|| INTERVIEW #7: TECHNOLOGY, PART 1 C| O| P| (It was early May when I next heard from Kirk. I Y| began to wonder, since this was now the second time that R| he had actually called me, whether these interviews were I| more important to him than he let on. G| So now at about 3 P.M. under a dark, threatening sky H| and realizing that I never knew what to expect, I arrived T| at the same house where I had been now twice before, but || with the distinct feeling that its rambling rooms had 1| more to reveal. 9| And I was not disappointed. This time Kirk met me at 8| the door, poured me a glass of moderately decent cognac 9| and led me down the hall. We entered a room with subdued || lighting. I could see a computer monitor glowing in the B| corner. On the screen was a very symmetrical geometric Y| shape of a tiny circle surrounded by a larger circle || surrounded by another still larger circle and so on until R| these repeating, concentric circles filled the screen. I| Certainly this was not the reason he had called. C| He sat down at the computer and motioned me to a H| chair next to him. The light of the screen shown on his A| intense face and eyes, as he seemed to want to merge with R| the work that he creating.) D| TALBOT: Surely this is not why you invited me here. || To see this simple shape drawn on the terminal. (I asked d| boldly, as much as if to prod him, as for any other e| reason.) G| ELBOD: Well in fact it is, or at least to see its A| cousins and its aunts (He said with a smile, recalling a R| line from Gilbert and Sullivan. Then sounding like an I| impresario he continued:) I will transform what you see S| here into a very intricate, non-symmetrical, organic || shape just by making copies of these routine circles and D| overlaying them on themselves. O| (He proceeded to do just that. He overlaid an exact B| copy on top of the first set of circles, moving the L| second copy slightly until it created a moire pattern. E| Then he made a copy of that complete image and repeated || this process for about half an hour. At the end of that A| time I saw something similar to what I had seen in the L| darkroom the session before. The pattern was varied, L| organic, colorful, and like nothing I had ever seen.) || ELBOD: (He turned to me as he printed out hard copy R| very slowly on a color printer.) The equipment I'm using I| costs about $800.00. Twenty-five years ago this same G| equipment might have cost over a hundred thousand H| dollars. It seems that the price of computers has been T| coming down roughly a factor of two, every two years. At S| the rate the technology is going some very powerful || computers with huge memories will be quite affordable R| within my life time. E| TALBOT: (So now we were going to talk about S| computers. I hoped he was not another one of these hi- E| tech fanatics who believed that the computer was the end R| all and be all of the modern age.) Do you really think V| that the computer is that important? (I said E| incredulously.) D| ELBOD: It is as important to civilization as the || invention of movable type by Gutenberg or the steam || engine by Watt. C| However, it is a general machine meaning that it can O| be used for a number of different purposes, for good as P| well as for ill. Just like Gutenberg's press which Y| printed up thousands of indulgences for the Pope and also R| many copies of Luther's 95 Theses which objected to those I| indulgences, the computer can be used for opposite G| reasons. It could become a tool of the government to H| create a 1984 type of Big Brother who monitors our T| actions. But it could also be a powerful tool in the || hands of individuals who want to resist large government 1| from controlling our lives. 9| The reason I know the computer is powerful and will 8| change our way of living is that it's applications are so 9| vast. The mathematical fractals we talked about last time || could not have been drawn, except in very crude detail, B| without a computer because of the hundreds of thousands Y| of calculations involved. So it has become an important || tool for science. Computer assisted design (CAD) and R| computer assisted manufacturing (CAM) are now major I| applications in the industrial sector. Most traffic C| lights in major cities are computer monitored and H| controlled. The airplane reservation system (SABRE) can A| reserve a ticket while the system is used simultaneously R| by thousands of other people. The Europeans are D| developing a new traffic control system, called || "Prometheus" which will communicate with individual cars d| to speed the flow of traffic so that governments won't e| have to build new roads. Billions of dollars each day are G| transferred electronically throughout the world, using A| computers. Huge data bases, available by phone, allow R| information searches that were unthinkable a few years I| ago. And I can give you many more examples. S| TALBOT: Please don't. I get the idea. But all this || seems to leave the individual in the dust. Just more D| technology which he or she cannot relate to. More O| alienation, as you said last time, where we feel removed B| from the things we must use everyday. Removed because L| they have become so technical that we cannot possibly E| understand them. || ELBOD: (He raised an eyebrow. I could not tell if it A| was in humor or disdain. But I feared the worse.) You L| anticipate another topic that I want to explore at some L| point, but for the sake of argument I grant your point. || Yes, we have become