Fall 1998 Computers and Society
Tuesdays 6 - 9:40 PM in 113 Rackham: GST 2710, Section 990 and AGS 3360, Section 983
Mondays 5:30 - 9:10 PM at NWAC: GST 2710, Section 984
Course web site: http://www.cll.wayne.edu/isp/drbowen/casf98/
Last updated: 11/28/98
Link back to course Welcome...

Computers and Society
David Bowen
Science and Technology Division
Interdisciplinary Studies Program

The course textbook presents some discussions of the social issues surrounding the increasijng use of computers. In some cases, such as the possibility that computers will destroy jobs, I feel that the textbook does not tell the whole story, or present the full range of opinion. Here is my own attempt. You should understand that this comes from a technological optimist, that is, one who believes that technology solves more human problems than it causes. I do also try to indicate where there is disagreement, and what the opposing arguments are. But I have to recognize the possibility that I may not be fair to the opponents.

Are computers "just another technology", like agriculture or railroads, or is there something about computers that makes them different than other technologies? My feeling about this is that, to some extent, computers are like other technologies, and will have similar effects. In this respect, we can learn from the past. But computers are the first (only?) general-purpose technology, and therefore have more potential than other forms of technology While computers are not at present intelligent, they are more like humans than are other technologies, such as the automobile or television. Therefore, we should consider the possibility that the effects of computers will be different than the effects of earlier technologies.

Issue: Will there be enough jobs for people?
This is probably the most widespread concern about technology in general, and computers in particular. Technology in the workplace leads to greater efficiency and productivity (or at least it is supposed to!); that is, to fewer workers being needed for the same output. If technology puts people out of work, won't unemployment increase disastrously?

First, here is how technology can reduce employment in a given industry. One of the quantities that economists talk about is "labor productivity." There are other types of productivity -- investment productivity, for example -- but labor productivity is the most common, and is often shortened to "productivity." Basically, this tries to measure how much labor it takes to produce a given product. I haven't actually seen it defined, but I suspect it is units of output divided by hours of labor to produce that output. Many economic statistics are defined so that the basic value is 100, and productivity is defined this way. If it takes one hour of labor to produce one VCR, let's call that a productivity of 1 VCR divided 1 hour of labor, times 100 (we will use "*" for multiplication), so that  (1/1) * 100 = 100, so the productivity is 100. Now, suppose an improved assembly line is installed, and it now takes half an hour of labor to produce a VCR. The new productivity is (1 VCR divided by 0.5 hours) * 100 = (1/.5) * 100 = 200. The productivity has doubled, from 100 to 200, because it takes half as much labor time to produce the same output.

Now, what effect will this have on employment? If the same number of VCRs is produced, the labor force can be cut in half. But wait, it is not that simple. Labor costs are often the highest part of production costs, so the higher productivity will cut the manufacturer's costs, even after the cost of the new assembly line is factored in, and if competition is working, lower prices will result. The law of supply and demand will then increase demand. If the demand doubles, enough more VCRs will be sold so that the same number of workers will be needed. It sometimes happens that demand more than doubles, so that even more workers are hired. This is what happened with Henry Ford and the Model A. Automation was installed, prices were cut, production and sales soared, and employment also increased dramatically, even though there was less worker time per automobile. On the other hand, if demand increases but does not double, some workers, but less than half, will be laid off.

But there is more. If consumers spend less money on VCRs, they have more money to spend on other things, so demand will increase in other sectors of the economy. If the cost of a VCR goes from $200 to $100, you have another $100 to spend on other things. Further, historically, some of the increased profit from higher productivity has been shared with workers in the form of higher wages and salaries. If this happens in many industries, overall demand in the economy will also rise. To continue the paycheck example, the amount of the paycheck may also go up.

(On the average, a certain percentage of the gross income of all companies goes to workers. This percentage has fluctuated up and down over time. Currently, this percentage is about as low as it has ever been in the U.S., so a lower percentage of the savings due productivity goes to workers these days, but they still get some. Economists note that union membership has a strong upward influence on workers' wages, so perhaps the current strengthening of unions means that workers will be getting a larger fraction of cost savings and the proceeds from increased sales.)

