Technology and chapter

6
Society
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
! Define technology and explain its importance Political activity is shad-
! Explain how the Industrial Revolution significantly changed all owplay : : : ; technology is the
aspects of society
underlying reality. Engineers,
! Discuss the role that technology plays in social change
not poets, are the secret legis-
! Present both sides of the limits-to-growth debate
lators of the world.
! List some of the important technological developments of the past
—David Warsh
! Speculate on likely important technological developments in the
future

Geography used to define our social destiny; it no longer does. Friends used to be deter-
mined by who lived near us; they no longer are. Today, friends are the people we include in
our social network, which, because of changes in technology, can extend throughout the
world. Today, we text; we don’t talk. We shop online, not at our local stores, and we attend
classes online. And the social networking element of modern technology is only the
beginning. In twenty years, there may well be implants with direct connection to our close
friends embedded in our brains. Why waste effort calling—simply think of a person, and
presto, you communicate.
Technology is the universe of tools, means, and methods through which we interact with
our environment. We devote a separate chapter to technology because it is an integral cog in
social and cultural change. As suggested by the opening paragraph, technology both causes
social change and is itself influenced by culture. In our brief overview of history, we saw the
importance of technology—in the initial establishment of cities, made possible by crop cul-
tivation; in the spread of population to overcome environmental limitation, through the use of
fire; and in the evolution of our thinking about society, by means of printing. That evolution is
continuing. And as it does it will change our society, presenting us with new problems and new
horizons. Exactly how that technology will affect society is hard to predict, but it is certain that
it will.
We begin our consideration of technology with a short quiz (p. 102). In the left column,
we list six technological advances that have helped shape our society. In the right column is a
list of names associated with those developments. You are to associate the names with the
technologies.
These are only some of the best-known discoveries; the list could go on and on. Moreover,
each of these technological developments has a compelling story accompanying its

102
 Technology & Society 103

Can You Match the Date and Name

with the Invention?
1. First motorcar (a) Alexander Graham Bell
2. Telephone (b) Thomas Edison
3. Incandescent lightbulb (c) Guglielmo Marconi
4. Radio (d) Elisha Otis
5. Elevators (e) William Henry Fox Talbot
6. Photography (f) Karl Benz

1f, 2a, 3b, 4c, 5d, 6e.

introduction, and even more interesting effects that it has caused. For example, the process of
canning food was developed in 1810 by an enterprising Frenchman, Nicholas Appert. The
stimulus for this invention came from Napoleon Bonaparte. As early as 1800, Emperor
Napoleon recognized the importance of preserving food after nearly losing the Battle of
Marengo because of a lack of provisions. The emperor realized that a reliable method of food
preservation would enhance his chances of military success. Therefore Napoleon offered a set
of prizes for technological improvements, including food preservation, believing that France
lagged behind its rival, Great Britain, in technology.
When Appert, a cook who had worked in a wine cellar as a champagne bottler, heard
about the prizes, he began work on a method to preserve food. It was many years before he
perfected his process. Drawing on his experience as a cook and a bottler, Appert had an idea
that he might be able to preserve food in champagne bottles by filling them with food, sealing
them, and boiling the bottles. Although he did not know why the food in the bottles did not
spoil (we now know it was because he had sterilized the contents of the bottles), still he was
successful, and soon bottled food (and, later, canned food) allowed individuals to eat vege-
tables in winter and to preserve meat over long periods. The desired result—better provi-
sioning of armies—was accomplished, along with the far more widespread benefits that
preserved food meant for public health.
Canned food was important in the early 1800s because mechanical refrigerators did not
exist. At that time, the only way to refrigerate food was by storing ice, which was cut from
ponds in the winter and kept till the next winter, insulated by hay in windowless structures
known as icehouses. In the United States, some southern states imported ice all year from
these icehouses. (As you can imagine, much of it melted, and one year in Apalachicola,
Florida, the price rose to $1.25 a pound—about $50 in today’s dollars.)
John Gorrie, a doctor trying to solve the problem of malaria, which was rampant in
Florida at the time, discovered that the disease occurred more frequently in hot, humid
weather. He felt he could reduce its incidence if he could lower the temperature of his hospital
wards. At first he did this by blowing fans over blocks of ice, but when an ice shortage pushed
the price to high levels, he decided there must be a better way. He was aware of some recent
discoveries in chemistry—specifically, that compressed gases, when expanding rapidly, will
absorb heat from their surroundings. He constructed a steam engine that would compress air
(a gas) in a cylinder. As the piston withdrew, it would allow the air to escape and expand into
another cylinder. Gorrie put a brine solution around this cylinder and found that it would get
cold because the air inside the cylinder was cold. By pumping this cold air into his hospital
wards, he invented the first air conditioner.
Gorrie also discovered that by placing water around the brine solution, he could draw
heat from the water to such an extent that the water turned to ice. Gorrie realized the
enormous possibilities of the ice-making machine and tried to market it, but could not find
any financial backing; he died a poor and broken man. For the next twenty years, people tried
104 Culture and the Individual

to perfect the invention, but with only moderate success. By the early 1900s, however, the
process was sufficiently developed, and refrigerators became a commercial reality.
The social effects of refrigerators were enormous. People could buy larger quantities of
food at lower prices. They no longer had to make as many trips to the store, which meant that
neighborhoods provided fewer social and commercial contacts. Eventually, refrigerators
played an important role in destroying the basis for neighborhood stores and replacing them
with the modern supermarket and modern advertising, both of which created profound
changes in urban, suburban, and rural society.
Changes in refrigeration technology are ongoing. Thermal acoustic methods of cooling,
in which sound waves are used to do the cooling, and magnetic field cooling are being explored
as more efficient and less harmful methods of achieving refrigeration.
We recount these stories of the development of the food canning process and of
refrigerators not because these inventions are unique—we could have chosen numerous other
examples—but because seeing a particular instance gives us a better sense of the tremendous
and far-reaching influence that technological progress can have on society.

