Cornflakes by computer down on the farm

Press, 11 August 1979, Page 14

Cornflakes by computer down on the farm

By

PETER LARGE

in the “Guardian,” London

By 1985 — driverless, reshapable, uncrushable lorries and cars. By 1990 — the office in your pocket and a library on your wrist. And before 2000 — the total, automated factory-farm, producing not just coni, but packaged cornflakes. With such firm forecasts of the micro-chip’s capability, the computer scientist upstaged the science fiction writers at a four-day conference — Science Fiction/

Science Fact — in the South of France recently. But Mr Earl Joseph, Sperry-Univac’s futurist (that job is row de rigeuer in the big American computer companies), put a caveat' on his forecasts. He was confident that microelectronics are advancing that fast — in fact, he claimed that by 2010 one tiny chip will rival the power of the human brain. But even if, under the pressures of energy shortages, Western society were ready to take such an acceleration of change, we still lack enough skilled people to write the software required to make the machine world work Therefore, please add “three to 15 years.” The Joseph factory-farm would be run by one capsule. First, that capsule would use microwaves to wriggle the

ground rather than plough it. Then it would release, at the required intervals, seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, and so on. Chemical sensors would monitor growth, and the capsule’s time-release mechanism would adjust to changes in the weather.

Finally, microelectronics would handle the harvesting, processing, and packaging of the crops — the packaging being grown on the farm too. “That’s all in science now,” Mr Joseph said. “There’s no need to research it.”

Such a factory, he said, could bring back the family farm, serving its own community. Oil shortages could also hasten the use of microelectronics as a travel substitute, sending education and work back to the home along the computer networks. Mr Joseph’s challenge that what the micro-chip will produce in the next 10 years “is beyond anything to be found in science fiction” was not countered by the writers. Even such heavyweights as A. E. Van Vogt and Harry Harrison seemed to have chips on their shoulders about science fiction’s lurid, pulp-mag past. True, Mr Van Vogt did play on the role of the scientist as pseudonymous SFwriter, flying kites that other scientists rode, but Mr Harri-

son downgraded science fiction to the level of “the thinking man’s garbage” and said that many science fiction writers couldn’t even write.

It was left to the academics to deny Mr Joseph’s benign vision of a work-freed world. Professor Frank George, the Brunel Cyberneticist, believed that the “database society” was heading us toward totalitarianism. He thought a return to a more- tribal society, “under some sort of hierarchical control,” might be the answer. Dr Heinz Wolf, the Medical Research Council head of bioengineering (who “hardly ever” reads science fiction), thought the pace of social change was being exaggerated. He produced a list of limitations on the impact of technology. The list included — apart from the fear of unemployment — the theory that current developments are antiegalitarian and antidemocratic, accentuating the “real differences” between people in the industrialised nations; the point that the advantages are obtainable only by a fraction of the world’s population; and the doubt whether many people want all that speed and extent of communication and information, anyway.

Across I—An entertaining job for a girl who likes travel. (3-7) 7— To be paid nothing to fly. (5) 8— Crooked dealing straightened out. (7) 10— Put on grave attire? (8) 11— Unchanging instruction written in haste to printers. (4) 13— Cry of the shrike. (6) 15— It stands still and marks time. (6) 17 — Cut off a weed. (4) 18— Postal packet that goes overseas. (4-4) 21— He saves various changes. (7) 22— Determined to fight. (3-2) 23— Woman who has no-one to mow her lawn? (5, 5) Down 1— Somehow raise a sign on high. (5) 2— A dredger to be considered. (8) 3— Pop a question that’s somewhat obscure. (6) 4— A child of two. (4) 5— Private study. (7) 6— Solemn character becomes less reckless on a fateful day. (10) 9— The tide at noon makes a noise. (10) 12— Carefully examined any leads broken. (8) 14— Make a successful come-back as an upholsterer? (7) 16— It’s in one’s bones to spoil - a fight. (6) 19— A sign that your car’s not working? (2,3) 20— Fiddlesticks! (4) I (Solution on Monday) ►