The computer orgy

Do you know that the youngest computer user of all time is the five-month-old daughter of Professor Cory Shou, a computer scientist from the University of Florida in Orlando, who rigged a home computer so the baby could operate it from her crib? Pushing a button changed designs on a screen near the crib. It must have entertained the baby, who learned early what movements to make in order to have her favorite scenes come on.

What about the youngest, most precocious computer whiz? That honor goes to Norbert Wiener, one of the industry pioneers, born November 25, 1894. At 18 months, he taught himself the alphabet. By six, he had read the works of Darwin, Ribot and other scientists. At 11, he enrolled at Tufts University, and at 14, Harvard graduate school. He obtained his PhD at 18 in philosophy and mathematics, and went on to become the resident genius at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the early years of computerdom! Wiener was the one who coined the term "cybernetics."

For that matter, who really invented the computer? The answer could be Conrad Zuse, a pioneer in the field who was born in Berlin and obtained a degree in Civil Engineering, but his interest in mathematics spurred him to build a machine made of electromechanical relays that would perform complex equations.

Zuse built his first computer in his parents’ living room and called it the "V-1." When World War II broke out and the Germans began launching V-1 and V-2 rockets, Zuse gave his computers a "Z" designation. He escaped from Berlin in 1945 with his best machine, the Z-4, hidden in a wagon and went into hiding in the Swiss Alps. He was a man of many innovative ideas, like hiring blind programmers with a talent for mathematics who were very proficient. He worked at IBM and Remington Rand (which became Sperry Rand Univac), and later sold his interests to the German computer firm Siemens. He lived his last days in the village of Hunfield, Germany, within walking distance of a high school that bears his name.

Believe it or not, but the first computerized wedding (if we can call it that), happened on Valentine’s Day in 1981. Rev. Ron Jaenisch, ordained in the Universal Life Church as an archbishop, performed the ceremony. An Apple computer displayed the text of the ceremony on its screen. The "I do’s" were done by punching the "Y" key for yes. The computer that performed the ceremony was ordained "Reverend Apple." Besieged by the media thereafter because of his use of a computer to perform the wedding, and finding couples eager to wed electronically, Rev. Jaenisch announced his retirement in Sept. 1981, and said he would no longer marry couples by computer.

And, did you know the remarkable man who said, "It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labor of calculation, which could safely be relegated to anyone else if machines were used"? Son of a philosopher and one of the greatest German Renaissance thinkers, Gottfried Wilhelm Von Liebniz was born in 1646. Liebniz practiced what he preached and worked incessantly. A mathematician who worked the fundamental theorem of calculation at the same time Sir Isaac Nedwton was developing his theories – with neither knowing of the other’s work – he built a calculating machine that became the first general-purpose calculator in 1673. That was a fantastic feat at the time, four centuries ago.

I remember in 1998 when great attention was focused on a chess match between IBM’s "Deep Blue" supercomputer and the greatest living grand master, Gary Kasparov. I was at an international telecom conference at that time and was supposed to chair the opening plenary session. My colleagues told me that it was such a pity I was gong to miss the telecast of the match. It was quite an event and many of the conference participants were distracted by it. Consequently, there were quite a number of empty chairs at the session. I dashed to the venue of the telecast after the session, as did everyone else, and arrived in time to witness the last minutes of Deep Blue’s great slaughter of Kasparov, who had estimated and declared that he could think about two chess moves per second. Deep Blue, however, could consider 200 million moves per second!

Whatever might be in store in the future could be a vast technological spectacle limited only by man’s genius and imagination. This could give us sensational inventions to attract that huge reservoir of investor capital and the great mass of humanity – that enthusiastic, over-eager and susceptible market of customers so easy to seduce with the newest innovations.

The computer has really become something meaningful to man. It is his or her companion all day or even all night – truly a necessary part of his existence. It could be man’s slave, which most of the time it is, or man’s master, depending on how it is used. Computers can do all the dumb and clever things we do – they just do them a lot faster.

I think we may just as well join the computer orgy and succumb to the pleasures, efficiencies and complexities of the information age.

Although information technology has transformed nearly every institution and enterprise in the world and, by extension, every aspect of society, we can’t help but realize with certainty that, though these computers are magnificent tools for the realization of our dreams, they will never replace the human spark: spirit, compassion, love, understanding, empathy and patriotism.

Thanks to television and computers, we have become savvy in ways past generations never experienced. I remember how my late father had so hoped that he would still be around when the first man landed on the moon. Well, he was, but he would have marveled and enjoyed it even more had it unfolded before his eyes through the click of a mouse wrapped around his fingers.

We cannot help but join the "computer orgy." Remember, after all, that part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.

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