‘

_ accepted later than Monday
of the week of publication.

CALCULATORS OF THE ‘AMERICAN CENTURY’

Time’s ‘thinking machines‘
as undialectical as Luce

IN ITS ISSUE of January 23, “Time” devoted its front cover and several pages to a science
feature on “thinking machines’’—giant calculators—built by International Business Machines Corporation.
According to “Time”, “nearly all the existing computers do nothing but military work,’ the most advanced
of them being Mark II, now in use by the U.S. Navy, Mark III, now nearing completion, also to be
used by the U.S. Navy, and Mark IV, now being built for the U.S. Air Force.

“Time’’ quotes Professor Norbert Wiener of Massachusetts Institute of Technology as predicting
that these machines “will usher in ‘the second industrial revolution, which will devalue the human brain
as thé first industrial revolution devalued the human arm.” “Time’’ also paints a gloomy picture of a
future civilization in which “‘men may come to specialize on the simple, narrow tasks of serving the
machines. Men's brains may grow smaller and smaller as the machines’ brains grow larger. Will the time

come at last when the machines rule—perhaps without seeming to rule—as the mysterious ‘spirit of the

colony’ rules individual ants 2”

The Pacific Tribune asked one of its contributors to comment
piece and the article below is the result.

HENRY LUCE is the propriet-
cr of Time, Life and Fortune,
and other organs ‘of slick reac-
tionary propaganda. Some years
ago Luce had an_ intoxicating
dream which he dubbed the Am-
erican Century. All the wealth: of
the Indies:and Arabia, of Africa
and of Europe were to flow into
the coffers of Wall Street. All
rival empires were to be pushed
aside or conscripted into the ser-
vice of the dollar men, And the
emancipated peoples of the So-
viet Union and the new democra-
cies were to be “contained” in
a cold war and subsequently an-
nihilated in a hot one. His hench-
men on the three ‘magazines have
toilea seaselessly for that object.

Recently the Luce boys on
Time have had another night-
mure. They have become aware
of the marvelous machines that
scientists have invented to make
rapid calculations possible and
to solve problems that would re-
guire many hours. of routine
brain work.

“Modern man has become ac-
customed to machines with
“superhuman muscles, but ma-
chines with superhuman brains
are still a little frightening,”
Time writes.

One such machine, affectionate-
ly named Old Bessie (she has
since been outmoded), proved
useful in World War II, accord-
ing to Time. She was given the
job of evaluating mathematically
an electrically powered cannon
which the Nazi scientists were
supposed to be working on.
Bessie chewed into a snarl of
equations and proved that the
weapon was utterly impossible,
The Germans, who had _ no
Bessie, were wasting enormous
efforts on an impossible task.

These machines, if Time’s ac-
count can be trusted, are ap-
parently almost human. They can
grow fatigued, balky, neurotic.
(They have not yet learned,
“however, to drown their neuroses

in copious alcohol, No mechan-
ized Alcoholics Anonymous has
yet become necessary.)

Of course, since these machines
are obedient servants of the cold
war and preparations for the hot
one, they so far find most of
their usefulness in the armed
forces. If a scientist wishes to
use them for more pacific pur-
poses he has to rent one at $300
an hour.

Time’s writer thinks that they
will even be able to ‘foretell a
depression’ by manipulating the
equations of about 38 industries.
And educated worker could tell
Time that this is impossible.

There is one equation which no
machine in the hands of big
b@siness can ever manipulate —
the rate of surplus value, the ex-
ploitation of the workers in the
service of monopoly . profits, the
consequent lack of mass purchas-
ing power, with its deary suc-
cession of boom and bust, col-
onial adventure, and _ recurrent
WAR c

Sy eee * :

TIME REPORTS the _ excited
debates among the _ scientists
who have produced these mar-
vels. Will the machine develop
wills, desires and unpleasant -
foibles of its own ((like the
Robots in Capek’s RUR)? Or
will it remain an obedient tool
of human intelligence and human
purpose, or is man developing his
own intellectual competitors?

Again the worker schooled in
the philosophy of Kar] Marx
could answer the puzzles with
which conservative scientists be-
wilder themselves.

These marvelous accounting
machines are an application of
mechanical laws to the problem
of calculation, They are there-
fore a dramatic application of
mechanical materialism. But
mechanical materialism has al-
ways run up against an insoluble

paradox.

on “Time's” “‘thinking machine”
a)

If all thinking is caused and
can be explained in terms of
factors that are already present,
how can the new ever emerge?
And if the new emerges how can
it be continuous with the old
and caused by the old?

This is no puzzle to Marxists
who see all thinking as well as
all other events as both novel
and caused. The laws of dialecti-
cal materialism, particularly the
transformation of quantitative
change into qualitative change,
alone can resolve this paradox,
which is one of the central ones
for any philosophy.

