kw: story reviews, science fiction, conformity, artificial intelligence, infinite extrapolation
In 1961 Kurt Vonnegut published "Harrison Bergeron", a sly, ironic projection of the social trend toward conformity that had blighted the prior decade, particularly in Europe. If you've never read it, get the PDF from Google Docs and read it right now. It's just five pages. Then come back and continue.
Kurt Vonnegut wasn't the first. One of the better stories to incorporate enforcement of "equality" was published in March 1954: "The Ambassador" by Sam Merwin, Jr. It appeared in IF: Worlds of Science Fiction, and is reprinted in The 31st Golden Age of Science Fiction Megapack. In the Megapack volume, it is 58 pages in length, and treats two issues in equal measure: enforced conformity and excessive reliance on computers to make societal decisions.
To be brief, in "The Ambassador" a newly appointed ambassador from Mars to United Earth causes a ruckus by complaining of useless trade goods being sent to Mars, with little recourse for sending them back. It's reminiscent of the trade wars in the 1700's that prompted the New World colonies to pull away from Britain…consciously so, as some musings attributed to said ambassador reveal. On a United Earth all significant decisions are made by a computer (the term artificial intelligence is not used, and indeed, would have been unintelligible to a 1950's readership; headlines of the time were just getting cranked up with "electronic brain" hype). Science fiction writers of the time used the suffix "-ac" for such global computers. Isaac Asimov published "The Last Question" in 1956, which included first Multivac, and finally Galactic AC. Nobody in the 1950's dreamed that computers powerful enough to forecast weather would one day fit in a half-dozen pizza-box sized trays in a rack about half a meter square. Merwin has Sylac, followed by Elsac, and finally the ultimate, Giac. I don't know what the prefixes mean, but Giac is supposed to be infallible. It is also enormous.
The secondary climax of the story turns out to be not so easy to resolve: nearly everyone being expected (that is, required) to wear gaudy eyeglasses and disfiguring clothing so that nobody is seen as "superior". THAT situation isn't solved in this story, just as "Harrison Bergeron" has a go-nowhere ending (which is exactly what Vonnegut wanted!).
I built a career on designing and building computer software that relied on humans to do what humans do better than computers, and handed the things humans do badly (calculations, primarily) over to the computer. The synergy works well. I see the proper use of artificial intelligence as a co-operative endeavor between machine powers and human abilities. See Asimov's story "The Feeling of Power" for his take on the dumbing-down of those who use hand calculators but were never taught arithmetic. If all I need is an "engineering quality" answer of 3 significant digits, I can usually get it quicker with my old K&E slide rule. Not many folks alive today have even seen a slide rule (two-digit math I can do in my head). Even with those skills, I like Microsoft Excel for wholesale computations.
But conformity! It's actually xenophobia expressed as a cultural virtue. It will take another ten to 100 generations to drive it out of the human psyche, if it is possible at all. The best we can do is to look carefully at the cultural norms around us, conform where we don't want to make waves, and march to our own drummer otherwise. Maybe one would have fewer friends thus, but they'd be better friends.
While I am at it, Sam Merwin is one of the more imaginative writers of his generation. I'm glad I got the Megapack. I've read several of such volumes, and decided to not review them since they're two generations out of date. But a story like "The Ambassador" is timeless.
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