seeped into a public drinking water well fied over 70 cases of leaking underground The struggle for passage of state right to some 2000 feet away. While the well com­ storage tanks and in June public health know laws has been heavily resisted by in­ pany immediately closed the well, neither officials closed some 125 private drinking dustrial lobbyists. Among the most ardent the company, state officials, nor Fairchild water wells found to be contaminated by opponents has been the high-tech industry. notified the 16,900 households that were various computer chip degreasing agents. The Semiconductor Industry Association serviced by the well. It was not until late In October, the EPA added 20 new sites in forcefully opposed the passage of local January that the San Jose Mercury acting Silicon Valley to the Superfund national right to know ordinances in California, and on an anonymous tip broke the story to priority program. Of these, 18 were high­ in Massachusetts the Massachusetts High the local community.37 It was this story tech firms. 39 Tech Council was an active lobbyist against passage of a statewide right to know law. High-tech executives pride themselves on good worker-management relations. It is not uncommon to hear of company pic­ ROADS TO HIGH-TECH ORGANIZING nics, stock options, flex time and tuition re­ imbursement. Work relations occasionally include "quality circles" and other forms Health and safety protections are best guaranteed by the collective vigilance of of employee participation. Th~re is a kind workers organized into unions. Yet, the high-tech industry has on the whole been re­ of paternalistic attitude to many of these sistant to union omanizers. What limited success unions have achieved in organizing programs, particularly in the face of a high-tech workplaces has been confined to older aerospace and communication com­ strong anti-union management attitude.33 panies. Between 1977 and 1982, unions won only seven out of 44 organizing cam­ paigns in high-tech firms. These statistics reflect an overall decline in all private sec­ In general, high-tech management has tor organizing where the number of representation elections has declined by 70% taken a defensive and critical posture to­ since 1977. Yet, there are factors here specific to high tech as well. ward health and environmental critics. In the high-tech industry, the primary obstacle to traditional organizing has been Health and safety is considered a com­ the two-faced response of management. On one side is a benign and paternalistic atti· pany-by-company responsibility although tude that may offer profit sharing, flextime, job posting and on-site recreational facili· the Massachusetts High Tech Council, the ties. Management may also look kindly towards quasi-union forms of organization industry lobby, is quick to point out that like personnel representatives and limited grievance procedures, or management many high-tech firms have won national participation schemes like "quality of work life circles." On the other side, however, is awards for setting standards.34 The Coun­ a sharp and vindictive attitude where employees found actively confronting manage­ cil as well as various business executives mentor encouraging unionization are subject to harrassment or quick termination. such as James Bothwell at M/ A-Com have These practices have a particularly "chilling" effect on workers' willingness to organ­ argued that critics are only interested in ize, especially in light of the diminishing protections provided for workers by the using the health hazard issue to organize National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). A recent Government Accounting Office re­ unions in the industry. 35 The callousness port found that in 1982 one out of every twenty workers who participated in an NLRB underlying management attitudes was ex­ representation election was fired for advocating unionization. pressed rather bluntly to Robena Ried at If high-tech workers are going to effectively organize and act more collectively in MlA-Com who reported that the company advancing their interests, less traditional approaches to organizing will need to be responded to her complaints by stating, pursued. One promising approach is industry~wide worker associations. Others in­ "No one has been killed yet. Why bother dude the extension of existing union organizations to include interested high-tech with precautionary measures if no people employees as associate members and the development of worker-community coun­ are dying?" 36 cils in local high-tech regions. Industry-wide worker associations are already emerging. In Boston, a group of Are Communities at Risk as Well? high·tech employees organized the High Tech Workers Network in 1982, and since then have been presenting forums, producing a newsletter and distributing educa­ Hazard exposure at high-tech plants not tional flyers to co-workers in a variety of high-tech firms. In both California an

48 Science for the People The environmental contamination of Sil­ identified the source of the contaminant to What Can Be Done? icon Valley may be an early warning for be leakage from corroded sewer lines in a other high-tech centers. Recent cases of nearby industrial park containing over With increasing evidence mounting on groundwater contamination have oc­ thirty high-tech firms. Once in 1972 and both coasts that implicates the microelec­ curred in Virginia and Massachusetts. In again in 1982, the town of Burlington was tronics industry as a significant source of Manassas, Virginia, the site of the Manas­ forced to replace asbestos sewer lines de­ environmental and health risk, the clean sas IBM plant was placed on the Superfund stroyed by chemical discharges from high­ image cannot long endure. The crumbling priority site list in September 1984. This tech firms in the industrial park. Four firms of this dangerous myth is the first step to a story began in 1970 when engineers at including M/A-Com agreed to pay dam­ broader set of strategies to protect work­ IBM discovered tetrachloroethylene, a sus­ ages for the sewer replacement, yet to ers and community residents from the haz­ pected carcinogen, seeping into ground­ date no costs have been recovered for the ards of microelectronics production. Once water under the Manassas plant from un­ polluting of the well field and several of it is clear that this industry is not unlike derground storage tanks. Monitoring wells the wells continue to provide occasional other more mature industries, and once drilled around the site have shown move­ drinking water to the municipal system. 40 workers, community residents, health pro­ ment of the contamination toward the In a recent report in Massachusetts, High fessionals, managers and policy makers boundary of the site and toward a major Tech Taxies: Communities at Risk, evi­ realize that the benefits of high-tech em­ aquifer nearby. 39 dence was gathered showing that high­ ployment must be balanced with precau­ tech firms produce about 20% of the haz­ tions about health and environmental risk, ardous waste in the state, some of which then there are several avenues for effec­ In May 1979, elevated levels of trichloro­ has shown up in the state's worst dump tive action. ethylene forced the closing of two munici­ sites. The report also documented a wide pal wells in Burlington, Massachusetts. A range of violations of air and water dis­ • There is a significant need for more re­ study completed by a local consulting firm charge permits by high-tech firms. 41 search. As stated above, there is a near ab­ sence of credible occupational health and epidemiological studies of the microelec­ tronics industry. While health activists warn of serious exposures and consequen­ ces and the industry responds with denials people in eighteen cities across the country. Associate membership of high-tech work­ and victim blaming, there is no solid re­ ers in traditional unions on an individual basis may provide these workers with addi­ search of any real standing. The 1981 Cali­ tional benefits in tbe absence of collective bargaining agreements or formal recogni­ fornia study is a beginning, but more com­ tion from an employer. Associate Membership could provide individual access to prehensive research that focuses on prior­ group insurance benefits, union health and legal services, discount programs for con­ ity chemicals and traces health histories of sumer goods, and special job information and training. A program like this could previously exposed workers would begin build union credibility and help establish a nucleus of activists who could form the to build a more effective data base for set­ basis for future organizing committees. ting public policy and alerting health pro­ The close collaboration of tbe Silicon Valley Taxies Coalition and the Santa Clara fessionals. County Central Labor Council on environmental contamination suggests the oppor­ tunity for other types of community-labor alliances that would benefit high-tech • Education and training are critical to workers. Because of the tight concentration of high-tech firms in relatively few com­ alerting workers, health professionals and munities, direct parallels exist between worker and resident welfare. Local neighbor­ management to the possible consequences hood organizations in high-tech communities might include and work with high-tech of chemical exposure. Unions need to de­ employees. For example, an effort to inventory toxic chemicals by applying "right-to­ velop effective educational packages. know" laws might also advance worker interests in improving job protections and Community colleges and vocational workplace conditions. A recent collaboration between High Tech Professionals for schools need to develop strong occupa­ Peace and the Bay State Center for Economic Conversion in Massachusetts have tional health programs. Public develop­ brought peace groups and high-tech workers together to focus on military contracts ment programs, like Massachusetts' new and the war products of high-tech firms. Microelectronics Center, must parallel skill Perhaps the most dramatic vision of future organizing models is unfolding in the training with health training. Manage­ biggest nonunion high·tech firm of them all: IBM. Several years ago, an "under­ ment-sponsored training should be en­ ground" network, IBM Workers United, emerged in IBM. The organization quietly cir­ couraged as well, but only where manage­ culated newsletters with some success, but was unable to develop any substantial or ment no longer seeks to gloss over the open membership base. While here in the U.S., IBM is "union free," European and risks of chemical exposure. Japanese workers have organized in six of IBM's facilities. Following an international • Workers organized into unions still meeting of 300 IBM unionists last May in Japan, American representatives of IBM provide one of the best mechanisms for Workers United returned to their plants to come "above ground" here in the U.S. guaranteeing a safe and healthful work en­ Since then, IBM Workers United has been growing rapidly as an unsponsored employ­ vironment. Firms organized by national ees' association with members in several of the domestic plants. Ironically, as high­ unions such as the Communication Work­ tech firms increasingly move production facilities "off shore" for cheaper labor or to ers of America at Western Electric, and the avoid union organizing efforts, they may be running into unions more than running International Brotherhood of Electrical away from them. .. Workers at Raytheon provide some of the Ken Geiser, Professor; Tufts University best health and safety records. Union or­ Rond Wil$on, Organizer, Communications Workers of America ganizing will not be easy in an industry so hostile to collective bargaining. Still there

