When computers first entered the public consciousness about sixty years ago, many people came to see them as a kind of army of cold, calculating machines bent on taking over. But then the computers made a remarkable transformation – so much so that the people of that era would be surprised to see how well computers turned our subversive resistance into willing surrender.
Computers Versus People
When computers came into the public consciousness, they were expensive, mysterious machines were secreted away in the headquarters of governments and businesses. Sometimes described as “electronic brains”, they became faintly malevolent in the public’s perception, and it’s easy to see why.
Aside from the usual wariness toward anything new and unknown, unease grew with speculations that computers would soon displace many people from jobs. More tangibly, the press published accounts of individuals and their run-ins with computers. (I suspect that calling them “electronic brains” didn’t help, as if these beasts were being zapped to life in bright fluorescent-lit corporate versions of Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory.)
There were tales of people buying things from departments stores on credit, receiving a computerized bill, paying that bill in full, then continuing to receive bills for the amount already paid. People who received incorrect bills wrote letters to the stores explaining that there was a problem, but to no avail. The implacable computers seemed to ignore all human entreaties and continued demanding payments. One frustrated customer sent a duplicate payment just to try to get the computer off his back; the computer responded by sending a letter to the effect of: “You sent a payment despite not owing us anything. Why did you do that?” (I’m sure the computer never noticed the irony in this.)
People fretted. “Will the computers take over?” they asked, as if computers were an army of robotic troopers planning our subjugation, which we were helpless to prevent. The movie Colossus: The Forbin Project, released in 1970, expressed these fears dramatically. Journalists in the 1950s and 60s who interviewed experts on computer topics occasionally asked directly: “Will the computers take over?” The experts usually answered: “No, we can always pull the plug.” The answer felt not entirely reassuring.
Things Don’t Always Turn Out the Way You Expect
Sixty years later, it feels like the computers have taken over, but not as we expected. We had worried about them taking over with superior, mechanical force. We hardly suspected that, instead, the computers would transform themselves from metallic menaces into beguiling seductresses, and that our wariness would turn into desire. Now the computers have indeed taken over, but with our happy invitation.
Their transformation was gradual, so that we hardly noticed.
First, the computers began to offer us small but practical attractions: Credit cards that let us buy things impulsively. Automatic teller machines that did away with “banker’s hours”. And we grew to not hate computers.
Then they started coming out of hiding, in the form of microcomputers that we could buy and bring home. We got to know computers a little better, and saw that they were basically OK. Sometimes cute, sometimes confusing, and at times frustrating, but not the denizens of our dark fears. Those computers entertained us with video games at home and animated movies in the theatres. And we grew to like computers.
Later on came the marvellous innovation called the “internet”, and computers offered us a portal to world of interesting information, captivating pastimes, and the addictions of social networking. We didn’t just bring computers into our lives, we put our lives online into them. And we fell in love with computers. It’s an affection that we now see out in the open. Observe how people hold and interact with their mobile phones. They’re not just operating them as if they were utilitarian machines; no they are touching and cradling them with a soft fondness that grows out of a deep attachment.
The Takeover is Complete
And what of the experts who told us sixty years ago, not entirely reassuringly, that we could always unplug the computers? Today those experts are telling us, not entirely convincingly, that it is we who need to unplug from the computers.
Sleepless Afternoon 