The Industrial Revolution

The technological developments chosen for the quiz at the beginning of this chapter date from
the late 1800s. In part, that is because the discoverers of many earlier inventions are unknown.
(Actually, historians often debate the origin of many technological discoveries, including
modern ones.) But it is also because in the nineteenth century there was simply an enormous
number of technological improvements. We limited the quiz to a few items you are likely to be
able to identify. Many eighteenth-century inventions have become so outdated that many
people today have never seen them, such as the steam locomotive that used to pull railroad
cars. After a lull, technological improvement began to expand enormously about 1760. The
period after that date is called the Industrial Revolution.
The Industrial Revolution is the name given to the sum of all the changes in economic
and social organization characterized by the replacement of hand tools with power-driven
machines and by the concentration of industry in large establishments. It had its beginnings in
Britain around 1760. There, for the first time people began to employ power machines for
industrial production and to build factories to house them. By 1800, this movement had made
substantial progress.
The British Industrial Revolution was brought about by an accumulation of inventions. A
new invention in one industry was followed by improvements and inventions in related
industries. This is well illustrated by the textile inventions of the eighteenth century. These
inventions were first employed in the cotton goods industry, which was relatively small and
new, and the machinery was operated by water power. When James Watt devised a greatly
improved steam engine, the revolution really took off. Machinery for producing cotton tex-
tiles was modified and applied to the production of woolen cloth, the output of which
expanded by leaps and bounds. Costs and prices were so reduced that a great new demand
developed for both wool and cotton products.
The developments just described gave Britain an advantage over its competitors. Because
Britain was able to mechanize its industries so much sooner than other countries, it was for
many years the workshop of the world. Its production, trade, and wealth rose to what was then
regarded as high levels. But in time industrialism began to spread to other nations.

The Development of Industrialism in the United States

In the early nineteenth century, the machine industry and factory system began to develop in
the United States. The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) and the War of 1812 gave U.S.
 Technology & Society 105

The interior of a nineteenth-century cotton factory.

industrialization a strong push because they made it difficult for the United States to import
British textiles. To make up for the resulting shortage, many new textile factories were
established in this country. Employers had to pay higher wages than their counterparts in the
British factories, but as long as British textiles were not available, they could operate profitably.
When peace came to Europe and normal trade was reestablished, many of these new factories
were forced to close down. Others, however, survived, and from that time on the United States
gradually became more and more industrialized.
In some respects, conditions in the United States favored industrialization. First, our
domestic market was rapidly growing. Second, raw materials were plentiful. Third, labor was
relatively scarce and wages were higher than in Europe, partly because workers kept leaving
their jobs to settle on free or cheap land along the frontier. Although this raised costs of
production, it also put a premium on the introduction of labor-saving machines. To reduce
costs, as many operations as possible were shifted to power machines. As a result, production
increased much faster than the number of workers, standards of living gradually rose, and
wealth began to accumulate.

Standardization, Interchangeability, and Mass Production

Early machines were crude by our standards. Because their parts did not fit together perfectly,
they ran with a great deal of noise and clatter and frequently broke down. Often their products
were imperfect, so that further work had to be done on them by hand to make them acceptable.
One of the greater advances in industrial technology was the gradual development of precision
machines that would run smoothly and that could also turn out standardized, accurately
made, and hence interchangeable parts for more or less complex finished products such as
watches, guns, washing machines, and automobiles. This development made it physically
possible for a machine to produce thousands of units of a given part, all so nearly alike that
they could be freely substituted for one another. Standardization—the production of uni-
form, substitutable parts—was made possible by a humble but far-reaching development, the
improvement of measurement devices. Similar small improvements have played large roles in
shaping our society, so it is worth describing this one in detail to give you a sense of the
mundane aspect of technological development.
To understand the problem of standardization, think of a car. If you blow a piston, you go
out and buy a new one. Getting the new piston is not cheap, but it is a lot cheaper than if you
106 Culture and the Individual