Computing the Future 49 are important efforts at pre-union forma­ REFERENCES tions emerging in the industry, such as the Massachusetts High Tech Workers Net­ 1. "Critics Raise Questions About Health and Clara Center for Occupational Safety and work, that should be encouraged and sup­ Safety of High Tech Jobs," New York Times, Health, Unmasking the Hazards: A Workers ported. September 3, 1984. Guide to Job Hazards in the Electronics Indus­ 2. "Probe Demanded in M/A-Com Worker try, 361 Willow Street #3, San Jose, Calif., 1981, • Right to know legislation provides un­ Death," Boston Business Journal, July 16-22, and North Carolina Occupational Safety and organized workers with the best opportun­ 1984. Health Project, Microelectronics: Safety and 3. "Findings of Toxin Leakage in Silicon Health in the Workplace, Box 2514, Durham, ity for learning about health hazards. Valley Hurt Chip Makers' Reputation for N.C., 1982. Right to know laws need to be enacted in Safety," Wall Street Journal, August 29, 1984. 21. Robert Howard, "Second Class in Silicon all states. Since 1980 it has been common 4. By microelectronics industry, I will mean Valley," Working Papers, vol. 8, n. 5 (Septem­ to include right to know provisions for lo­ firms classified in the Standard Industrial Code ber-October 1981), p. 28. cal community people as well as workers. (SIC) 367: Electronic Components and Acces­ 22. "61 Overcome by Toxic Fumes at Elec­ Not only does this form a powerful alliance sories including electron tube and capacitor tronics Plant in Danvers," Boston Globe, June for legislative campaigns, but it also links production as well as semiconductors. By "high 25, 1982. people working inside plants with people tech" I will mean a broader class of industry in­ 23. The only study of gallium arsenide itself is in local neighborhoods. This is important cluding SIC 357, 366, 381, 382, 383. For a full in T. A. Roschma, Labor Hygiene and Occupa­ tional Hygiene, 10-300-33, 1966. so that management innovations that re­ definition see High Tech Research Group, Massachusetts High Tech: The Promise and the 24. "Gallium Gains as Substitute for Silicon in duce exposures for one group do not raise Reality, Box 441001, Somerville, Mass., 1984. Computer Chip," Wall Street Journal, February risks for the other. 5. A Good description of chip production can 12, 1982. be found in the special issue of Scientific 25. Gregory Johansen, "Gallium Arsenide • The most effective long-term solution American, vol. 237, n. 3 (September 1977). See Chips Emerge from the Lab," High Technology, to toxic chemical exposure is to reduce the especially William G. Oldham, "The Fabrica­ July 1984. use of toxic chemicals in production. The tion of Microelectronic Circuits." 26. Philip Landrigen, Richard Costello, and first step in any such effort is to inventory 6. Ernest Braum, "From Transistor to Micro­ William Stringer, "Occupational Exposure to processor," in Tom Forester, ed., The Microelec­ Arsine: An Epidemiological Reappraisal of Cur­ all chemicals used in individual plants. The tronics Revolution (Cambridge: MIT Press, rent Standards," Scandinavian Journal of next step is to reduce human exposure by 1981). Work, Environment, and Health, vol. 8 (1982), improving management and disposal prac­ 7. "Oregon Turns into a Mecca for High p. 175. tices, by automating certain production Tech," Wall Street Journal, August 28, 1984. 27. "Worker Tells of Role in Closing Tech operations, and by improving containment 8. "U.S. Jobs Going Overseas as U.S. Costs Lab," Boston Globe, May 13, 1984. and shielding devices. The longer-term Rise," New York Times, March 19, 1983. 28. "High Tech: New Products, New strategy must be the gradual phasing out 9. Lenny Segal, Delicate Bonds: The Global Hazards," Boston Globe, July 23, 1984. of various toxic substances and substitut­ Semiconductor Industry (Mountain View, Calif.: 29. "Negligence Alleged in M/A-Com Worker ing less toxic and more environmentally Pacific Research Center{ January 1981). Death," Boston Business Journal, July 9-15, 10. D. Vagers and R. Ohlin, "Incidence of Can­ 1984. compatible ones. Particularly in industries cer in the Electronics Industry: Using the New 30. High Tech Research Group, 1984, p. 14. like microelectronics, such significant pro­ Swedish Cancer Environment as a Screening In­ 31. High Tech Research Group, 1984, p. 17. cess changes are practical, because, as strument," British Journal of Industrial Medi­ 32. AFL-CIO Department of Occupational noted, the development of the industry cine, vol. 40 (1983). Safety and Health, OSHA Enforcement Under itself is requiring frequent process innova­ 11. U.S. HEW, NIOSH, Health Hazard Evalua­ the Reagan Administration: An Update, Wash­ tions now. The market will not naturally tion Project No. HHE 79-66, Signetics Corpora­ ington, D.C., May, 1983. dictate that those changes be health- and tion, Sunnyvale, Calif., January 31, 1980. 33. High Tech Research Group, 1984, p. 52. environment-regarding. That is a role that 12. Reported in Joseph LaDou, "The Not-So­ 34. "High Tech: Low Safety," Springfield must be played by organizations of work­ Clean Business of Making Chips" Technology Valley Advocate, July 4, 1984. Review, vol. 87, no. 4, May I June, 1984. 35. "Breath of Death," Boston Phoenix, ers and local community groups. 13. D. Pasguini and L. Laird Hazard Assess­ August 14, 1984. ment of the Electronic Component Manufactur­ 36. Boston Globe, May 13, 1984. Jay Zemotel, June Ross, Robena Ried, ing Industry (Draft) Research Triangle Institute, 37. "Leaking Chemicals in California's 'Silicon and many others, who today would be Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, 1982. Valley' Alarm Neighbors," New York Times, considered health victims of the micro­ 14. LaDou, 1984, p. 23. The California study is May 20, 1982. electronics industry, provide early indica­ reported in Richard Wade and Michael Wil­ 38. "19 Silicon Valley Sites Listed for Toxic tions of the kind of tragic toll that may liams, Semiconductor Industry Study, 1981, Cali­ Waste Cleanup," San Francisco Examiner, emerge, if the high-tech industries are not fornia Division of Occupational Safety and October 3, 1984. more carefully studied, monitored, and re­ Health, San Francisco, 1982. 39. "Clean IBM Tackles a New Toxic 15. A good review of industry projections can Problem," Washington Post, October 15, 1984. engineered. High-tech industries can set be found in a special issue of Business Week, 40. For details see Kenneth Geiser, Rand Wil­ the standard for the kind of workplaces we March 28, 1983. For a conservative view see son, Richard Bird, and Leslie Kochan, High all would like, but the industry and the High Technology: Public Policies for the 1980s, Tech Toxics: Communities at Risk, Task Force government cannot be left to do it alone. National Journal, Washington, D.C., 1983. on High Tech Toxics, Boston, Mass., October People, organized and conscious of their 16. High Tech Research Group, 1984, p. 30 1984. rights, must be a constant catalyst for 17. Samuel Epstein, Lester Brown, and Carl 41. Geiser et. a/., 1984. change. The talent, expertise and resour­ Pope, Hazardous Waste in America (San Fran­ ces to implement such changes do exist in cisco: Sierra Club Books, 1982), p. 22. the microelectronics firms. It is time these 18. "Printed Circuits," Global Electronics In­ formation Newsletter, n. 46, September 1984. corporations lived up to the promise of 19. American Electronics Association, The their yet-to-be-proven clean image.* Trade Union Interface: 1977-1982, Palo Alto, Calif., 1983. 20. For good reviews of the hazards in terms that are useful on the shop floor, see Santa