Rising income produces more demand. And the largest effect seems to be that the demand is for new products and services, in industries that haven't existed before. Most of the occupations held today did not exist a hundred years ago (Society and Technological Change, author Rudi Volti, Page 145).

So the result has been, over hundreds of years, that new technology means that employment levels rise. While there are no guarantees that this will continue to be the case, it seems that, if we all continue to want more things and more services, overall employment will keep pace.

Now, does this mean that there are no problems? No, there are problems. Existing jobs disappear. Even if those jobs are replaced with new jobs, people will still be put out of work and have to find new jobs. Of course, if changing jobs becomes commonplace, at least some people will anticipate being laid off, and perhaps change jobs on their own. But no doubt, the experience of being laid off will continue, and along with that the negative consequences.

First, there is the emotional trauma of losing a job, especially if you had "settled in" and thought you were all set until retirement. Maybe the work process and skill levels had not been kept up to date. I have been fired (although in education it is called "non-renewal of the position") several times. The first time, in particular, depressed me for months. And it was never pleasant, never just something you shrug off. It would be nice if we could find a way to lessen this trauma.

But even without that, there is real uncertainty for the laid-off employee, and probably lost time, and often the disruption of moving and breaking up relationships with neighbors, and so on. And beyond that, there is retraining.

Economists lump all of this, or at least the economic effects, into the term "displacement." Jobs disappear in one sector and are displaced into another, and the workforce has to follow.

I don't see an up side to any of this, except that the retraining keeps skills current. But, if this is going to be a continuing and foreseeable effect of our type of economy and society, then I personally feel that we should try to anticipate these effects and take social (this usually means governmental) actions to help workers make these transitions. Unemployment insurance, retraining programs and similar aids come to mind. And employers should help employees keep their skills current, and government support or pressure may be necessary to make this happen. But this paragraph is my own view only, and I don't see society or government going in that direction. The rationale for not having government act is that only the individual faces the real pressure, and can find an efficient path to keeping employed. In other words, according to this argument, the people running the training programs, and even the employers they ask for advice, don't know what the real labor market is, since they are not unemployed, and so they do not train in the areas that are really needed. There is probably some truth to this argument, and perhaps retraining should not be very job-specific, but more skills-oriented. Training in the use of computers, for example, will almost always help people find jobs these days.

Issue: Permanent underclass
If workers are going to be responsible for keeping their own skills up to date, and if this is going to be expensive, then there is a real possibility that if people fall behind, or even start out behind, that they will not be able to afford to catch up, and will be permanently trapped in low-wage jobs, or worse, become permanently "unemployable."

I feel that a permanent underclass would mean needless human misery, a waste of human resources, and would, especially if the underclass became sizable, present a danger to society. I feel that there must be support for those who start out behind, or who fall behind. The support must enable them to bring their skills up to date, at least enough to be able to compete for good jobs. I am concerned that the current level of support may not be adequate, and that much of society does not seem to care.

NOTE: It is often assumed that a permanent underclass, if it developed, would be composed of African-Americans, or at least predominantly so. In the form presented above, anyone who started out behind or who fell behind would become trapped. So, while there are concerns about racial justice here, I personally feel that this is fundamentally not a racial issue. But there is plenty of disagreement here.

Issue: Racial / ethnic / cultural equality
African-Americans, as a group, do not use computers and the Internet at the same levels as other groups in American society. (There are of course, many individual African-Americans who use computers at the highest level of skill and intensity.) There are probably other groups in similar situations. What are the causes of this lower average level of usage? Does this lower level of usage mean that African-Americans in general will have additional handicaps in competing for jobs? Should we be concerned about this? Who is the "we" that should be concerned? Should there be any action programs to counter this trend? What actions could be taken? Who should take them?

Issue: Invasion of privacy
There are several aspects to invasion of privacy.