had to have a machinist make a new piston to fit your individual engine. It would probably
cost twenty or thirty times as much. Extending this analogy to other areas, much of the
machinery—for example, dishwashers, tractors, and photocopiers—we use today relies on
interchangeability, the ability to substitute one part for another. Without it, there would be
far fewer goods than we now have, and those that we do have would be more expensive.
So interchangeability is important; that’s obvious. But if it is obvious that interchange-
ability has so many advantages, why weren’t early machines built with interchangeable parts?
The reason is a technical one: To achieve interchangeability in machines, tolerances (vari-
ations in size and shape) must be less than one-thousandth of an inch. With the tools available
in the 1700s and early 1800s, even the best, most skilled machinist could not approach such
tolerances, so interchangeability was only a dream until some method of achieving those
tolerances could be found.
As has happened with many inventions, the strongest impetus for standardization came
from the armed forces. Before and during the Civil War (1861–1865), each rifle had to be
produced separately. If one broke, a skilled machinist or gunsmith was needed to repair it.
These craftsmen, using a variety of tools, would fashion a musket or even a rifle. Each musket
had to be built precisely; that is, all the parts, such as the stock, barrel, and lock, had to fit
together and work as a coordinated whole (hence the phrase, “lock, stock, and barrel”). But
precision did not mean interchangeability. A gunsmith would work the individual com-
ponents until they fitted together, but as he modified each part to fit the others, he made it
specific to that weapon; the part worked in no other. To repair rifles, armies had to have their
own musket makers who would fix individual muskets that had broken in the field. Armies
would also keep armories, where they made individual weapons, and armories were an
important part of the defense capacity of any country.1
In about 1820, one of the skilled musket makers, John Hall, argued that this procedure
was inefficient and that armies would have a tremendous advantage if their muskets had
interchangeable parts. An army would only have to carry spare parts, which could easily be
used to repair a broken weapon. It would not only be cheaper, but it would also be far more
efficient. As we stated earlier, technological requirements for interchangeable parts were
enormous because, if all parts were to be interchangeable, each musket had to fit together
precisely and be identical to every other in a way that two individuals each producing an entire
musket could not accomplish.
To meet the problem, Hall developed a method of precision machine production. The
movement to precision machine production required a number of small but extremely
important technological breakthroughs, which included measuring from a standard pattern
rather than from each piece and the development of dies by which individual parts were
compared and tested. With these developments, machines could reach a level of precision and
consistency necessary for interchangeability, a level much higher than even the most skilled
worker could achieve.
Rather than a machinist measuring each part, a machinist could make an initial part, or die,
and then a machine employing a micrometer could produce a duplicate, using a process similar
to the one hardware stores use today to duplicate keys. The machine traces the original and
fashions the new part to conform. By means of this process, each part is sufficiently identical so
that interchangeability is possible. There are, of course, some minute variations, but by making
each part and measuring it relative to the original with a micrometer, a skilled machinist can
keep the variations between the individual pieces at an acceptable level for interchangeability.
Social and Economic Effects of Interchangeability. Once interchangeability was intro-
duced, the production process quickly changed and the pace of the Industrial Revolution

1
Later we discuss the modern military-industrial complex (the interconnection between the military and
business) and its implications for society. It is important to remember that the military-industrial complex is not a
new phenomenon but has existed for as long as societies themselves have existed.
 Technology & Society 107

A Nissan employee works on an assembly line.

© EdStock/iStock

quickened. In the early 1900s, Henry Ford carried through this development with the
introduction of the assembly line, a production technique in which each worker in a factory
performs a single operation on an item as it is passed along. Because of this innovation, the
price of a car was lowered in the 1920s from about $1,600 to $300.
With standardization and machine production, while one machine was making one part,
other machines could be making other parts, and by using an assembly line great quantities of
the finished product could be turned out by merely assembling the proper parts. Thus
standardization led to mass production, the use of standardized parts to construct great
quantities of a product on an assembly line.
Naturally, it does not pay to make large amounts of a product if they cannot be sold. But
when the market is large enough, the use of standard interchangeable parts makes mass
production possible and substantially reduces costs. To construct an expensive machine to
make a standardized part would not pay if the machine could be used to produce only a few
units of output, because the sale of these few units would have to cover the entire cost of the
machine. But if mass production is possible and a machine can be employed to produce
thousands or hundreds of thousands of units, the portion of the cost that must be charged to
each unit becomes small or even negligible. It then pays to use a machine in place of human
labor whenever one can be devised to perform a necessary operation. When standardized
parts made by machines are combined into a finished product on a modern assembly line, as
in the automobile industry, mass production reaches a high level of efficiency.
The effects on society of interchangeability and mass production were enormous. Indi-
vidual skilled workers were no longer held in high esteem; their pay fell, their social position
fell, and the skill level necessary to produce goods fell. In response, they led movements against
the use of new machines. As the status of skilled workers fell, the status of the owners of
machines rose. Fortunes were built by industrialists, and high society had to make room for
these newly rich. Business provided a way to move up the social ladder, and as businesspeople
moved up, they brought their own values and worldview. Armies and arms became less costly;
war and killing increased.
As the interchangeable-parts approach to production spread, these effects were multi-
plied. With the development of low-priced cars, the limitations geography placed on society
changed and the nature of cities changed. Low-priced tractors increased productivity in
farming, lowering food prices and forcing more and more people off the farms. None of
these changes would have occurred as early as they did if Hall, or someone else, had not figured
out a way to machine-tool more exactly.
108 Culture and the Individual

The Information Revolution

The Industrial Revolution fundamentally changed physical labor. It replaced much of the
physical labor done by humans with machine labor. Instead of plowing the land with a hand
plow, one plowed it with the tractor. Labor power based on strength became less important; it
was replaced by skill-based labor power. The effects of the Industrial Revolution are still
occurring, but today another revolution just as powerful is taking place—the information
revolution. The information revolution involves the replacement of human processing of
information with computer processing of information. More and more activities can be done
more quickly, efficiently, and precisely with computers. Some such activities you are familiar
with. Math and word processing is done much more effectively by computers. But others you
might not be. Driving will soon be done more effectively by computers than by humans, and
instead of driving where you want to go, you will be driven by a smart car—which drives itself.
(Take a look at http://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/) Writing a paper for the class will soon
be done by computers, and possibly even writing a textbook. Just click on the paper writing app.
Combine this information revolution with the continuing Industrial Revolution and it is
clear that the US economy and social system are in for major changes in the future. One of the
biggest problems is figuring out how to keep everyone busy, and providing everyone with
enough income to live in a way that they find acceptable. For while the information revolution
allows society as a whole to have more, it does not necessarily provide that income in a way
that society will find acceptable. Specifically, it provides enormous income for those who are in
at the ground floor of the information revolution and for those who are trained in information
processing and have high-level jobs. The information revolution is replacing semi-skilled
mental jobs, just as the Industrial Revolution replaced semi-skilled physical jobs. The people
who had those jobs, or were going into them, will either have to live off a welfare system the
society creates, or move into those low-wage, unskilled jobs that still exist. In short, the
information revolution is creating billionaires while undermining the social stability of our
society—a social stability built on the belief that, if you work hard, you will receive an income
adequate to have a lifestyle that meets or exceeds that of your parents.
Society is responding to the problem created by the information revolution in a variety of
ways. The push for a higher minimum wage is one. But that push, while it might temporarily
help, will likely further exacerbate the problem by encouraging even more replacement of
semi-skilled jobs by computers and smart technology. Another way society is responding is by
government providing more and more support for lower and middle-class workers in the
form of subsidies and programs that provide them with
income. Social security, food stamps, Medicare, and
subsidized medical care insurance are examples. But
those government programs require increasing taxes—
something society has not been willing to do.
A more fundamental change would involve separ-
ating income from jobs—and providing less support for
the intellectual property rights such as patents, trade-
marks, and copyrights, which prevent others from
competing with those who managed to get into the
market first. Reduced length for patents and copyrights
would create more competition and lower prices,
spreading the benefits of the information revolution to a
wider group of people. Opponents of this idea rightly
point out that such changes would slow the pace of
A welding robot in an automobile factory. change, which it might. Supporters argue that it would
© Matthew Richardson/Alamy Stock Photo only slightly slow that pace, and that by providing the
 Technology & Society 109