so Science for the People Technostress: The Human Cost of the Computer Revolution by Craig Brod, Addlson.Wesle~ Reading, MA 1984. by Gary Keenan

The social and psychological impact of Such technoanxiety, Brod notes, most of­ the explosive growth of computer occupa­ ten appears in people who feel forced to tions is the subject of Technostress: The use or accept computers by "employers, Human Cost of the Computer Revolution, peers or the general culture." 2 by California psychotherapist Craig Brod. At the other extreme are those who A welcome contrast to the rose-tinted whole-heartedly embrace computers - VDTs found in many popular computer the technocentered type whose personal­ books, Brod uses anecdotes drawn from ity and interactions began to resemble his consultations with patients, as well as computers themselves. This type suffers his own experience as an industrial psy­ from overidentification with the technol­ chologist, to illustrate the problems of ogy and related activity. He or she will or­ people facing the introduction of com­ ganize life patterns along the criteria of a puters into everyday life. computer program, valuing clarity, effi­ "War Games." Brod's young clients offer a As more workplaces adopt computer ciency and quantification. Students or chilling look at tomorrow's technocrats in technology, the speed and precision of the their formative years. microprocessors become guiding factors in the organization of work. Brod finds man­ You know, a computer is more like real agers' attitudes toward the workers similar life ... something that's actually hap­ to those of a foreman toward blue collar pening. In a way books are real life be­ cause you're thinking about them while crews: denying the psychological and you're reading, but in a computer you're social aspects of the labor process. This is actually doing it instead of reading the prime source of the syndrome he has about something that's happening; dubbed "technostress," the individual's in­ you're there in a computer ...4 ability to cope with computer technology in a reasonable way. Brod blames this tragic loss of fantasy on Brod defines two types of manifestations parents who foist career-oriented "hob­ of this syndrome: "technoanxiety" and bies" on their children, and an education "technocenteredness." The technoanxious system too eager to adopt an industrial person resists adoption of the technology. model for the classroom. In such a child­ His or her symptoms may include chronic hood, fantasy and imagination are re­ backache, eyestrain, refusal to learn requi­ pressed as inefficient, ambiguous activ­ site skills, sleep loss, persecution fantasies ities. Unfortunately, Brod doesn't ask why featuring computers, or any strategy "professional" workers are often victims of this assault on childhood is taking place, or which allows avoidance of computer this repressive syndrome. Brod's list of who might benefit if a whole generation of work. symptoms includes "a high degree of fac­ middle and upper class youth are trained Janice is a nurse in an intensive care tual thinking, poor access to feelings, an to obediently sit at terminals hours at a unit. Recently, her hospital bought a insistence on speed . . . lack of empathy time tapping in "commands." In such a computer system and now many of her ... and a low tolerance for the ambiguities scenario, people become oriented to the record-keeping tasks have been compu­ of human behavior."3 The technocentered technical fix. Life becomes a quest to ac­ terized. For her, learning ... the system person loses touch with the rhythms and quire and apply technology, and the cor­ was a difficult and slow process ... she texture of human relations. poratizing of human culture reaches its has mixed feelings about the new tech­ Brod examines the manifestations of most intimate level, the psyches of our nology ... She is plagued by nightmares technostress at work, at home and in children. in which she watches herself being swal­ But while Brod is quite effective at por­ lowed up by a machine. t schools. His chapter on the current gener­ ation of "whiz kids" is particularly good at traying some of the "human costs" of com­ debunking tlie popular image of children puterization, his suggestions for alleviation Gary Keenan is the Magazine Business who get a computer for Christmas and of the problems are limited and at times Manager of Science for the People. He has quickly master several languages, sell a naive. He bemoans management's short­ worked with computers at SftP, Working few programs, tap into Citibank's main­ sighted applications of technology, but his Papers Magazine, and Little Brown, Inc. frame and become stars of movies like view of the workplace is perhaps the most

