The Computerized Society

Fülszöveg

published by Penguin Books The computer is already transforming society. Whole areas of everyday life - fináncé, telecommunications, transport, even the running of govemment itself - aretotally dependent on computers. These vast logical systems are doubling in power - and indispensability - every year. Yet our understanding of them trails far behind. We all know that the science-fiction world in which no one needs to work is unreaí, but just how ükely is it that office work will be done at home in the 1980s or that we shall shop by computerized television? Will our priváté lives really be under constant surveillance? And will data banks take all the spontaneity out of life? The authors, both expert systems analysts, here take the most thorough look yet at the individual and social implications of the 'computer explosion'. They show, in the c oening section of the book, what computer technology can already do, what it is already doing, and what it is soon likely to do. But they... Tovább

Fülszöveg

published by Penguin Books The computer is already transforming society. Whole areas of everyday life - fináncé, telecommunications, transport, even the running of govemment itself - aretotally dependent on computers. These vast logical systems are doubling in power - and indispensability - every year. Yet our understanding of them trails far behind. We all know that the science-fiction world in which no one needs to work is unreaí, but just how ükely is it that office work will be done at home in the 1980s or that we shall shop by computerized television? Will our priváté lives really be under constant surveillance? And will data banks take all the spontaneity out of life? The authors, both expert systems analysts, here take the most thorough look yet at the individual and social implications of the 'computer explosion'. They show, in the c oening section of the book, what computer technology can already do, what it is already doing, and what it is soon likely to do. But they arenotnaYve technological optimists: in the second section they analyse the hazards of such a world; and finally they detail preventive action which must be taken now if computers aieto realizethe dream, not the nightmare, of society. 'A thorough, immensely comprehensive, objective, yet enormously readable exploration and analysis' - Gerald Leach in the Observer Cover design by Giannetto Coppola ill For copyright reasons this edition is not for sale in the U.S.A. or Canada Vissza