benefits more widely would help avoid major social conflict. These issues will be
Oops playing out in the coming decades.

An irate banker dem-

anded that Alexander
Graham Bell remove
“that toy” from his
office. That toy was the
telephone.
A Hollywood pro-
ducer scrawled a curt
rejection note on a
manuscript that
became Gone with
the Wind.
Henry Ford’s larg-
est original investor
sold all his stock in
1906.
Roebuck sold out
to Sears for $25,000
in 1895. Today,
Sears may sell
$25,000 worth of
goods in 16 seconds.
The next time
somebody offers you
an idea that leaves
you cold, put it on the
back burner. It might
warm up.
United Technologies advertisement.
The Social Basis for Technological Progress
Because of the extensive social changes these new technological developments
involve, they may never come about. Technological progress occurs only as long as
social conditions encourage and make it possible; quite likely, someday conditions
could change in such a way as to stop it. There have been times and places in the
history of the world when people have lost ground instead of making progress.
Many factors might in the long run greatly retard our technological progress.
The costs of the research and equipment necessary for meeting certain problems of
pollution are likely to be resisted by many corporations and also, where government
is directly involved, by many taxpayers. Technological progress also tends to be
slowed by organized pressure groups that have an interest in limiting the output of
certain products and in opposing the introduction of new methods or products in
order to maintain the demand and the prices for the things they sell. For example,
labor unions often oppose the introduction of methods or materials that might
reduce the jobs available to their members, and producers of building materials
sometimes seek to discourage the introduction of substitutes for their products,
even though these may be better and cheaper and may use materials that are more
plentiful. Existing taxi drivers oppose Uber because it undermines their livelihood.
Similarly, farmers demand that the government take measures to reduce farm
output in order to raise farm prices and incomes.
A more subtle influence that might slow up technological progress would be a
less receptive attitude of society toward change. This might result not only from a lack
of interest in consuming more goods but also from a feeling of indifference toward
improving both the quality of goods and the quality of the environment; or it might
result from a gradual dilution of the spirit of adventure and from an increasing
emphasis on security. Change and progress often seem dangerous and disturbing.
They put some people out of jobs and force them to seek types of employment not to
their liking. They cause some business enterprises to fail, even though others may be
expanding rapidly. A society that puts its whole emphasis on stability and security is
not likely to look with favor on radical technological innovations.

Technology and Globalization

The development of technology is generally associated with specialization and increased trade
because trade allows individuals and companies experiencing a technological change
to become better at what they do (this is called learning by doing). As they become better at it,
they can produce products at lower cost. Additionally, trade allows companies to take
advantage of economies of scale—the bigger a firm’s production facilities, the lower its per-
unit costs of the good. For example, making one car is extremely expensive; making many cars
has a much lower per-car cost.
If a company can produce something more cheaply, it can out-compete other firms and
hence make enormous profits. With those profits, it can spend more on research and
development and gain even more of the market, as long as other firms cannot duplicate that
technology quickly. When this happens internationally, it falls under the heading globaliza-
tion— the integration of world economies. Globalization has been occurring at a fast rate in
recent years, and traditional societies are often shaken by change, as less expensive goods come
in from more technologically advanced countries.
110 Culture and the Individual

Technology also affects traditional societies in another way. Firms are always looking for
cheaper ways to produce goods. If they can hire workers in a traditional society at a lower rate
than they can in their own society and are allowed to do so, they will often transfer production
facilities. So another aspect of globalization involves the movement of production facilities
and technology from one economy to another. In recent years, enormous amounts of man-
ufacturing activity in the United States have been transferred to countries such as India and
China, with profound effects on their economies and culture. It has made them better off
materially, but has also introduced large income inequalities and Westernization of their
culture, which many people consider a loss.
The Internet is speeding the process of globalization, making it possible for firms to easily
compare prices of goods throughout the world and to communicate cheaply over long dis-
tances. United States service sector jobs, such as claim agents, suppliers of helpline support,
X-ray technicians, and tutors, which previously had not experienced international compe-
tition, are now being outsourced—many U.S. high-wage workers have been replaced by low-
wage foreign workers. With continuing technological advances subjecting more and more
jobs to outsourcing, and the large differential between U.S. wages and those in many foreign
countries, the effects of globalization will likely be enormous in the coming years.