Computing the Future 51 frustrating aspect of Technostress. Most of Brod wants to see retraining programs Perhaps the most valuable inslght in his solutions are directed toward manage­ for those who lose their jobs in the transi­ Technostress, one not fully developed but ment. Attempting to encourage a more en­ tion from a manufacturing to an informa­ underlying most of the book, is that the lightened attitude. He writes of the conflict tion economy. If one accepts that the tran­ consequences of computerization include of psychologist vs. technician, the former sition is desirable in the first place, this emotional side-effects. This suggests a new being the agent of "more humanistic stra­ makes some sense. There are some dis­ area for study and struggle, alongside tra­ tegies within the corporate structure." It is senting voices, such as MIT's Bennet Harri­ ditional concerns about wages, job se­ questionable whether lasting, progressive son, who has shown that New England curity and physical health and safety. In change in working conditions can take high tech companies employ only 3 per­ the largely unorganized hightech indus­ place without input from those who per­ cent of the region's displaced mill workers. tries, and for office workers in the service form the work. Brod doesn't show how a Massachusetts wage rates have not recov­ sector, traditional organizing campaigns high-tech therapist can represent the long­ ered, the state is heavily dependent on de­ have not done well. If there is one over­ term interests of anyone save whoever fense contracts, and Boston has become reaching reason to recommend Techno­ pays the consulting fee. "one of the lowest-paying regions for com­ stress, it is for the role it could play in help­ Brod does make a strong case against puter-related workers."6 Retraining for ing those workers identify common haz­ the practice of monitoring computer work­ poorer paying jobs is not a remedy for ards and mutual interests. ers, an issue many unions are taking to the such a complex issue. bargaining table. He details the harm to The book's naive, incomplete portrayal productivity such intrusion causes. He is of labor-management conflict, particularly REFERENCES quick to point out that productivity isn't in the Reagan era, undermines the credi­ 1. Craig Brod, Technostress: The Human Cost everything, recommending extra break bility of Brod's proposals, many of which of the Computer Revolution, (Addison-Wesley, time and maximum, rather than minimum have some merit. His vision of a human­ Reading, MA, 1984) p. 17. work quotas for information workers. But centered workplace, where those who use 2. Ibid., p. 16. organized labor's role is a minor one in technologies have a say in planning its de­ 3. Ibid., p. 17. Brod's outline of reforms. In his entire velopment, is appealing. But when execu­ 4. Ibid., p. 129. book, only one page (p. 190) mentions that tives of major corporations are anticipat­ 5. Ian Anderson, "New Technology will not employers sometimes "need prodding" ing the day when blue and white collar provide jobs," New Scientist, No. 1409, 10 May, labor will be contracted out, unfettered by 1984, p. 24. and that the clerical union 9 to 5 calls for 6. John Mattill, "Too High on High Tech?", an anti-routinization clause in contracts. pensions or benefits, by a corporate struc­ Technology ReveiU! Vol. 86, no. 5, July 1983, Little is said about the de-skilling aspect of ture relieved of middle management by p. 77. computer-automated work (less than 25% computers, 7 one has to wonder how open 7. William Patterson, "Corporations in of high tech positions require detailed such executives will be to sharing their Crisis",lndustry Week, Vol. 220, no. 5, March 5, knowledge of the technolollV used). 5 right to manage. 1984, p. 58-59.

CENTRAL AMERICA FACES

the second Reagan term. What are the prospects Nicaragua's revolution? How will the United States ts program in El Salvador? Who will challenge this Administration's plans at home and in the international commun1ty? In December, NACLA's Central Amencan Task Force JOined policy experts from the Institute for Policy Stud1es, the Aspen Institute, WOLA and others to examine quest1ons surrounding Reagan's strategy. Its obJeCtives and restraints. You can read the edited version of this two·day symposium in NACLA's latest REPORT ON THE AMERICAS. Send $3.75 to NACLA, 4-More, 151 W. 19th St., 9th Fl., New York, NY 10011. Don't wait until 1988 for the answers.

52 Science for the People The Rise of the Computer State by David Burnham, VIntage Books, New York, 1984.

by Joseph Regna

How do the powerful, the ruling class, Yet it is not the mistakes, with the people maintain their hegemony over society? being denied credit, an apartment, a job, Although his goal is not to answer this or their freedom, but the intentional use of question, David Burnham, in his gripping computers by the controllers of society account The Rise of the Computer State, and their agents that has had, and will con­ does provide insight into one avenue of tinue to have, the greatest potential for that control: computers and the vast, manipulation, control, and repression. A growing network of telecommunications benign-sounding, computer-powered tech­ systems that are enmeshing society in a nique called Geodemographics profiles all web of information, surveillance, and cen­ the U.S. census tracts by social class and tralization of power. enables political pollsters and market re­ Certainly one of the greatest concerns of searchers to come to know the attitudes people in the age of computers is the de­ and preferences of, and to eventually struction of personal privacy, but this is manipulate the entire U.S. population not, to Burnham, the central issue that based on a small, but statistically signifi­ computers raise. Rather, his focus is that cant, number of polled telephone calls. Not only have the FBI and CIA been in­ computers are greatly accelerating the Certain "susceptible" constituencies can volved in the collection and computeriza­ centralization of power of the major insti­ thus be selectively and aggressively tar­ tion of such personal information, but the tutions of society. Although Burnham-the geted for the latest hair shampoo, corpora­ IRS has been too. The IRS has monitored same reporter Karen Silkwood was to tion public relations pitch, or senatorial politically active people through both the meet with on the night of her death-does candidate. creation of new files and its own computer not provide as critical an analysis as many tax records. Its Taxpayer Compliance might like to see, he does elucidate in clear Measurement Program uses computers to language not only the ways in which com­ track taxpayers and to focus punitive puters are enhancing the concentration of actions where they will have the greatest power in the dominant institutions, but yield. The IRS also runs what is called the also how the ideological basis for the Audit Information Management System acceptance of computers allows the has­ (AIMS), which is in effect a computerized tening of that concentration. boss monitoring IRS employees in order to The problem begins with the fact that make sure they stick to their "quotas." A huge files of data, with minute details of new computer will give the U.S. attorney people's lives, exist in easily manipulable general a similar capability, previously un­ and retrievable form. Who collects and known in American history: to instantane­ uses these vast repositories of informa­ ously scrutinize the behavior of the U.S.'s tion? Among government agencies, the various district attorneys to ensure that IRS, Social Security Administration, CIA, central policy is being followed. FBI and the National Security Agency hold Insurance companies collect information some of the largest collections of computer On the government side, Army spying in such as whether a person sees a psychia­ files into which personal information has the 1960s led to the creation of files loaded trist, what drugs she or he is taking, migrated. In the corporate sector, data with political and personal information on whether there is a drinking problem; banks exist in such hands as credit report­ tens of thousands of individuals who were schools hold the financial records of stu­ ing companies, banks, insurance com­ politically active; blacklisting was often dents and their parents; and corporation~ panies, hospitals, and universities. The the result. One of its victims, then Con­ collect a staggering variety of information. powerful assure us not to fear, but even the gressperson, now Judge Abner Mikva, has The sheer ability to locate, analyze, and appearance of mistakes in these files can stated: communicate all this data, almost at the have drastic effects on people's lives. The harm comes ... when the ordinary speed of light and even around the world, citizen feels he cannot enga'ge in politi­ is the most important corollary to the cal activity without becoming a "person axiom that information is power. Joseph Regna is an active member of the of interest," without having his name environmental and editorial committees of and photograph placed in a file colloqui­ But the problem goes deeper. Not only SftP. He is a physician who works in the ally, if not officially, labeled "subver­ do computers collect what Burnham calls public health area. sive." "transactional information"-phone calls,

