Bulletin Spring‧Summer 1978

upon us. If we really want to make it a major policy to raise the average levels of information in the world beyond the rate at which they would normally rise, we shall have the tools with which to do it. It will not be inexpensive, but it can be done. It is a human question, not a technological one. Effect on Education I said a few minutes ago that the stage is set for fundamental changes in education. I noted that the goal of life-long education is within reach, because the possibilities of home study are enormously increased by the new tools, and the possibilities of individual study are increased by systems like compu terized instruction. The tools are at hand to support one of the strongest currents in education at the present time— to move more of schooling out of school, beyond the classroom and the campus to the villages where there are no schoolhouses and the adults have been bypassed by education, and to adults everywhere who must learn new skills. In other words, to bring school to the people, rather than people to school. To put a larger share of the respon sibility on the student, rather than the teacher. To let curricula be designed more often for individual and local needs. The patterns of the Open University, the Tanzania self-managed schools, the Mexican tele secundaria, the School without Walls are sure to reappear in many places. By the year 2000 The Chinese University may be giving as many external courses and degrees as internal ones. The Effect of Computers? I want to raise a few questions about the com puter. This is undoubtedly one of the most potent machines of our time because it provides the best opportunity we now know of to process very large amounts of information. Furthermore, more than any other communicating machine it is capable of being an intellectual partner to man. It can be programmed to help him handle and manipulate the information he needs in his thinking. But what will its larger effects be upon society? Will it create two classes, as distinct as the Haves and Have-Nots— those who can use computers, and those who cannot? Will the patterns of programming information have any such effect upon man's way of thinking as printing did? What effect will it have on human relationships if it takes over as many of the functions of our lives as it is expected t o --if it handles our money, our mail, our purchases, our tax records, our traffic records, our orders and reservations, and records every detail of our life histories for government and commercial use? How can we make sure that these enormous human data banks will work for us rather than against us? Frankly, I a ma little uneasy about that mass of infor mation on you and me, so readily available. And secondly, how can we organize our information resources 一 libraries, data banks, school systems- - so that we can make them most effectively usable to the most people, by computer services? It will not be like the patterns of information we have become used to. Public vs. Private Goods Let me raise one more question before I sit down. We sometimes forget what kind of product an Age of Information will give us. One of the largest industries within society will be devoted very largely to producing what might be called public rather than private goods. There is a rather extraordinary quality of information. If I give you an apple or a book or ten dollars, you have more and I have less. If I sell you my automobile, you pay me something, and I have more money but no automobile. But if I give you a piece of information, you have more of it and I have no less. In other words, the amount will be mul tiplied, not divided. There can be no private owner ship of information, once it is communicated. This is somewhat contrary to a very old tradition in human kind. What will it do to our way of thinking and living, and our sense of property values, to produce so much public rather than private goods? That will be enough questions for today. We have been talking for a long time about the future, and it is frustrating- - especially for those of us who are used to demanding facts, aseptic experiments, and significance tests. But let us not disdain talk of the future for that reason. The evidence we have seen here today adds up to at least one conclusion we can hold at a high level of confidence: some very import ant changes are taking place in human communica tion, and important changes in human behaviour are likely to follow. I am going to leave you with that, and with two pieces of advice from men whose names you will know. One is Albert Einstein. "The future?" he said. “Of course I am interested in the future. It is where I plan to spend the rest of my life!" The other is Marshall McLuhan. “It is perfectly natural," he wrote, ‘‘to go on making 19th century plans for 20th century communication. It is also absolutely fatal!" 36