🚀 go-pugleaf

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This article is from "J.L.EGBERT" <ndacny@paxrv-nes.ARPA>
 and was received on Wed Jun 25 09:26:04 1986
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     The other night (June 23) NBC News had an article they called "Is 
Big Brother Watching?".  It described a new way to use computers:  to 
monitor workers to see how they are working.  Truck drivers are monitored to 
see how fast they shift gears, waiters in restaurants to see how many 
desserts they sell, warehouse workers to see how many boxes they move.  
The workers can be shown HOURLY how well they are doing compared to a target.

     It seems to me that this is an attempt to make human beings behave like 
machines.  Supervisors don't judge if the job is getting done in a 
reasonable amount of time, they compare numbers, and there seems to be no 
thought given to workers' morale.  I personally don't work every minute, but
sometimes I work on my lunch hour, or overtime, or in the hallway when 
I meet colleagues going to and fro.  This kind of monitoring would be very 
irritating.  The problem increases when you consider the long-recognized 
intimidation computers can have ("if the computer says it is so, it must
be so.").

     I think this is one use for computers that is inappropriate.  Any 
other opinions?

Jeanie Egbert

[An interesting issue.  I think that this could be another starting point
 for an 'is technology good?' discussion...rather than lapse into that
 black hole, however, I'll try to forstall it by saying that I believe
 that examples like this show that any new technology can be misused.  Not
 only that, but it will have more tendency to be misused when it's new, so
 I would expect that as time passes, the inspectors on the assembly line/
 truck driver supervisors/etc will realize that there is more to a task
 than quantity.  The mystical QUALITY (as Phaedrus the wolf would say) is
 just as important...						-- Dave]

[One other thing - I'm not against people discussing the 'value' of technology
 in a moral/ethical sense, but I recommend some research first, like reading
 one of a number of books including "The Human Use of Human Beings" or "The
 Society of Technology".  Don't have the authors names handy, though.]