nologies that
will have great:
strategic impor-
tance in the
future. se
Artificial'intel-
ligence technolo-
gy is growing at

Š šč portant strategic
implications for business and society.

Actually, I prefer not to say "artificial.,

intelligence." A better phrase is "auto- |
mated reasoning,"
computer reaches conelusions by reason-
ing in an automated fashion. ("2%
"There are a great many applications
and implications for artificial intelli-
gence in the future. The combination o:
artificial intelligence and robotics will
automate many simple, routine, repro-:
ducible tasks. h :

rules. It's possible today to automate:

many clerical and financial support jobs,
. although we haven't automated the jobs

of many professionals. However, in the

a vast amount of knowledge can be
automated. ATES
What tasks won't be automated? Ar:

tistic efforts or tasks performed by-high- "

ly creative people—those, for instance,
reguiring human empathy and under-

standing: the job of the salesman, leader, /

film director, orchestra conductor, mu:
sician. AE nja

A large proportion of today's jobs
may become automated. But how fast
will this happen? And what effect will
it have on society? ' ' i

Obviously, the effects will be dramatic
and will happen pretty rapidly within
the next 20 years. ie (

Look at manufacturing in the 1950s—
about 40 percent of all Americans were
employed in the manufacturing sector
o£ the economy. But according to some
projections, it's likely that by about the
year 2015 only 1.5 percent of Americans
will be in the manufacturing sector. :

Will this cause massive unemploy-
ment? If most factories are automated,
and if we have an enormous amount of
competition from countries where labor
is cheap, isn't this going to cause major
problems?

Not necessarily. We've already seen
such a transition in agriculture. One sta-
tistic which is rather surprising to us to-
day is that in 1900 about 50 percent of
Americans worked on farms.

That proportion steadily declined to
about 20 percent after World War Il,
dropping much lower in the 19605, until
today only about 1.5 percent of Ameri-
cans work on farms. So, the percentage

of the labor force in the manufacturing »

sector is likely to drop to about 1.5 per:
cent by the year 2015. Pi

ployment.

ing thata

future, any task in which expertise can
be reduced to rules or tasks that reguire:/"

— jts likely that we can maintain close
to full employment because the number.
of jobs in the service sector today (such
as the information and entertainment
industries) is steadily climbing.

For example, as we get high-definition
television, Ka-band satellites and fiber- |
optic communication links to the home,
we can pick up hundreds of television ..
channels. A lot of work will be reguired
to create television programs for this fu-
ture society. si j jeva

"Television is very people-intensive,

and it's the type of work that can't be

in the future.

With the introduction of wideband
packet switching, broadband Integrated
Services Digital Network (ISDN) chip
sets, multifiber optical trunks, optical
switching, intelligent networks and so
on, telecommunications is undergoing a
wholesale transformation.

We need to understand what telecom-
munications will look like in 2000 or
2010, given the technology we're devel-
oping now. ;

What telecoramunications regulations
need to be established?

Preparing for Future Technology. |

And a Phenomenal Rate of Change

The Major Trends:

e Automated reasoning
and robotics

e. Job.growth in the
service sector

e Effective teaching
for future technology

e Standards for open
architecture in
telecommunications

Unfortunately, universities don't seem to have caught up
with computing in the 19705, let alone a vision of what
computing and jobs are going to look like by the year 2000.

automated. We're likely to see the televi-
sion, entertainment and information
businesses converge, creating many new
jobs in these sectors. H

And we'l be moving into a world of
electronic books, where you can select
any subject and branch into related ma-
terial in video, speech or other media.
'The preparation of material in electron:
ic form will reguire a high level of ef-
fort and human creativity.

In an era of rapidly changing, techno!
ogy, what should universities be, teach:
ing now? iš ;

Unfortunately, universities don't seem
to have caught up with computing in
the 19708, let alone a vision of: what

ii

What impact will those regulations
have on the operators of public and pri:
vate telephone and telecommunications
networks?

In 1992, our communications will be
governed by the Brooks Act, which
mandates an evolution to open architec-
tures to be implemented with the Open
Systems Interconnect (OSI) Reference
Model and ISDN.

But to move to open architectures, we

must have standards, and those stan:
dards must be controlled.
|. Standards will lead to the manufac:
ture of products that are certified by
the National Institute of Standards and
Technology.

fied to support an open architecture.
This will lead to vast networks in which
millions of computers can be connected
together in an open environment.

technological advances seem limitless.
However, as these advances 0ccur, we
need to ask: What could go wrong?
What are the worst things that could
happen?

dentally drifting into another Cuban 5.
missile crisis or some other type of crisis
in the Middle East.

| al parts of the Soviet Union might cause
great unrest in Poland or behind the
Iron Curtain.

a situation in which events fly out of
control, and we could find ourselves at

— an inadvertent nuclear war.

From our current perspective, future

One of the worst scenarios is our acci-

Perhaps a breaking away of peripher-

'The danger is that we might drift into

risk of nuclear war.

Where the Danger Really Lies
Much more important than nuclear
weapons themselves are the command-
and-control computer systems, which set
the pattern for events that could lead to

'Today's command-and-control systems
are referred to as "meta-stable," which
means that, initially, the systems are ex-
tremely safe and welllocked.

However, i£ we move toward a serious
crisis, we have to start taking the locks
off. We then move from a fail-safe situa-
tion to a "fail-deadly" situation.

Our technology is dangerous not, be-
cause of the missiles themselves but. be-
cause of the command-and-control sys-
tems we've built. Therefore, as technical
professionals, we should be looking at
the changes we can make in technology
to prevent the worst scenarios from
happening.

We're at one of the most extraordi-
nary moments in history. Rather than
drift into nuclear catastrophe, we have
the opportunity to use rapidly develop-
ing technology to make an entirely dif
ferent and better society.

'The computer field is going to be the
most exciting industry in which you
could possibly work during the next 20
years. If we look at the model of future
technology I mentioned earlier, we're
now moving into a period of time in
which the rate of change is going to be
phenomenal, and we'd better be pre-
pared for it.

Next week Tll begin a series of four
articles on ISDN—an information net:
work of the future that integrates voice,
text, data and video in an open-commu-

nications architecture. H

The James Martin Productivity Series,
an information service updated. guar-
terly, is available through High Pro-
ducttvity Software Inc., of Marble-
head, Mass. (800) 242-1240. For infor-
mation on seminars, please contaci (in.
the United. States and Canada) Tech-
nology Transfer Institute, 741 10ih St.,
Santa Monica, Calif. 90402 (213) 394-
8305. In Europe, contact Savant, 2
New St., Carnforth, Lancs., LA5 9BX
United. Kingdom (0524) 734 505.