A. Our information on a computer might be read by someone that we thought would never be able to see the information. A typical case is an employer reading information on a computer used at work. The issue here is fairly straightforward; the employer own the computer and has the legal authority to examine the computer, including personal email and files.Some employers grant employees the right to keep private some or all of their computer information. In the absence of such a policy, assume that your employer can see anything s/he wants to.

B. Someone might be able to intercept our computer communications, such as email or electronic purchasing, perhaps obtaining embarrassing or damaging information, or information such as a Social Security Number or credit card account. While this can happen at present, it is actually rare, even though it makes the headlines whenever it happens, or whenever somebody thinks it could possibly happen. In order for someone to intercept computer communications, s/he must (1) have exceptional computer skills, (2) have some reason to focus on you, and (3) have a considerable amount of time to spend on this. Most of us are not that rich or that famous to have these resources focused on our humble selves. If someone wanted your credit card number, it would be easier to tap your telephone line. If this does become a real concern in the future, there is already available encryption technology to encode your information so that only the intended recipient can decode it. This software is available on the Internet at no cost. In fact, this encryption software is so powerful that the government has proposed making it illegal, but it is already so widely available that this is impractical.

C. Someone might be able to assemble partial information from different sources, and put together a file on us that would be more detailed and complete than we would find acceptable. This is quite a bit more realistic. With earlier technology, we could safeguard privacy by compartmentalizing information on separate computers. However, modern database technology makes it easy to combine information from different sources. False information has been included, presumably by accident. Companies that provide credit risk information on consumers gather this information. Laws have been passed giving citizens the right to know what is in these files. It is not clear that these safeguards will be adequate. Another type of company tries to assemble information to resell it, for example to marketing companies. This has so far come to light when the companies start to market their information product. In one recent case, such a company agreed not to sell Social Security Numbers. Many State governments sell the information from their drivers license and motor vehicle registration databases. When you use information facilities such as the World Wide Web, quite detailed information is routinely available about what you read and for how long. This information is actually not tied to you personally, but to the computer you use.

At this point, there is a large potential for assembling information on citizens about their preferences for products, colors, sizes, and similar information useful for marketing. While this will be unwelcome for many people, others welcome the idea that companies may be designing products with them in mind. There is less potential for assembling harmful or damaging information, and where this has happened and become known, legal safeguards have been enacted.

Issue: Falsifying information and/or the source of the information
Computers are great tools for processing information. "Processing" usually means some kind of change in the information, and this can include falsifying the information. It is also possible to make information appear to come from a source other than the actual source, or for a person to appear to be someone else. Of course, none of these are new human endeavors, but the amount of information that computers can process makes a larger scale possible, and also makes more perfect fakes possible, With photographs, an expert can detect a fake manufactured by physically altering the photograph, but with a computer, a perfect fake is possible.

However, there is now publicly and freely available software that can encode computer information and provide a software key, so that someone decoding the information can be virtually certain that the information came from the named originator, and that it was not changed along the way. This is called "public key encryption". And by the way, the "virtually" above means that even if all of the world's computers worked on nothing else, it would still take hundreds of years for to corrupt the information.

Issue: Pornography and children
It is possible for children using the Internet to find on purpose or stumble upon by accident, pornography to which most people would not want them exposed. It is probably more likely that they find out about such Web Sites from friends. But there are many other ways that children can come into contact with pornography today; movies, TV, magazines and books are widely available. However, pornography via the Internet can be easier to find, and often is of a more extreme nature than other sources, especially sources that children would be likely to come in contact with. There is software that is supposed to intercept Internet pornography before it gets to the computer screen. This software has passwords so that parents can see what they like, and there is always the possibility that a clever child can bypass this feature or somehow find the password. Historically, it has always been impossible for censors to keep up with the inventiveness of artists and even sleazeballs. For example, some of this software blocks information about the American Revolution because it might corrupt young minds (the American Revolution, I am tempted to add, is wonderfully corrupting!).

