Bulletin Spring‧Summer 1980

Lord Todd importance which should be attached to eac h of the multitude of technological advances w e have seen in this hundred to hundred and fifty years of science- based technology but I think I would say that none of them has had such an all-pervading influence as the invention of the steam-engine——or at least no t until very recently. The great thing about the steam engine is that by replacing brawn by mechanical power it freed man from much drudgery and, b y enabling him also to perform things hitherto undreamed of, forced upon him a social revolution in which he still flounders. That floundering has, of course, been made even more serious during the decade which has just ended by the so-called “oil crisis". Ever since the Industrial Revolution man has proceeded with the utmost prodigality to use (and to misuse) more an d more energy and has derived it almost entirely by burning the so-called fossil fuels——coal, oil and natural gas. The immediate reasons for the tremendous rise in oil prices during the seventies need not concern us here. What does concern us is bringing home (even if rather slowly) to people that supplies of fossil fuels (and of minerals for that matter) are no t inexhaustible and that sooner or later alternatives will have to be found or we will have to move to a society in which energy consumption is much lower. This in itself must bring about much change in our society but the effects may be more rapid in showing themselves because it happens that we are today on the threshold of a new industrial revolution in many ways comparable to that brought in by the steam-engine. Just as the latter provided a replacement for brawn so do the computer and the microprocessor provide a replacement for brain and bring us to the age of robots. This is not a matter of imagination or crystal ball-gazing——the robot age has already begun not only in the world of information but in industry. (The Fiat company has proudly announced its factory in which cars are assembled without a human operative being involved at any stage). What does this mean? Some would reply at once that it will lead to vast unemployment which will be permanent since the number of workers required, both skilled and unskilled, will be greatly reduced. But will this really be so? Some temporary unemployment may well be caused in the early stages of change but if we look at the past we see that what has happened when great changes occur is that people are still employed but in doing new things which have become necessary through the changes which have occurred. Thus, stage coach drivers lost their jobs but engine drivers appeared in their place while earlier the makers of spears and bow s were replaced by gunsmiths. In the end more people found employment in the new situation than in the old. This may well prove to be the case in the microprocessor-led revolution which we are now entering but it seems to m e certain that the amount of leisure time available to the individual will increase just as it always has done in the past. Can we cope with increased leisure? This is a serious question, for recent experience of ever- increasing leisure associated with rising living standards and unemployment among the young is not very encouraging. Indeed, to avoid widespread social unrest due to further increase in leisure we may well 1 1