Computing the Future 53 financial transactions, car rentals, but, in from anywhere in the country to be avail­ labels "the ultimate computer bureauc­ addition, a vast web of electronic high­ able anywhere else. racy." In operation since the issuance of a ways allows these data bases to communi­ The collection and storage of trans­ secret presidential directive in the early cate with one another. This latter reality actional information is particularly trou­ 1950s, and with virtually no operating re­ enables data collected for one purpose to blesome, especially because of the obvious strictions from anyone, the NSA not only be used for another, commonly called interest in it by the police, the FBI, CIA, operates the "largest and most advanced "computer matching." For example, HEW and other organs of the state. (For an in­ computers now available to any bureauc­ tapped IRS data banks to intercept the tax depth discussion of some of these issues, racy on earth," but also provided the refunds of "runaway fathers" in order to see SftP, March/April 1983.) AT &T, for "single largest source of federal research decrease the amount of money it had to instance, can profile a person just by how dollars spent in the development of pay in child support. AT&T used its own she or he uses the telephone: the number, advanced computers." With its immense transactional records on phone calls to time of day, length of call, location, pat­ array of computers, earthbound listening monitor and spy on companies who had terns over time, friends, associates, politi­ posts, and satellites-and with its osten­ switched to its competitor MCI. cal activities. Rent-a-car records, banking sible purpose being intelligence protection In addition, Ma Bell performs secret sur­ files, and airline and lodging reservations and collection, the NSA can monitor any veys of telephone usage in geographical can similarly serve to track down a "per­ electronic communication, spoken, writ­ areas for marketing purposes, information son of interest." Further, what are the ten, or otherwise. which can also develop so-called signa- implications of the fact that one of the cus- With this as its potential, the NSA can

tures of classes of people. These signatures tomers of TRW, the huge multinational turn against virtually anyone. It is the are of obvious interest to an agency such company with transactional credit infor­ agency that allowed the FBI to tap phone as the FBI which not only has "interacted" mation on tens of millions of people, is the to monitor political activists during the with AT&T's phone lines on numerous CIA? civil rights and antiwar activities of the occasions, but also has its eyes on the crea­ 1960s. It is the agency that, from 1945 to tion of a master "crime file," the Interstate One of Burnham's most intriguing chap­ 1975, undertook, with the cooperation of Identification Index (Ill) which would ters is on the super-secretive National RCA, ITT, and Western Union, a totally enable police information on an individual Security Agency (NSA), an organization he illegal surveillance program of inter-

54 Science for the People national telegrams and developed files on 700,000 Americans, some of which found their way into the CIA's Operation Chaos files, which themselves "profiled" some 300,000 Americans active in the antiwar movement. In addition to these activities, the NSA plans private communications networks, such as cable television, to suit its needs: suppresses patents and controls research conerning cryptographic devices that could keep electronic informatiOn secret from it; and exercises censorship on articles relating to such research. Again, most and perhaps all of these activities-whether undertaken by the NSA, the FBI, AT&T, Mobil Oil, or the IRS -might have been accomplished with manual effort. After all, Japanese Ameri­ cans living in the western U.S. during WWII were rounded up only with the aid of a crude computer-like machine that handled punched cards. But the point is that the existence of the computer and its availability to such wealthy organizations makes everything that much easier. The question must then be asked: what are the implications for a limited notion of free­ dom in light of the existence of such computer-powerful forces, which were re­ pressive even before the advent of the computer? Further, all of these activities are being enhanced by the growth of laws, Supreme Court decisions, and executive financial transactions and purchases, and question. Apprehending the criminal, for orders-particularly those of the Reagan personal movements. Even if this US;e of example, translates, in this line of think­ administration-which facilitate the collec­ computers could conceal personal identity, ing, into turning the entire society into a tion, use, and control of information by the collective behavior, such as that obtained police state. In the words of Abraham Mas­ powerful. Recent regulations have facili­ with Geodemographics, could be moni­ low: "When the only tool you have is a tated classifying information as secret in­ tored. Burnham correctly points out that hammer, everything begins to look like a definitely, protecting the identities of intel­ this system is a prime example, because of nail." Also, and as an important part of his ligence agents, lifting restraints on the FBI, the expense, of computers widening the analysis, Burnham indicates the impact of allowing the CIA to conduct covert opera­ information gap, between information computers on how people have begun to tions within the U.S. borders, preventing haves and information have-nots. Further, think of themselves, epitomized by the government officials from speaking out, speech recognition can "lead to more comments of Joseph Weizenbaum: and granting more power to the NSA. wiretapping and bugging by reducing the "Society is beginning to think of human Burnham sees the problems that have economic barriers to eavesdropping," and beings as merely another species of the already occurred and that will undoubt­ artificial intelligence (AI) could result in genus information processing system." In edly occur, compounded immensely by that ultimate lever of control sought by the the end, the computer dehumanizes us, new systems presently being implemented powerful. Burnham asserts, because it serves to limit or just coming into existence. The Federal AI provides the epitome of what Burn­ our interaction with one another. Reserve Board is creating a massive, cen­ ham sees happening to the way we think The major drawback of the book is what tral Electronic Funds Transfer (EF'I) sys­ as a result of the massive computerization is lacking in the analysis, and this is evi­ tem that may make cash obsolete. Such a of life. Burnham's concepts of what dent throughout, even with Burnham's network would greatly extend what produced the ideological justification for recommendations for technical, legal, in­ today's automatic teller machines (ATM) the current situation borrow heavily from stitutional, and social policy changes. By do by making more information available those of Jacques Ellul. Ellul proposed that attacking bureaucracies, Burnham is both about what people do-instantaneously: people have forgotten-or have been radical and correct, but by not analyzing not just bank transactions, but buying made to forget-the ends of their actions the underlying pathological economic and habits, political activities, physical move­ and, instead, are absorbed in the means­ political relationships of both capitalism ments, and other aspects of human life. what he calls "technique." In other words, and nationalism, upon which these Two-way interactive television, like the there is not much concern about the impli­ bureaucracies sit, he loses a major oppor­ Qube system in Columbus, Ohio, can allow cations of our actions; rather, the emphasis tunity to enlighten us as to why the trends for monitoring of messages, electronic is to do the job the most efficiently and and realities he so astutely details will not mail, books bought and borrowed, pro­ productively possible. Computers increase reverse unless those central economic and grams watched, travel arrangements, efficiency, so they are welcomed without political questions are dealt with.