Modern Technology and the Need for Skilled Workers

A belief once widely held is that machines reduce the need for human skills. It has been said
that before the machine age, the individual worker was an artisan who performed by hand all
the operations on the product. The worker was a weaver, a shoemaker, a candle-maker, or a
tailor. Standards of technique were high, and because one worker made the entire product, a
high level of skills was demanded. After the advent of machines, those individual skills became
almost useless. Machines performed the operations required to make a product, and the
worker became an automaton whose function was to operate or feed the machine, perhaps
doing nothing but moving a lever up and down or placing a piece of metal in a machine,
removing it when the machine had operated, and repeating this task all day long. Such work
required no skill, and so the typical worker became a common laborer instead of an artisan.
The reasoning presented here is plausible but highly misleading. Before the age of the
machine, skilled craftspeople represented a tiny portion of the working population in most
countries. The great majority of the people lived and worked on the land. The work was heavy,
the hours long, and the returns small. It is true that the
introduction of machines put certain skilled artisans out
of work or forced them to work in factories as unskilled
labor. For example, after the introduction of the power
loom in Britain in the eighteenth century, the price of
cloth dropped so sharply that skilled handweavers could
no longer make a living at their trade. This does not
mean, however, that the introduction of machinery
reduced the total demand for workers with special skills
or training. Quite the contrary. The skills required
became different, but in the long run the introduction of
machines made it necessary for a much larger portion
of the population than ever before to acquire specialized
skills, training, or knowledge. Furthermore, in modern
factories, purely routine and mechanical jobs such as
feeding materials into a machine are continually dis-
appearing because machines can be devised to perform
these operations automatically. An outstanding charac-
teristic of modern automation is the constant shifting of
© DanielVilleneuve/iStock routine activities from people to machines.
 Technology & Society 111

To compensate for this loss of routine jobs, modern machine technology has created great
numbers of jobs that require specialized skills or knowledge: engineers, construction workers,
plumbers, electricians, machinists, and mechanics. There are people trained in the organiza-
tion and administration of industrial enterprises, in advertising and selling, and in various
phases of transportation. In addition, there are accountants and a great many skilled clerical
workers.
The development of robots has reduced the number of routine jobs even more but has
increased the need for skilled technicians who assemble and repair them, the systems
engineers who devise plans for using them to solve business problems, and the programmers
who put these plans into operation. As the information revolution continues, and the creative
revolution takes hold, more and more jobs will be affected, and jobs with higher and higher

The One-Second Essay Writer
Technology is central to social science because it
changes the value of various types of skills, and thereby
changes the power structure in society. For example,
before the Industrial Revolution, being physically strong
was an extremely useful characteristic. Physically strong
people gained relative power and physically weaker
people lost relative power. The Industrial Revolution has
over centuries decreased the value of physical strength.
Machines designed by mentally strong people, which
could do replicable physical work faster, kept
developing and reducing the need for physical stength.
Mentally strong people gained relative power, and
physically strong people lost power. (There was still a
need for some physically strong people, and the super-
strong (professional athletes) were in high demand for
entertainment.)
The information revolution is now doing to mentally
strong people what the Industrial Revolution did to
physicalyl strong people. Replicable mental work is
more and more being done more quickly, cheaply, and
easily, by computers. For example, many small news-
papers are now having computers write some of their
articles about local sports activity. Someone at the game
fills in a questionnaire with information about what
happened, and then the computer writes the article.
Similarly, the Associated Press is moving toward
computer-written stories in finance. See http://www.
theverge.com/2015/1/29/7939067/ap-journalism-
automation-robots-financial-reporting.
Computers are also doing more of the grading for
teachers, even when the test being graded is an essay
test. Today, computers can almost instantaneously
grade papers on technical structure—i.e. seeing that
papers avoid grammatical and spelling mistakes, and
use appropriate sentence structure and vocabulary. They
can assign a grade to papers thousands of times faster
than humans. Moreover, since solid content often
correlates well with technical proficiency, the grades are
close to what humans give them.
What computers cannot yet do is judge content
directly. A paper might be technically well written, but
might say nothing. (I suspect you know when you have
written such a paper.) To show the problem with online
grading of essays, an MIT professor developed a
computer program that would write an essay about
anything. He called it the “one-second essay writer” You
put in a few key words and it writes an essay on the
subject. This essay writer was able to get top grades for
essays it wrote for an online grading system. (You can
see a story about it at http://www.marketplace.org/
topics/tech/education/computer-program-write-your-
essays.) The problem was that the content of the essays
was essentially garbage—the essays had some big
words thrown together that sounded impressive, but
were meaningless.
The takeaway from this example is that computers can
now do replicable technical mental work much better
than can humans. They will be taking over such work in
the coming decades. But what they cannot yet do is
creative mental work even if it is replicable. Computers
still can’t write an essay that captures the nuance of an
idea and says something new and meaningful better than
humans. But computer scientists are working on the
problem, and future computers will become better and
better at doing creative and nuanced work.
So there is another revolution that will impact society—
it might be called the “creativity revolution”. It is
currently still in the beginning stage, but it is happening.
As this revolution takes off, technology will be able to
surpass most humans’ creative abilities, and well as
humans’ more mundane mental abilities. When that
happens, relative power will shift again away from
those with normal creative skills and toward those with
what might be called super-creative skills—the skills that
are needed to dream up and create the software that
replaces many of the mental functions that humans used
to perform. How that all integrates into the social system
is beyond me; it is a problem that the computer that takes
over authorship of this book will have to deal with.
112 Culture and the Individual

levels of mental skills will find that they will come under pressure from changing technology.
As that happens what is meant by “human skills” as distinct from “computer skills” will
become blurred, and the earlier concerns about machines replacing the need for human skills
will be blended into concerns about what we mean by human skills.

