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Aucbvax.2323 fa.works utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!works Fri Jul 17 06:41:47 1981 Making paper go away >From CSD.PRATT@SU-SCORE Fri Jul 17 06:37:01 1981 If paper is more effective, then there is a mismatch between the needs of the person and the software.

Joe's implication that any mismatch between people and computers needs to be eliminated is similar to the attitude that gave rise to the BART fiasco. This zeal to automate everything is misplaced. Some products already do their job quite well. Paper, for example. One thing I particularly like about paper is that I can leave it on the beach while I'm swimming without being too concerned that someone is likely to walk off with it. Is anyone willing to predict which century will see portable computers able to compete with paper as an improbable target of petty thieves?

A more appropriate attitude would be to keep an eye open for opportunities where the computer can outperform the traditional product. I suspect this is what Joe really has in mind when he talks about automating paper. Paper has its disadvantages as well as its advantages. Pen-and-paper is a poor medium for speed of text input (many of us type twice as fast as we write, though presumably not Steven Gutfreund, who says he prefers mice and chordsets to 4-row QWERTY keyboards). Paper is inconvenient to transmit, with a delay measured in days rather than minutes. It is difficult to search associatively. It does not lend itself to alteration. Making duplicates for redundancy (e.g. guarding against fire etc.) is awkward. Text and graphics macros (Letraset, stencils, french curves, rubber stamps, etc.) are relatively inflexible. Conversion to machine readable form is much harder than the reverse direction.

The moral is that while computers outperform paper in some categories, it is wishful thinking to imagine that it will also soon come to dominate in all the remaining categories. Needless to say, the moral applies equally well to other products besides paper, e.g. BART drivers.

Applying this to AI, I would prefer to characterize AI not so much in terms of passing Turing's test as looking for additional human activities that lend themselves to automation.

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