Computers and Human Problems.

The photoreproduced introduction chapter of [Computers and the Problems of Society] (1972), sets the stage for the book by reviewing general considerations falling outside the purview of the chapters devoted to specified social problem areas. The demand for democratization of planning occurs in the context of growing dissatisfaction with planning at all levels. Expenditure of 100 billion public dollars in one generation has been made for vast technological advances in computers, but little in the way of humane and beneficent universal use. Computer professionals are technologically oriented and disinclined to meet the humanistic challenge. Users of computer services were victimized by a "gentleman's agreement" among vendors to keep down software costs by eliminating user training, test, and evaluation. College and university computer science gained respectability by pursuing the esoteric, ignoring people and social problems. Yet social experimentation with the proposed real-time community information utility offers great promise for participatory social planning with continuous testing and evaluation. 30 pp. Ref.