extremely technological. And the R| average person cannot understand many of the everyday I| products that he or she uses. But computers may be part G| of the solution rather than the problem. H| TALBOT: How so? T| ELBOD: Do you feel intimidated by the telephone? S| TALBOT: No, I feel comfortable with it. || ELBOD: Exactly. The telephone is very sophisticated R| and yet most of us feel that we more or less understand E| it. The phone system combines fiber optics, satellites, S| computers, etc. The point is that most of this technology E| is hidden from us. It is simple to use; deliberately R| designed that way by the phone company to make it easy to V| "reach out and touch someone" so that the phone company E| can make money. But nevertheless it is an everyday D| example of a good design which uses high technology. || TALBOT: So where do computers come in. || ELBOD: I believe that computers can be designed so C| that many high tech devices will "seem" (he emphasized O| the word) to be simple. In fact the computer will be P| doing the work. A well designed computer "interface" - Y| God how I hate that word- will be transparent to the R| user, to use computer lingo. (He laughed.) Norman makes I| this point in the book "The Psychology of Everyday G| Design." And one of the very powerful aspects of H| computers is that they can be added onto many existing T| machines, piggy backed as it were. So the potential is || there to create this computer "link" between man and 1| machine, to make the modern world seem less intimidating. 9| TALBOT: Isn't this just as illusion? 8| ELBOD: In a sense. But the feeling of being in 9| touch, not to mention being able to use something more || easily, quickly, effectively, is worth while and the B| power gained by the user is not an illusion. Y| For example, satellite and computer technology may || be very important to underdeveloped countries. In short R| the computer will help gain them power over their lives. I| Indonesia has linked its three thousand islands by radio C| and telephone via it own satellite system. This modern H| technology provided a cheap and efficient way to tie A| together a far-flung country, which would not have been R| possible in an earlier age. D| (Just then we heard a crack of thunder. A storm was || moving in. Kirk turned off the computer. I watched this d| marvelous image that he had created, fade from the e| screen.) G| Here's another example, although not a computer one: A| The birth control pill has empowered women. It has given R| them much more control over their bodies. I doubt if many I| people fully understand the biology of the pill, but that S| does not necessarily prevent women from using it || intelligently. They can still learn about its risks, D| advantages, consequences. O| One of the major problems facing the world is B| overpopulation. Feminist groups have realized that women L| world-wide will need to learn to use this or another E| birth control technology. By so doing, women will have || gained more control over their own lives and the world A| more control over its destiny. L| But back to the subject at hand, the computers. I L| want to talk about it from a different angle. It seems to || me that the world is facing a number of serious problems, R| like overpopulation, which must be solved relatively I| quickly or we will be in big trouble. G| TALBOT: Such as? H| ELBOD: The environment for one. To quote Rachel T| Carson: "Only within the moment of time represented by S| the present century has one species - man- acquired || significant power to alter the nature of his world." R| With 5 billion people on the Earth, and possibly E| double that in a hundred years, we will contaminate S| everything we depend on for life, if we don't start E| planning for the future. Acid rain, greenhouse affect, R| thinning ozone layer, toxic wastes, ocean dumping, mass V| extinctions, disruption of the food chain will eventually E| destroy us if we don't do something. D| Right now the technology is a major part of the || problem. However, it could be otherwise. The difficulty || is that technology seems to have a will of its own. If C| something can be done we tend to do it, usually with no O| thought to the consequences. But we must tame the P| technology or it will destroy us. Y| However, I believe the answer is more technology not R| less. We will need more technology to monitor the Earth I| for example, because right now we don't know even basic G| facts, such as how much rain falls on the planet every H| year. In the mid--1990s a massive technological venture T| is planned to change this situation. The Earth Observing || System (EOS) will be a huge network of remote sensing 1| equipment to monitor the Earth's condition. It's cost 9| will be shared by Europe, Japan and the U.S. It will be 8| in operation for fifteen years. The data it produces will 9| be stored in a form easily accessible to computers. So || EOS is an example of high-technology being part of the B| the solution not part of the problem. Y| And certainly new consumer technologies and new || industrial technologies can be developed. But they must R| be the right kind of technology which has minimal impact I| on the environment. C| The original purpose of technology, when H| civilization began, was to combat and control the forces A| of nature. Humans merely wanted to survive. No one ever R| dreamed we would be so successful and the human race D| would grow so large, that people and their technology || would threaten the