Machines, Computers, and Unemployment

In addition to the belief that machines reduce the demand for skilled workers, there has been
an even more persistent notion that has little foundation in past experience—the idea that
advances in machine technology, by replacing labor, progressively decrease total job
opportunities and total employment. This belief had a strong appeal in the 1930s when
millions were out of work. At that time, many writers argued that our economy had become
“mature” and that in order to provide enough jobs in the future, it would be necessary either to
spread the work around by progressively shortening the workweek or else to have the gov-
ernment keep creating more jobs through an expanding program of public works. In addition
to shortening the workweek, it was often proposed that young people should be kept in school
longer and that older workers should be retired at earlier ages.
No one questions that machines displace individual workers from certain jobs and that
in the short run this often creates difficult problems. For example, the use of diesel engines
and electric power by railroads has made obsolete the position of “fireman”—the employee
who shoveled coal into the locomotive boiler that produced the steam for the train’s steam
engine—but because of union support, railroads had to fill this position for many years after
steam power ceased being used by trains. However, such problems are temporary. Ultim-
ately, advances in machine technology tend to reduce costs and prices (assuming a constant
value of the dollar) or to hold them down, and by enabling people to buy more goods, they
create new employment opportunities. If some industries employ fewer workers, others
employ more. At the same time, new products are introduced and new industries are
established.

Technology and Social Change

As you can see from our discussion of the Industrial Revolution and the information
revolution, technology plays an important role in determining a society’s culture. Changing
technology allows enormous increases in living standards but it also creates social problems.
Work in the first factories took people away from their homes all day and disrupted the
established pattern of domestic life. It also forced large numbers of people to live close to their
new places of work, which in turn resulted in crowded industrial towns and cities. On the
other hand, there is evidence that even the early factories gave the masses more opportunities
to earn and a better chance of survival. One indication of this is the fall in the death rate and the
increase in the rate of population growth that have occurred over time.
The effects of technology on society are so pervasive that some social scientists claim
that technology is the primary determinant of social and cultural relations. Some social
scientists argue that mass production and the assembly line, where each individual does
one task repeatedly, developed not because they were more technically efficient, inasmuch
as you can get more output from a certain amount of work, but because they established
and fortified social divisions. For example, suppose two kinds of a machine can produce
widgets. One requires each individual to work on a part with no one supervising; the other
requires a supervisor directing individuals to perform specific tasks. Even if the first kind
of machine provides a cheaper way to produce a widget, if the decision were left to
the supervisor, he or she would be unlikely to choose the one that eliminated the super-
visor’s job.
 Technology & Society 113

Qwerty people could type. Of course, the problem of keys

When considering the interrelationships between tech-
nology and social institutions, it is instructive to think
about the keyboard. Note that the first six letters on the
top of the keyboard spell QWERTY. When you learned
keyboarding, you learned to memorize the positions of
these keys, and eventually you learned to type anywhere
from 5 to 150 words per minute. You might wonder how
the letters were given those positions, instead of being
arranged some other way. They were put there on purpose
by an inventor, Christopher L. Sholes.
Initially, typewriters were built with letters in serial
fashion, but it was found that people could type too fast
on such a keyboard, and often the keys would lock
together when pressed in succession too quickly. Sholes
developed the QWERTY keyboard to minimize the
occurrence of such stickiness by slowing down how fast
sticking was relevant only for the earliest typewriters.
The “golf ball” typewriters developed in the 1960s and
the electronic typewriters that followed had no such
problem at all, and neither do computer keyboards. Yet
QWERTY, the innovation devised for a specific purpose
at an earlier time, remains standard for all of these
keyboards. Redesigning the keyboard would mean that
teachers must retrain and experienced typists must
relearn how to move their fingers, so it seems unlikely
that such a change will take place.
Precisely the same set of issues is relevant to a variety
of existing technologies and social institutions. Although
they may have had a purpose at one time, they might be
limiting now. The mere fact that they are limiting does
not mean they will be changed.

Social scientists who use this line of reasoning argue that the social class structure of
capitalism is inevitable with the capitalist means of production. They argue that even
communist countries, which in theory attempted to avoid class divisions, nevertheless
maintained the class divisions of capitalist society as long as they used capitalist technology
and capitalist modes of production. When a technology is designed for a boss and a worker,
unless these divisions are maintained, the technology cannot be effective. Communism self-
destructed because it did not develop its own technology. Only by developing an alternative
technology, one not designed to hold workers down, can any society divest itself of class
structure.
This argument is subject to much criticism, but the fact remains that capitalist tech-
nologies have inevitably led to capitalist countries developing a class system. (But so too have
precapitalist and noncapitalist countries have developed a class structure as well.) Concern
about this effect of technology kept China from encouraging Western technology. Through
much of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and well into the 1970s, China
attempted to purge many of those Western technologies. However, under new leadership in
the late 1970s and early 1980s, China reversed its position and began the conscious intro-
duction of Western technology into its system, with the intention of pushing economic
development. The debate, however, continues, especially because the recent growth in
formerly socialist societies have been marked by increasing inequality.
114 Culture and the Individual