The apprehensions of the
scientists as well as their more
extravagant hopes can be laid to
rest. These new marvels will re-
main obedient tools of their hu-
man operators,

Of course, to take full advan-
tage of this and other marvels of
science is impossible for a society
that bases itself on the system
of “free enterprise” and mono-
poly profits. Tee

Just as capitalism can see no
use for atomic energy except
mass murder, just as it takes a
new kind of society to put this
atomic power to creative social
use, to remove mountains, to
reverse the flow of rivers, to
turn millions of miles of tundra
into ‘a useful body of water and
make the desert blossom like a
rose, so it will be with these new
scientific marvels,

For the scientists who work in
the nightmare atmosphere of
Henry Luce’s dream of an Am-
erican Century, the new account-
ing devices will remain an obed-
ient tool for their supreme social
purpose: a handy gadget which
will help them in their desire to
heat up a cold war. But by now
it is clear that the peoples of
the world have a different aim
and purpose and can find a bet-
ter use for this and for all the
other marvels of science.—D.C.

CLASSIFIED

A charge of 50 cents for each
insertion of five lines or less with
10 cents for each additional line
is made for notices appearing in
this column. No notices will be

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WHAT’S DOING

Woodworkers, Social and Dance —
Saturday, Feb, 25. Dancing, re-
freshments. Victoria Community
Hall, 48rd and Victoria Drive, 8
to 12 p.m. Tickets, incluring 2
refreshments stubs, $1,

Fund-Raising Social and Dance —
Saturday, March 4, 8.30 p.m.,
Lower Hall, Russian People’s
Home, 600 Campbell Ave. Re-
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Sponsored by Maritime and Vic-

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“Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho’, a lithograph by Wm. Cropper)

a

WHAT'S ON THE SCREEN

‘Anna Lucasta’ at least

has realistic setting -

f

ONE POINT ABOUT Anna Lucasta, the preview at t

Park this week: it does show Americans living in the kind of beaten-
up old ramshackle houses that millions of them do live in, rather tha?

the swank apartments and palatial homes Hollywood prefers for i

backgrounds. It does show the degradation into which many families”

fell, particularly, during the de-
pression, and are now threatened
with again.

The fault with the picture is
largely that the people are in a
vacuum, No social consciousness,
no mention of politics, unions,
bosses or anything else which in-
fluences the lives of workers, ex-
cept job-hunting, which the men
are depicted as dodging This
family could give the impression
that all workers of the _lesser-
skilled trades> in the U.S. are
shiftless, greedy, grasping, cun-
ning, with no loyalty to each
other; in other words, socially
and politically immoral. With
these reservations in mind, you

-may enjoy Anna Lucasta,

Briefly, this is a story of a
poor ex-farm family in a small
Pennsylvania town, the Lucastas.
Momma is a sweet person licked
by poverty, Poppa an alcoholic
with a love (or hate) verging
on the incestuous for daughter
Anna, Two other children, a son
a daughter, with their respective
mates, qomplete the family.

Poppa’s best friend writes to
him to help find his son a wife.
Rudolf (the son) is to take up
the old farm. The play concerns
the conniving of the rest. of the
family to get some money out of
the son by getting him the right
wife, and the father’s effort to
thwart their efforts, They decide
on Anna who, three years be-
fore, was turned out of the
house by Poppa and is now a
bar-fly in Brooklyn. Back she
comes, and you can imagine it
from there on.

_ Broderick Crawford and Oscar
Homolka turn in splendid per-
formances. Paulette Goddard, as
Anna, is good, but she fails to
round out the characterization,

, would find difficulty

The art department deserv® ;

praise for settings and costumé
—the cheap, tacky furnishin

are right, and the costumes 100k)

as though they are the cloth
of the people,
x * *

IF YOU HAVE been impressé
by the critics’ praise of Twel
O'clock High, forget it. In spit
of all the assertions that this }
a “different” war picture, y?
in disti®
guishing any real. differences P
tween this and Command Dec!
sion, to name another of
current crop. ad

Twelve O’clock High is
other propaganda picture for th
U.S. Air Force, and. one t
won't be highly regarded by Ca
adians who took part in tb
Battle of Britain, for it lea
the impression that really,
body else did anything in
bombing line. : :
, This opus, perpetuates
Great American Illusion, that
men were created and are equ
in their country. I got a lit’
tired of generals shoving cif
ettes at their drivers with a
garette, Frank?’) and lieutenaD’
majors, colonels and _ gene
calling each other affectiona’
by nicknames. Even that is hé
ly likely to convince anyone
the 1U.S. Air Force is just
big, happy family.

Not that there isn’t discip
oh, my, no! General G
Peck, pardon, Savage (hon
is an awful toughie, cancell!?
weekend leaves to London, ¢¥
ing the bar and sundry 0
things like that. Naturally,
spite of all this, by the end
the picture, he has won the
and devotion of all the mem:
told you you'd seen this one.
fore.—G.L.

\ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 17, 1950—PAGE 10