Computing the Future 55 BOOKS The Soul of a New The Spirit of Enterprise Machine by George Gilder by Tracy Kidder Simon & Schuster, $17.95 Atlantic Monthly Press, 1981, $13.95 The left in the U.S. has published This new manifesto by reactionary only a relatively small amount of This book was the first in the cur­ supply-sider George Gilder seeks to analysis of computer technology. rent wave of pop computer culture strengthen the link in the public's This is particularly unfortunate in books. The author uses a "Right mind between far-out rightist ideolo­ light of the massive amount of hype Stuff" journalistic approach in gy and the much-admired leading and disinformation that the industry chronicling the design of a new U.S. computer technology compa­ and right-wing political organiza­ computer by a team of engineers. nies. The book covers American tions have unleashed on a hapless The book succeeds in lending drama entrepreneurs in all industries, but public in recent years. and excitement to a task that is has a special place for those in the In particular, the right wing in the usually incomprehensible or boring. computer industry. In the Info World U.S. has made great strides in Kidder paints a picture of how a review of this book, John Barry usurping the high ground of high technology gets developed that is says, "Much of [Gilder's) theorizing is tech for its own purposes. The different from the widespread myth simplistics and naive." Republican slogan, "High tech, not of careful, methodical, professional high taxes," was one of many fac­ engineering work. Instead, the tors contributing to the Reagan re­ hurried "seat-of-the-pants" approach election victory. is depicted as the industry norm. While the right wing continues to Unfortunately, the author lapses into Whole Earth Software fight the ideological battle for the hero worship in his depiction of the Catalog public mind, there has also been characters involved. Partially be­ Edited by Stewart Brand myth making of a more benign cause of this, the book can have the nature. A flock of books have re­ opposite impact, causing the reader Quantum Press/Doubleday, 1984, cently appeared which examine the to lose confidence in other products $17.50 computer industry from various of our technological society, like This book has to sell 540,000 copies mainstream pop-sociological per­ nuclear power plants or missile to justify the $1.3 million advance to spectives. Some of these books are systems. Stewart Brand's outfit from the pub­ worth examining for a few kernels of truth and insight, or as socio­ lisher. A collection of many short, sometimes provocative, impressions/ political phenomena in the process of shaping public opinion about reviews of different software prod­ technology. ucts for personal computers by a Hackers diverse group of reviewers. Results by Steven Levy are mostly successful and informa­ Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1984, $17.95 tive, although not consistently so. The hacker ethic, as described in a review of this book in Info World Fire In The Valley: The magazine, is as follows: "All infor­ Making of the Personal mation should be free. Mistrust "Computers as Poison" Computer authority, promote decentralization. Special Issue of Whole Earth by Paul Freiberger and Hackers should be judged by their Review hacking, not on bogus criteria such Edited by Stewart Brand Michael Swaine as degrees, age, race or position. Osborne/McGraw-Hill, $9.95 You can create art and beauty on a Whole Earth Review, Box 27956, San computer. Computers can change Diego, CA 92128. A chronicle of the wild and crazy your life for the better." early days of the personal computer A follow-up to the Whole Earth Soft­ industry in the U.S. The book gives This book describes three genera­ ware Catalog, above. The theme of a detailed record of the earliest tions of computer hackers as they the issue is "All panaceas become mythical garage days of people and moved from isolated and marginal poison." A number of authors of dif­ companies that now loom large in groups of obsessed individuals ferent temperaments and political the corporate landscape. It is instruc­ playing with technology for its own persuasions examine the effects of tive to know that the diverse mix of sake, to an elite guild of money­ computers on our work, our social entrepreneurs included various coveting technology artisans. The relationships, the economy, social flavors of political radicals and popu­ pure, fiercely-held principles of the institutions and the environment. lists, along with the familiar crew of early hacker ethic should prove The analysis is critical, serious and egomaniacs, hustlers, space cadets, interesting to political radicals of all sometimes radical, though not at all and EST devotees. stripes. Marxist.

56 Science for the People The Second Self: Comput­ ORGANIZATIONS DATABASES ers and the Human Spirit by Sherry Turkle Simon & Schuster, 1984, $17.95 Community Data The Arms Control Research and speculation by a Processing Computer Network psychologist on the ways in which computers are changing our ways of CdP is a relatively new organization, The ACCN is a consortium of seven thinking, learning and viewing of but the founders are all veterans of peace and environmental groups the world. Based on six years of the Silicon Valley. CdP offers data­ (Friends of the Earth, SANE, field work interviewing computer processing and consultation services Physicians for Social Responsibility, users of every variety, Turkle's book to nonprofit groups, and is itself a Greenpeace, Lawyers Alliance for may be short on political analysis, nonprofit organization. CdP comput­ Nuclear Arms Control, the Freeze but she does let her subjects do ers are available for use in their Campaign, and the Coalition for a much of the talking, which proves in office or by phone. Services include New Foreign and Military Policy) turn fascinating and alarming. mailing lists, word processing, com­ who have a computer system dedi­ puter training and virtually any cated to a legislative database and a other sort of data management. common "action alert" mailing list. PERIODICALS Principal goals of CdP are to demys­ The ACCN legislative database has tify technology and promote self-suf­ information on every Member of ficiency. Contact CdP at P.O. Box Congress, his or her votes, commit­ 60127, Palo Alto, CA 94306, tees, and staffers on military issues, Reset: News on Activist 415/322-9069. recent and upcoming election infor­ and Grassroots Computing mation, and more. Although current­ ly their database is available for use c/o Mike McCullough only by the member organizations, 90 East Seventh St., Apt. 3A, New the ACCN has expressed some inter­ York, NY 1009 Computers for Peace est in opening up their information $1.00 per issue This is a Santa Cruz group which is for other users. Contact ACCN at preparing literature for nonprofit 711 G St. SE, Washington, DC 20003, Reset reads like a computer bulletin groups on computer use. They have 202/546-7100. board in newsletter format. It's full interviewed over 60 people to deter­ of resources, activity updates from mine which systems work best for networks and organizations around the purposes of this community. the world, running commentary and The Grassroots Peace Their book includes discussions on Directory queries from subscribers, debates the use of computers, reviews and about computer use, announce­ recommendations of particular hard­ Martha Henderson has begun to en­ ments, reports and articles about ware and software, and a discussion list computers in her quest to com­ progressive computer projects. of various pitfalls and how to avoid pile and make available information While the layout and muddy dot them. on grassroots activity of peace matrix type make Reset a bit hard to groups. The Topsfield Foundation read, it's defintely worth the effort. has been supporting her efforts over the last few months to collect data in ten states. If they expand their Public Interest Computer project to map the whole United Organization States, they should have some Processed World 10,000 groups listed, with organiza­ 55 Sutter St. H829, San Francisco, CA PICA offers computer assistance to tional information on each. This 94104 over 90 groups in the Washington, could be used by local groups to $10/year DC area through classes, consulting coordinate or publicize work, by and its newsletter Nexus. They are national groups to channel aid to A journal of radical politics, humor planning to open a large nonprofit swing districts, by interested individ­ and art which focuses on people computer training center. PICA is uals to find resources in their area, working in the information proces­ also working on development of a and by foundations interested in sing industry. A low-budget, mostly nonprofit accounting software sys­ making grants in particular areas. volunteer effort which results in an tem, a job bank for computer jobs in The Grassroots Peace Directory is uneven but fascinating mix of politi­ the public interest, and curriculum being stored and developed at the cal theory, biting satire, poems and for their learning center. Contact Stanford Public Information stories on being an alienated, PICA at 122 Maryland Ave. NE, Retrieval Services (SPRIRES), which marginal worker in the New Infor­ Washington, DC 20002, is available to nonprofit groups at mation Order and Techno-State. 202/544-4171. less than commerical rates.