planet. But this is what has happened. d| So the question comes down to this: Are we masters e| or slaves to the technology? Can we make the technology G| bend to our needs? A| Many people say that the genie cannot be put back R| into the bottle, but this idea poses a lot of questions. I| First of all the notion of genie and bottle is a non- S| scientific image that is held out as some kind of truth. || We may need another image to combat that notion. The D| obvious place to look is in history. Are there examples O| of mature technologies that have been deliberately B| retired, that is not used by nations? L| Three examples come to mind. First: the Japanese E| decided in the 17th century to do away with firearms and || go back to the sword as the weapon of choice. And so they A| did. They gradually phased out guns and the manufacture L| of guns, until forced by the West in the 19th century, to L| take up guns again. Second: Although chemicals weapons || existed, none were used in World War Two even though the R| conflict was very bloody. Three: We are now in the I| process of phasing out CFC chemicals because of their G| damage to the ozone layer. And though this may take H| longer than we like, there still is a world-wide T| agreement on this matter. S| So it is possible to put the genie back into the || bottle, under certain circumstances. But the problem R| today is that we are not talking about one technology, E| but rather a whole host of technologies which must be S| abandoned, curtailed, or modified E| And we need to integrate any existing or new R| technology with the world's ecosystem. This is a mammoth V| task. But the computer may be the primary tool to do just E| that. D| It can help design new products, new materials, new || ways of dealing with waste, more efficient ways of using || fuel. The environmental consequences can be included in C| the planning process from the beginning. Plus a slew of O| other things which I will talk about next time I see you. P| TALBOT: I can't decide if you are optimistic or Y| pessimistic. R| ELBOD: Neither can I. But it does seem that at the I| very moment in time we have the capacity to foul the G| nest, we also have the necessary new tools to keep us H| from doing just that. But the problem is really a T| question of will as much as anything else. Do we have the || will to make the necessary wrenching changes? 1| In the 70s people started saying "If we can put a 9| man on the moon then why can't we do a certain thing?" It 8| became a cliche. But there was a kernel of truth to it. 9| In the early 60s President Kennedy had committed the U.S. || to putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade. It B| was a decision by the country to allocate money, Y| research, technology, and talent. The national will, the || crucial element, had been galvanized toward that end. And R| the country succeeded. I| So the question comes back again to haunt us, "If we C| can put a man on the moon, then why can't we exert out H| national or international will to create technologies A| which do not destroy the Earth?" R| William Carlos Williams, the poet, said (to D| paraphrase slightly): Now that we can realize our wishes, || we must either change them or perish. d| (With that, looking a bit subdued, he handed me the e| color printout. It was unusual, to say the least. G| He lead me out to the drive. He said that he had an A| appointment in a few minutes and that I would need to R| move my car so he could get out. He actually waved I| goodbye as I backed out. S| He sat on the small deck of his back porch looking || more pensive than I had ever seen him.) D| O| B| L| E| INTERVIEW #8: TECHNOLOGY, PART 2 || A| L| (I had so many unanswered questions from our last L| encounter that I called Kirk just a couple of weeks || later, in late May. He seemed in an upbeat mood, inviting R| me to come over the next afternoon. He requested that I I| bring a windbreaker as we might be outside. G| I arrived about 4 P.M. on a balmy somewhat humid H| day. When I drove in the driveway, he was standing there T| at the far end. He was outfitted in a heavy windbreaker S| and heavy leather boots. Now what, I asked myself. || He motioned my car very far over to one side of the R| drive. I barely left enough room for me to open my door.) E| TALBOT: What?..(I began--But before I could say S| anything I heard the unmistakable sound of a motorcycle E| engine from inside the shed next to his house. He walked R| the motorcycle through the narrow shed doorway and then V| guided it down the drive. He waved to me to come closer. E| When I did, he handed me a helmet and told me to get on. D| I had never ridden a motorcycle before but, || nevertheless, almost forgetting myself, I climbed on || behind him. He checked to make sure my legs were on the C| back foot pegs before he started up. Then suddenly we O| were out the drive, down the highway and out into the P| country before twenty minutes had gone by. Y| After another ten minutes I had begun to feel even a R| bit comfortable. In fact, I almost had forgotten my fear I| when he turned down a dirt road, stopping at a point G| overlooking rolling hills. We got off. He leaned the H| motorcycle on its kick stand and then sat down on a log T| near by. I went over to join him.) || ELBOD: The motorcycle is such a marvelous device. 