Will Informatization Recapitulate Mechanization?

Once, not all that long ago, physical strength was important in day to day life. My great-grandfather was remembered in my life as a man who could alone lift a barrel of bear down from a cart. A man who could plow a straight furrow following his animal, or a woman who could weave most dexterously was admired for the physical ability. Then came mechanical power to amplify man's strength and mechanization that was more dexterous than the most rapid manipulator. Those abilities were no longer needed in day to day life.

Indeed, the quickest is now the jet pilot or the racing driver; the strongest is the operator of the biggest earthmoving equipment or locomotive; the most dangerous person in single combat may be the operator of a predator unmanned aircraft. Their mental and physical endowments are quite different than those of the athlete.

We still honor the swiftest runner, the man who can throw a javelin furthest, the man who can lift the heaviest weight in the Olympics. We provide great economic rewards for the best professional players of soccer, football, basketball, and baseball, and the best professional cyclists. We do so, however, because we find the competition entertaining (and we can bet on the results), not because the best performing athlete will be the best warrier or best worker.

Even now, many intellectual abilities are important in everyday life. Yet some which were once important have been devalued by the changes that have occurred in our society. A good memory is less important than it once was, as means of automating recall have become more common. In my youth, the skills of the clerk typist and draftsman, essentially putting information in good order, were highly valued, but today those functions have been largely automated. The librarian, an expert in locating and retrieving knowledge, is a highly trained professional, but kids now Google to locate what they need quickly on the Internet; we are seeking to make those kids information literate in much the same way as professionals who once depended on clerk typists had to learn to use computers to prepare and store their own documents.

More and more information and communications technology is used to allow the average person to do that which only the intellectually gifted or trained person. So too, we will probably reduce the prestige we allocate to those who possess these once important abilities which are now common due to ICT-based intellectual augmentation. Expert systems, artificial intelligence, and other developments can only extend the effect.

We will still value those persons who can use the information and communications machines most effectively. Those who create the most powerful computer systems, the most complex Internet protocols have abilities that are rare and important to our society.

We still find demonstrations of intellectual abilities entertaining, and reward the winners of spelling bees, of school scholastic competitions, of chess, bridge and go tournaments. We even still have quiz shows on television that reward memory abilities.

Perhaps we will reserve our future adulation for the most moral people, for those with the 'greatest temperament", or those with other moral capacities.