Natural Resources, Economics, and Technology

One of the debates that often surfaces among social scientists concerns whether there are
sufficient resources for society to continue to grow and whether we will some day reach a limit
to growth. It is relevant to our discussion here because technology provides a necessary link
between resources and the economy. To see this link, we need to consider the nature of
economic activities, natural resources, and technology.
Economic activities are those activities concerned with making a living, and they
necessarily play a major role in every culture. Their character is largely determined by three
factors. First, all human beings have wants for many kinds of scarce goods. Scarce goods are
goods that exist in limited quantities and that we can obtain only if we produce them or if we
offer something valuable in exchange for them. The desire to satisfy specific wants is the
motive behind all economic activity.
The second factor that guides economic activity is available resources. Economic goods
such as food, clothing, housing, and weapons cannot be created out of nothing. If people are to
have goods, they must find the materials in nature—natural resources—from which the goods
can be produced. Unless people can find such materials, their wants will remain unsatisfied no
matter how great their efforts. With ingenuity, however, they may discover that they can turn
to their advantage materials that at first seemed quite useless.
The third factor controlling economic activity is technology, meaning knowledge of how
to use resources to produce desirable goods, including services. Both the technology of a
society and the economic activities in which its people engage are greatly influenced, though
by no means wholly determined, by the extent to which various natural resources are available.
For example, power is essential in a modern industrial economy, but even a modern economy
cannot make extensive use of power unless substantial amounts of power-producing
resources are available. Furthermore, the methods used to generate power tend to depend on
the relative availability and cost of water power, coal, natural gas, petroleum, sun, wind, and
fissionable materials such as uranium. In the future, the methods employed are also likely to be
greatly influenced by the success with which we can eliminate the contributions most of them
make to polluting or otherwise damaging our environment.
The key element in the process is that natural resources have meaning only in reference to
technology. Because technology transforms natural resources into products that can satisfy
economic wants, the supply of natural resources depends on the type of technology we have. If
a technology develops that can turn sand into a steel-like substance cheaply, then there will be
an almost unlimited amount of building material. If we can develop a technology that can turn
sunlight into energy cheaply, energy will be almost unlimited. Thus, technology holds the key
to growth and the solution to shortages

Natural Resources, the Limits of Economic Growth,

and Climate Change
With regard to natural resources, the United States is in a relatively fortunate position, for it is
probably better supplied with them than any other similar area in the world. This endowment
of natural resources has provided the material basis for our phenomenal economic
development and our present political and military strength. We have great areas of fertile
farmlands and forests. We are relatively well provided with sources of power such as
petroleum, natural gas, coal, and sites for hydroelectric plants. We also have large reserves of
iron ore and other important minerals. True, we lack certain metals, such as nickel, chro-
mium, and tin, but ordinarily we have no difficulty in importing these.
Although our position is still strong with respect to most basic resources, the outlook for
the future is not clear. Concern about future availability of resources reached a high point in
 Technology & Society 115

the 1970s as ecologists argued that we were headed for doom. Their argument was twofold:
Either we were going to run out of natural resources, or the pollution resulting from pro-
duction was going to destroy us.
Most economists believe that much of the ecological concern at that time was overdone.
We still have vast reserves of low-grade iron ore; similarly, we have vast reserves of shale oil
and sand oil. The problem is one of costs and developing the technology that makes extraction
of these natural resources economically feasible. The remaining reserves involve a high cost
of extraction and therefore cannot be utilized unless the price to the consumer is raised. At
50 cents per gallon for gas, there would be a severe gasoline shortage; at $10 per gallon, there
will likely be enough for many decades to come. In fact, this is how the market system is
designed to work. As a good becomes scarcer, its price rises. Because of that price increase, we
use less of it and individuals devote more resources to designing new technologies to achieve
the same result without using that resource. For example, plastics were developed during
World War II because of the shortage of natural rubber. Similarly, in response to higher prices
for gasoline in the 1970s, the average size of automobiles decreased significantly. Then, as
gasoline prices fell in the 1980s and 1990s, larger and more powerful cars once again came into
vogue. In the early 2000s, high demand for oil by China and the war in Iraq raised the price of
gasoline to over $4 per gallon. That increase and concern about the supply of gasoline sparked
an interest in hybrid and all-electric cars. That interest decreased somewhat when the price of
gasoline fell in 2014 and 2015.
Goods can become scarce by other means than by being used up. In the United States, the
federal government is pushing to have automobile manufacturers develop vehicles to run on
energy that is less polluting than gasoline. In the early twenty-first century, we will likely see
more vehicles designed to run on electricity and natural gas because government policy has
made gasoline “scarce” through limiting its use because of concerns about the effects of carbon
based fuels effect on climate change.
Over the long run, changes in the relative availability of natural resources have an even
greater effect on our culture. For example, cities developed as an efficient means of bringing
people together before the existence of automobiles and low-cost transportation. When
gasoline was introduced, it stimulated the development and spread of automobiles, which in
turn reduced the relative advantages of cities. In the 1950s, we saw the result: a movement back
to the country, to the areas around cities that became known as suburbia. In the 1970s, as the
price of gasoline rose, the relative advantages of city life increased and many city areas were
revitalized.
Despite these benefits, we still should be concerned about natural resource shortages.
High prices can cause hardships, and the cultural change that accompanies relative price
changes often is difficult. To be aware of the need for change and to be careful with resources
can lessen the impact of that change or at least reduce the problems associated with it.
One of the ecological effects of modern society is climate change–the effect on earth’s
climate (such as global warming) caused by human activities. Most scientists are convinced
that climate change is taking place. One finding that climate change is taking place is that the
average surface temperature of the earth is already higher than it was a hundred years ago. The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, established by the United Nations (UN),
includes 2,000 scientists, and their consensus is that climate change is a significant potential
problem. These conclusions have been reinforced by numerous other studies.
At issue is not so much whether climate change is taking place–climate change is always
taking place–but the speed at which it is taking place. Some argue that the predicted warming
of the earth has been slower than predicted, and that the concern for fast action is overblown.
Others argue that the ecology of the world is nearing a tipping point, and that the slow change
is explained by the fact that the ocean depths have been collecting much more of the heat that
otherwise would have increased global warming more than the models took into account.
But that warming of the oceans is causing a melting of the global icepack, and as that icepack
melts, less heat will be reflected off the ice, increasing the amount of global warming and
116 Culture and the Individual

shrinking of the icepack. So the warming process could become a dynamic accelerating
feedback process, which in the future might lead to a much faster pace of change than any of
the models predicted.