Computing the Future 57 BOOKS ORGANIZATIONS Volunteers in Technical Assistance, provides information on how complex Health Hazards of VDT s, ed. by B. G. Computer Professionals for Social issues of development (e.g., computer Pierce, Toronto: Wiley, 1984. Responsibility, educational alliance of technology) relate to low-income, Third computer professionals dedicated to the World peoples. Publishes newsletter Computer Reliability and Nuclear development and public presentation of focusing on the transfer of technology to War, a bibliography which includes expert analyses of society's use of com­ developing nations and is currently entries on reliability in general, com­ puter technology, particularly as it contri­ working on a satellite communication puter-science in the USSR, command, butes to the threat of nuclear war. CPSR project for the Third World. VITA, 1815 control, and communication, military Inc., Box 717, Palo Alto, CA 94301. N. Lynn St., Suite 200, Arlington, VA simulations, and nuclear weapons' com­ 22209. puter failures. CPSR Inc., Box 717, Palo Jobs With Peace, national campaign to Alto, CA 94301, $1.00. Telecommunications Cooperative Net· redirect funds from the military budget work, cooperative of nonprofit groups to to domestic needs and socially-productive gain computing and electronic network Crucible of Hope, study guide on Cen­ industries. Through education, referenda, tral America. Topics include an overview power. Distributes Interlink Press Service, and cultural activities, the campaign is a Third World news organization. 370 of the region's crises and the plight of working to reverse the arms race and re­ refugees. Individual sections are also de­ Lexington Ave., Suite 715, New York, NY claim our tax dollars for an economy 10017. voted to El Salvador, Nicaragua, based on peace. Has a bimonthly publi­ Honduras, and Guatemala, and recent at­ cation. JWP National Network, 76 Information Technology Institute, tempts to ease tensions in the region. Summer St., Boston, MA 02110. Sojourners Book Service, Box 29272, regional organization studying the role ~f Washington, DC 20017, 148 pp., $4.75. computers, telephones, and telecommum­ Apple Computer's Community Grant cators in the nonprofit sector. Holds Program, donates Apple 2E's to non­ public forums on computer use, conducts Acid Precipitation: An Annotated Bib· classes on computer literacy and the liography, compiled by the US Geo­ profit community groups with budgets of social implications of computers, and logical Survey, contains 1660 entries, $5000,000 or less. Application deadlines: March 15, July 15, and Nov. 15, 20525 offers a computer camp for nonprofit spanning a variety of scientific disciplines Mariani Ave., Cupertino, CA 95014, Mail managers. ITS, 0245 SW Bancroft St., from mid-1800s through 1981. USGS Cir­ cular 923, Eastern Distribution Branch, Stop 23L. Portland, OR 97201. USGS, 604 S. Pickett St., Alexandria, VA 22304, 282 pp., no charge. Scientific and Technical Technical Support Project to Aid for Nicaragua Nicaragua (tecNICA) 110 Brookside Dr., Berkeley, CA, (415) 654-7768 In conjunction with ministries and agencies of the Nicaraguan government, tecNICA offers workshops, classes and consultation by computer professionals who have exper­ tise in economics, statistics, engineering Research Briefings 1984, annual and related fields. Participants work on attempt by the White House Office of specific projects as designated by the Science and Technology and the NSF to Nicaraguan government-teaching com­ puter classes at the University of Central find where "important payoffs" might re­ Last summer, Science for the People put out a call for science educators willing to America, project and systems analysis for sult from increased federal R&D teach in Nicaragua, and asked for help in banking operations, software development, spending. This years' topics include: implementing educational exchanges electronics and computer repair. Computer Architecture, Information between the U.S. and Nicaragua. The Technology in Precollege Education, Pro­ Nicaraguan National Council on Higher Nicaragua Medical Aid Campaign cess Engineering for Biotechnology, and Education is seeking teachers in health, 1151 Massachusetts Avenue, a list of "Opportunities in Physics". technology, agriculture, science teaching, Cambridge, MA 02138 National Academy Press, 2101 Constitu­ basic sciences, math and statistics. Science tion Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20418, for the People also hopes to sponsor Sponsored by regional Central America 116 pp., $9.95. Nicaraguans who want to come to the health rights committees and Humanitarian U.S. for science training. Contact SftP if Aid to Nicaraguan Democracy, this coali­ you have any interest in these science tion of nurses, doctors, other health Disarming the Reactors, by Mobiliza­ education projects. workers and students is raising funds to tion for Survival, examines how the U.S. purchase medical equipment, collecting sup­ nuclear energy program supports its Following is a list of organizations engaged plies, journals and research material for nuclear weapons program. MFS, 85 in technical and material aid to Nicaragua: Nicaragua, and educating the American Broadway, Rm. 2109, New York, NY 10003, 4 pp., no charge.