1| One of the few where human and machine seem to blend. A 9| car is like being in a living room, watching the world go 8| by without much connection, but a motorcycle allows you 9| to be in the same world the vehicle is moving through. || You can smell the back yard barbecues, the garbage, feel B| the cool rivers at the bottom of hills, and the flowering Y| trees. || TALBOT: (I was a bit shaken from the ride and also R| taken back by Kirk's rapturing on motorcycles -- maybe he I| really was a romantic at heart.) I thought only romantics C| and hooligans rode motorcycles. H| ELBOD: Ha! (When he said that I knew he must be in a A| good mood.) First of all the motorcycle uses fewer R| materials than the car, less space, and is incredibly D| fuel efficient. || Secondly, the motorcycle has been around as long as d| the car. It's always been a vehicle on the road, but only e| recently identified with ruffians. In fact they were both G| invented about a hundred years ago along with a flood of A| other technology, such as: the light bulb, the movies, R| punch cards for automatic tabulating, the phonograph, the I| cathode ray tube, dynamite, the Eiffel Tower, the S| Brooklyn Bridge, and the automatic machine gun. And it || was also about ninety years ago that Arrhenius of Sweden D| and Chamberlin of the U.S. warned that the greenhouse O| effect might be a consequence of this technology. B| When I think about it it amazes me how old this L| modern world really is. There is hardly anyone alive, E| now, who remembers the world before these inventions, || before technology was commonplace. A| I think now we are going through another modern L| technological revolution. Every field of endeavor seems L| to be exploding with new technology, whether its plumbing || or welding, publishing or photography, medicine or R| astronomy. It certainly is an exciting time to live in, I| if not unsettling. G| (Kirk pulled out a thermos from the 'cycle and H| poured us both a cup of coffee.) T| TALBOT: I believe the Chinese have a curse "May you S| live in interesting times" || ELBOD: (laughed) Yes I had heard that. And they R| would be right. E| The point is major, massive, pervasive technology S| has been around more than a hundred years. In that time E| we as humans have gained the power to change the Earth. R| We are a force, on this Earth, to be reckoned with. V| Some people want to do away with technology. Go back E| to the good old days, whenever that was. However, as I D| said last time we will need more technology in the future || not less. But it must be the right kind, in the right || way, because there is no longer room for massive C| technologies that destroy the environment. For example, O| it seems incredible what we have done to the ozone layer P| in such a short amount of time with CFCs. Y| But there is hope. During the last fifteen years, R| for example, the industrial production of the U.S. has I| increased significantly while industrial consumption of G| energy has remained flat. So technology is learning to do H| more with less. T| TALBOT: Can this continue? Isn't there a point when || factories will be as efficient as possible, and there 1| will be no new ways to to do more with less. 9| ELBOD: I'm glad you brought that up. The natural gas 8| companies have a slogan: the future belongs to the 9| efficient. They have hit the nail on the head. || Efficiency is a tremendous opportunity and market B| for new inventions. In fact it is a huge market, which is Y| a point that many people in business don't understand. || And we have a sophisticated technology, so why not R| concentrate its powers on becoming efficient? I don't see I| any limits. C| TALBOT: At a certain point we will have reached H| maximal use . There will be no further to go. A| ELBOD: I doubt that. But at the very least it will R| take us hundreds of years to reach that goal. And new D| energy sources may be in use by then, such as solar which || are renewable and don't pollute. d| If I look at the future optimistically, I see a e| chance that we could enter a new way of using technology, G| which I would call the "Age of Design." A| By this I mean modern technology has the power to R| create new products, materials, energy sources, services, I| regulations etc. with a complete idea of all aspects of S| design and the consequences. || A product, for example, could be designed so that it D| was cheap, efficient, and easy to make, so that there O| were no toxic by-products from the manufacture, or at B| least the by-products could be neutralized. The consumer L| would find it simple to use, safe, easy to repair, cheap E| to operate. It will need to be easy to ship, display in || stores, and recyclable when it no longer be used. In A| short all aspects of the design from manufacture, to L| sales, to consumer use, to disposal would have been L| thought of from the beginning. || TALBOT: Aren't you being a bit overly optimistic? A R| bit pie in the sky? I| ELBOD: Business Week magazine said much the same G| thing in a lead story last year. The article stated that H| good design was at the heart of the current manufacturing T| and marketing process. they said, "A good design appeals S| to the eye, but it must also be reliable, easy and || economical to operate and service. It should also be R| simple to manufacture. The sum, in short, adds up to E| quality." S| Now mind you I have thrown in a few more pieces of E| the puzzle, namely environmental considerations, that R| will have to be solved at the same time. But the basis V| for thinking in terms of total design exists. E| But this also applies to government regulations or D| new materials. Some people refer to certain regulations || as "social engineering", which shows how close the legal || and technical professions really are. Regulations always C| have unwanted side affects which need to be foreseen. A O| good design could accomplish this. P| New materials need to be created with their Y| environmental impact as part of the design process. It is R| possible, for example, that in fifty years solid waste I| could be sorted and recycled easily, if materials were G| designed with the sorting and recycling process in mind. H| Today this is virtually impossible. New Jersey, for T| example, requires that people sort their trash, which is || good, but a cumbersome way to attack the problem. New 1| technology might make this simpler and more effective. 