The Communications Decency Act attempted to make illegal any pornography that could be seen by children. The Supreme Courts has unanimously ruled that this approach is unconstitutional. Hence the interest in the censoring software.

One suggestion for parents in this area is to keep the computer in an open area, where children can or might be be observed in the course of normal family business.

A related problem under this heading is the ability of pedophiles (adults who have a sexual desire for children) to find and identify children via the Internet. There are many Web Sites set up especially for children. Pedophiles will go to these Sites, and pretend to be children. Children, once found in this way, are often trusting of others, and ready to give out information about themselves.

Here again, keeping the computer in an open area is a good suggestion for parents. There is also no substitute for discussions between parents and their children.

Issue: Pollution and environmental degradation
Technology is frequently blamed for degrading the environment. Computer technology can have some negative effects; solvents used in the manufacture of computers can damage the environment if they are released openly. But generally, computers have a positive effect on the environment. If we did not move information via computers, it would have to travel physically, and that almost certainly would involve an increase in pollution levels. If telecommuting becomes a significant force in the economy, that will reduce automotive pollution.

In another sense, computers are helping the cause of improving the environment. Computers are widely used in modeling the environment, and this modeling has done much to raise concerns about nuclear winter and global warming.

Issue: Dependence and the potential for disasters
There are people that feel that an overdependence on technology can lead to disaster. This is not a widespread public concern today. Probably the closest current widespread concern is the effect of technology on employment, discussed above. One point to make about technological dependence and disasters is that any dependence, not just a dependence on technology, can cause disaster. Certainly we have had enough recent news about natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires, volcanoes, droughts, famines, floods and tornadoes to make us aware of this. In some cases, it is true that the technology in use at the time has made the effects worse. For example, levees have been blamed for increasing some of the flood damage along the Mississippi several years ago. And agricultural practices have been blamed of creating droughts in Africa. But still, natural disasters have always been around, and not all of the damage they cause can be blamed on technology.

From another point of view, if we were to destroy all of our technology and go back to very early forms of society, that would also have a disastrous effect. Our technology, including agriculture, sanitation and manufacturing, makes it possible to sustain a much larger human population than can be sustained by early forms of society. "Back to nature" would probably kill off at least 90% of the population of the entire earth, and it would probably be more like 99.9%. No technologically-induced disaster has ever had that large an effect.

The Y2K problem has some people convinced that computers will cause a technological disaster. What is the Y2K problem? Many people understand the basics now. Early computers stored dates as two decimal digits, and assumed that all dates were in the twentieth century. 98 meant 1998, and so on. So, when the date becomes January 1, 2000, only the two digits 00 in the year will be calculated, and since all dates are assumed to be in the twentieth century, that must be January 1, 1900. If this happens on widespread basis, there could be serious problems.

First of all, how did we get here? Were the early computer engineers just incompetent? Not quite. Part of the problem seems to be that they did their job too well. Let me explain. In the early days, memory locations were very expensive, perhaps hundreds of dollars apiece. Storing extra digits could have cost thousands of dollars. People were pretty sure that the early computers would be outmoded, and they were, but they also thought that the early software would be outmoded. It wasn't. It was good enough that it is still in use today, even though the people that wrote it and knew how it worked have often died, probably retired, and in any case forgotten about it. Two-digit years became the norm, up until the 1990's. That was probably dumb -- somebody should have recognized what the problems were. Actually, some people did warn us, but they were ignored. Everything was working so well. In the 1990's, computer engineers realized that the problem could no longer be ingored.

As we have hinted, the Y2K problem occurs at several levels. The hardware clock may only store two digits. The operating software that reads and updates the clock may only use two digits, so even if the hardware has four digits, the software can reduce that to two. Then, the application (Word, Excel, etc.) may only use two digits even if the hardware and system software use four. And finally, the computer user may configure the spreadsheets and databases to only use two, even if the other levels use four. So, Y2K problems can occur at the hardware level (lowest level), the operating system level, the application level, or the document (end-user) level (highest level). And a problem at any one level will affect all of the higher levels, since the higher levels depend on the lower levels for date information.