58 Science for the People MISSOURI: Peter Downs, 4201 A AUSTRALIA: Lesley Rogers, CONTACTS Russell, St. Louis, MO 63110. Pharmacology Dept., Monash University, NEW HAMPSHIRE: Val Dusek, Box Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia. Janna 133, Durham, NH 03824. (603) 868-5153. Thompson, Philosophy Dept., La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia. NATIONAL OFFICE: Science for the NEW YORK: New York City Chapter, Brian Martin, Applied Mathematics, Faculty People, 897 Main St., Cambridge, MA c/o Red Schiller, 382 Third St., Apt. 3, of Science, ANU, P.O. Box 4, Canberra, 02139. (617) 547-0370. Brooklyn, NY 11215. (212) 788-6996. ACT 2600, Australia. Tony Dolk, 17 CALIFORNIA: Bay Area Chapter, c/o Stony Brook Chapter, P.O. Box 435, E. Hampden St., Ashfield, NSW, Australia. Setauket, NY 11733. (516) 246-5053. Dave Kadlecek, 2014 Colony, #18, BELGIUM: Gerard Valenduc, Cahiers Mountain View, CA 94043. NORTH CAROLINA: Douglas Bell, Galilee, Place Galilee 6-7, B-1348 Louvain­ DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Walda 2402 Glendale Ave., Durham, NC 27704. la-Neuve, Belgium. (919) 471-9729. Katz Fishman, 6617 Millwood Road, BELIZE: lng. Wilfreda Guerrero, Ministry Bethesda, MD 20817. (301) 320-4034. OREGON: Sheila Smith, 925 NW Merrie of Public Works, Belmopan, Belize, Central Miriam Struck and Scott Schneider, 806 Dr., Corvallis, OR 97330. America. Houston Ave., Takoma Park, MD 20912. RHODE ISLAND: Carolyn Accola, 245 (301) 585-1513. CANADA: Ontario: Science for the President Ave., Providence, Rl 02906. People, P.O. Box 25, Station "A," FLORIDA: Bob Broedel, Progressive (401) 272-6959. Scarborough, Ontario, Canada MIK SB9. Technology, P.O. Box 20049, Tallahassee, TEXAS: Ed Cervenka, 3506 Manchaca Quebec: Doug Boucher, Dept. of Biology, FL 32316. (904) 576-4906. Rd. #211, Austin, TX 78704. (512) McGill University, Montreal, Quebec. (514) IOWA: Paul C. Nelson, 604 Hodge, 477-3203. 392-5906. Bob Cedegren, Dept. of Bio­ Ames, lA 50010. (515) 232-2527. VERMONT: Steve Cavrak, Academic chemistry, University of Montreal, MARYLAND: Pat Loy, 3553 Chesterfield Computing Center, University of Vermont, Montreal 101, Quebec, Canada. British Ave., Baltimore, MD 21213. Burlington, VT 05405. (802) 658-2387; Columbia: Jim Fraser, 848 East lith Ave., 656-3190. Vancouver, British Columbia V5T 2B6, MASSACHUSETTS: Boston Chapter, Canada. 897 Main St., Cambridge, MA 02139. (617) WASHINGTON: Phil Bereano, 316 Gug­ 547-0370. genheim, FS-15, University of Washington, DENMARK: Susse Georg and Jorgen Seattle, WA 98195. (206) 543-9037. Bansler, Stigardsvej 2, DK-2000, MICHIGAN: Ann Arbor Chapter, 4318 Copenhavn, Daneland 01-629945. Michigan Union, Ann Arbor, Ml 48109. WISCONSIN: Rick Cote, 1525 Linden (313) 761-7960. Alan Maki, 1693 Leonard Drive, Madison, WI 53706. (608) EL SALVADOR: Ricardo A. Navarro, St. N.W., Grand Rapids, Ml 49504. 262-4581. Centro Salvadoreno de Tecnologia Apro­ priada, Apdo 1892, San Salvador, El Salvador, Central America. ENGLAND: British Society for Social public about healthcare in Nicaragua and Responsibility in Science, 9 Poland St., the effects of the contra war on the Technical Aid Project for Nicaragua London, WIV3DG, England. 01-437-2728. Nicaraguan people. They are asking Ameri­ American Public Health Association INDIA: M.P. Parameswaran, Parishad cans to protest and investigate the kid­ Occupational Health and Safety Section, Bhavan, Trivandrum 695-001, Kerala, India. napping of the Vice Dean of the medical c/o Northern California Ecumenical Council, school in Managua, Dean Gustavo Saqueira, IRELAND: Hugh Dobbs, 28 Viewmont 942 Market St. 7th Floor, Son Francisco, Park, Waterford, Eire. 051-75757. by contacting the Costa Rican and Hon­ CA 94102 duran embassies in Washington, DC, and ISRAEL: Dr. Najwa Makhoul, Jerusalem by writing to Secretary of State Shultz, NTAP is conducting a material aid campaign Institute for the Study of Science, 6 Bnai 2201 C St. NW, Washington, DC 20520. for the Nicaraguan Occupational Health Brith St., Jerusalem 95146, Israel. and Safety Department. They have pro­ ITALY: Michelangelo DeMaria, Via Gian­ duced an excellent slide show, which is nutri, 2, 00141, Rome, Italy. available for public viewing. They are also Humanitarian Assistance Project for looking for an industrial hygienist or occu­ JAPAN: Genda Gijutsu-Shi Kenkyo-Kai, Independent Agricultural Develop· pational health and safety specialist to work 2-26 Kand-Jinbo Cho, Chiyoda-Ky, Tokyo ment in Nicaragua (HAP·NICA) in Nicaragua. 101, Japan. Peter Rosset, 4096 Natural Science Building, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Ml 48109 MEXICO: Salvador Jara-Guerro, Privada (313) 764-1446 Tepeyac-120-INT, Col. Ventura Puente, Morelia, Mexico. A project of the New World Agriculture NICARAGUA: New World Agriculture Group and Humanitarian Aid for Nicara­ Nicaragua Appropriate Technology Group, Apartado Postal 3082, Managua, gua, HAP-NICA is coordinating aid for (NicAT) Nicaragua, Central America. Tel. 61320. Nicaragua's agricultural sector. They are c/o Mira Brown, 45 Cherry St. N3, Somerville, organizing material aid, such as tractor SWITZERLAND: Bruno Vitale, 8 Rue MA 02144 parts, pumps, seeds, fertilizers; technical Des Bugnons, CH-1217, Meyrin, Switzer­ aid, such as short courses on alternatives NicAT has launched a material aid project land. Tel. (022) 82-50-18. to pesticides, university teaching and devel­ for CITA-INRA, the Center for the Study WEST INDIES: Noel Thomas, Mt. opment project consultation; and research of Appropriate Technology in Esteli, Moritz, Grenada. and development of alternative technolo­ Nicaragua. They have also produced a slide WEST GERMANY: Forum fur Medizin gies appropriate to Nicaragua's agricultural presentation about appropriate technology Und Gesundheitpolitik, Gneisenaustr., 2 economy. and development in Nicaragua. Mehnighof, 100 Berlin 61, West Germany. Wechsel Wirkung, Gneisenaustr., D-1000 Berlin 61, West Germany.

Computing the Future 59