9| Super computers, that is very large and very fast 8| computers, are well suited for this kind of problem 9| solving. In essence the computer would be asked to find a || single solution to a number of competing, seemingly B| conflicting aspects of design creation. I believe the Y| computer could be programmed for such a complex job of || problem solving. R| Of course, as in everything in life, there is a flip I| side to knowing how to create good design. Once mastered, C| total design could be used for malevolent purposes, such H| as government monitoring and control of citizens. But the A| negative is always present in any technology. We just R| need to be aware of it, and guard against it. D| TALBOT: A lot of what you are saying may require || government intervention. Will it be possible to enact d| such legislation when powerful interests are opposed. e| ELBOD: Well again today I'm going to be optimistic. G| Tomorrow I'll be pessimistic. A| Buckminster Fuller said that he thought politicians R| would start to defer difficult decisions to computer I| models. This would get them off the hook from having to S| choose between competing interest groups. || TALBOT: Are you proposing government by computer? D| ELBOD:: Not exactly. Pilots of airplanes let the O| computer take over control of the plane, because they B| trust the computer. Why couldn't politicians do the same L| in difficult and complicated matters. E| Now the assumption is that the computer can be || programmed to come up with a fair, realistic model of a A| problem needing a solution and will be impartial in its L| suggestions. Certainly it could be programmed to be L| biased to one side of a question or another. But assuming || the models are realistic, then the computer could make R| suggestions about governmental policy and cut through I| many competing influences of different groups. G| TALBOT: I don't think it is possible. H| ELBOD: It's not only possible, it is already T| happening. S| The Federal Reserve Board, known as the FED, uses a || computer model to determine money supply and interest R| rates. Now, nothing is more political than these two E| things. The FED has removed them from the political arena S| by deferring to the computer model. And by doing so they E| have also given business a sense of security because it R| now knows the standards that the FED uses and can make V| plans accordingly. E| But let me talk about the problem from a slightly D| different perspective. || I am suggesting that civilization step back and || consider the consequences of its designs. It then can C| create and program machines to design products which will O| fit into the Earth's ecosystem. In essence: design a P| machine to design a machine. Y| TALBOT: You almost lost me. R| ELBOD: I call this kind of thinking, when you step I| back one step, "meta-thinking." And large computers have G| the capability of becoming "meta-tools." H| TALBOT: Isn't this a bit fanciful? T| ELBOD: Not a bit. Mary Leakey, of the famous Leakey || family who discovered numerous bones of early man, is an 1| expert on the tools of early man. She feels that humans 9| became modern, and advanced from their ape past, when 8| they learned to make the tools to make tools. She said, 9| "Finally, one tool was used to make another... This, for || me, is the stage to which we can apply the term Homo." In B| short these early humans were really starting to think Y| when they made specific tools to help in the manufacture || their everyday tools. So this stepping back and looking R| at the problem from a slightly broader perspective goes I| way back, it may even be what makes us human. C| I understand that this seems like an odd or abstract H| notion, but we do it everyday. Take money, for example. A| Money is an artificial commodity invented by humans. It R| is, in a sense, a meta-commodity. It is one step removed D| from life's necessities. Without money we would be || limited by the barter system. But because of money we d| have a common currency that all of us accept. So the e| wheels of commerce turn much more quickly. G| I have a word for this aspect of human beings. I A| call it the "meta-factor". R| (With that Kirk put on his helmet. I put on mine, I| and got back on the motorcycle. We cut through the air, S| up and down hills. I now smelled various fragrances from || the different neighborhoods we passed through. He was D| right, the motorcycle was a different kind of machine. O| When we arrived at the house, he parked the B| motorcycle. Then he invited me to sit outside and watch L| the light fade. In silence, we sat in his back yard, E| listening to birds finding places to settle for the || night. Yes, today was a good day to think optimistically, A| we could be pessimistic tomorrow.) L| L| ||