The Y2K problem really happens when a computer or a person takes an action based on the date in a computer. There are two large classes of computer programs that will do this on a wide basis, and that therefore could possibly cause widespread problems. These classes of computer programs are:

  1. Embedded programs that schedule hardware operationm, such as elevators, climate control systems,cellular phones, automobiles, VCRs and a wide variety of other systems and appliances.
  2. Mainframe computer databases.

Category 1, embedded computers, can cause problems if they schedule hardware actions based on dates, and the dates are wrong. For example, if an climate control system is scheduled to turn the fans on at some point in the year 2000, and it only has two digits and interprets 00 as 1900, it may then think that the fans have already been turned on, and fail to turn them on when needed. Similarly, elevators can apparently be turned on and off, and may, according to some people, get stuck between floors.

In category 2, many databases are used to schedule actions. Deliveries of food and other products are scheduled on the basis of databases of stocks in stores. Manufacturing runs are often scheduled on a similar basis. I know of one specific case in which a computer in an insurance company was scheduled to delete records on lapsed policies three years after they lapsed. In 1997, records for policies that lapsed were scheduled to be deleted in 2000, which the computers, using two digits only, interpreted as 1900. since it was then 1997, well past the date for the records to be deleted, the records were deleted immediately. Customers who had only missed a payment were not amused to be told that they did not have a policy at all. Commercial customers were not amused, either. It was a customer relations disaster for the insurance company.

The examples in category 2 have been corporate-level files. User-level files can also disrupt processes, but not on as wide a basis.

Now, there is a very wide range of opinion on the level of problems that Y2K can cause. Here are the most extreme opinions from computer professionals that I have heard:

These extremes could not be further apart! My own opinion is that there will be some disruptions due to Y2K, and some of this could be very serious for some people. For example, if your bank shuts down your accounts because of Y2K, that could be very serious for you. If you need cash from your ATM before regular banking hours resume after New Year's Eve, and your ATM is shut down by Y2K, that could be serious for you. However, I do not see that there will be the extremely serious disruptions such as no food being delivered, across the country. I would not be surprised to have widespread inconvenience and delay, but on the other hand, I also wouldn't be surprised if there were only scattered inconvenience and delay. Many companies have already prevented the most serious Y2K problems, but on the other hand I definitely would be surprised if society got together and found and prevented all of the problems.

On a personal level, what can happen to your computer work? Word processing documents most likely have very few problems. They have dates, but they are passive dates or ASCII codes, not used in calculations. Spreadsheets can use dates in calculations. For example, in my business, I have a spreadsheet that calculates how many days have elapsed without my invoices being paid. This takes today's date and subtracts off the date that the invoice was submitted. If today's date on January 1, 2000, uses only the 00 and treats that as 1900, I will have some pretty outlandish dates in this column! Spreadsheet users should be careful to enter dates typing in all four digits in the years. But most spreadsheets do not use dates this way, and anyway they will not affect very many people. My spreadsheet, for example, does not automatically send out letters if invoices are way overdue. Nothing serious is likely to happen if there is a problem with this spreadsheet.

Databases are more apt to be a problem. For the on-line math tutor, we have a database that says how long it has been since the last time a particular user made a "hit" on the web site. It does this by subtracting the past date and time from the present date and time. If this time gets to be too long, we time you out and you must log in again to continue. This is to protect people in computer labs. If a user walks away, we don't want someone else to come up and continue, with the system thinking it was the same person. So this system could be fooled. The problem would be that people would not get timed out. Now I will check this database, and log people out manually if they are not getting timed out. So even if problems occur, human intervention will repair most problems within a few days.

For a whole computer system, such as the CLL web server that I am in charge of, I have checked that the hardware and the web server software are "Y2K compliant" (no Y2K problems). There are lots of secondary programs on this computer, however. Will I want to check that everything is working right, soon after midnight on 12/31/1999? You bet? Am I nervous that some of our users will be upset and angry? Yes.