The Anthropocene Age

Geologists divide the earth’s formation into “ages” or epochs. For example, the Holocene Age
generally begins with the end of the Ice Age and comprises the last 12,000 years or so. Recently,
however, a number of geologists have been calling for the creation of a new age—the
Anthropocene Age (the age of man). They argue that this Anthropocene Age category, which
begins with the Industrial Revolution, is needed to reflect the significant feedback of humans’
actions on the geology of the world. Others argue that such feedback has always been
important and that if one is to use the term Anthropocene, one should extend it back more
than 12,000 years, making the term Anthropocene synonymous with Holocene, which in
Greek means “entirely recent.” In our view, the terms themselves are not important, but the
debate about them reflects the debate among scientists about how much importance should be
given to humans’ influence on the environment.

Technology of the Future

Technology is changing and will continue to change. The information revolution will change
our jobs and our lives; the creativity revolution will change it even more. In the near term,
computers will progress and become more and more integrated with household appliances.
Refrigerators will keep track of what you need to order from the online grocery store and place
your order for you. On-demand television on the Internet will free people from having to
watch a particular show at a particular time. Interaction with these new devices will be via
voice recognition, not keyboards. Likewise, discoveries in biotechnology will change entirely
the way we interact with our bodies; cures for cancer and other diseases will be found, our
bones and tissues will be programmed to repair themselves, and we will have the ability to
choose characteristics of our offspring.
Another technological advance that is likely to significantly affect society in the near
future is nanotechnology—the manipulation of matter on the atomic and molecular level.
(A nanometer is one billionth of a meter.) Instead of building things from materials,
nanotechnology explores how things can be built atom by atom. If we can do that, all
manufacturing will be fundamentally changed.
One area scientists are exploring is molecular
self-assembly, which involves programming the
final structure, and then controlling the mol-
ecules to shape themselves from the bottom up to
take that shape. A lot of work is still needed before
any of this becomes reality, but it is likely that you
will be hearing about this technology in the
future.
In the near future, you are much more likely to
be affected by personal fabrication technology—
technology that allows you to “print” an object that
you design. Like the current two-dimensional
printers on which you can print what you type, the
new three-dimensional printers allow you to
design an object and then “print” it. These 3D
A 3D printer. printers (called “fabbers”) are available on the
 Technology & Society 117

Timeline: The Future
2020 Breakthrough in medicine; method delays aging
process and extends average life expectancy by
ten years (world population increases; causes
Social Security programs to fail).
2025 Developments with buckyballs redefine mat-
ter; diamonds and metals no longer scarce.
2030 Fusion reactor created that makes energy “too
cheap to meter”; oil companies go broke; gas
stations are eliminated.
2040 Genetic engineering means fabricated human
replacement organs roll off assembly line.
Amputated limbs can be regrown.
2045 Human cloning perfected; all parts of body can
now regenerate themselves.
2050 Computer chips developed to place in the
human head; eliminates the need for teaching.
2110 Temperature rise on earth means snow and ice
at the poles melt and oceans flood all low-lying
areas. Miami is no more.
2160 Various complicated life forms reproduced
from organic chemicals create significant
debate about morality and the meaning
of life.
2190 Major viral outbreak from genetic engineering
experiment; half the world population dies.
2210 Instant transportation created; old-fashioned
means of transportation—cars, legs, and so
forth—no longer needed.
2240 Human body shapes modified to eliminate
useless appendages.
2270 Life forms discovered in different galaxies now
reachable with instant transportation.
2280 The starship Enterprise returns safely to home
base.

Internet now—the cheapest we found was $1,500, but, like regular computer printers, their
costs will likely fall significantly in the future, just as what they can “print” will likely expand.
For example, MIT technology researchers are exploring how to print using proteins; someday
this technology may be available to print a new arm or leg for you, should you lose one.
In considering the effects of technology on the future, you will quickly see that predicting
the future is one of the most difficult but enjoyable activities of social science; it allows the
imagination to roam. Will spaceships like the Enterprise develop out of our exploration of
space efforts? Will we find new technologies that totally change our lives, such as instant
transportation or intelligence transfers? The possibilities are endless and not always pleasant
for specific individuals. For example, if a machine were developed to implant knowledge in
students without the use of teachers, many educators would likely be out of a job, and rather
than students going to school for sixteen years, they would merely attend school for infor-
mation updates once a year.
Such fanciful ideas are probably a long way off, but clearly life in 2050 will be significantly
different from life in 2010. Early in this century, robot factories may be commonplace and you
may have a robot helping you with both your housework and job. Gene-splicing and genetic
engineering could bring about even more changes. Numerous created life forms could be kept
in special areas and released for special purposes. For example, if there is an oil spill, oil-eating
bacteria would be released. If we need more gasoline, new organisms that improve the process
of making gas would be sold to oil firms. Or if you need a new type of plant to decorate a room,
you would design it and put in your order.

Conclusion
The technology of the future will probably involve changes that are much more imaginative
than those we have just speculated on. Some imaginative technological changes and their
potential effects are listed in the box on this page. Each of these ideas is fanciful, but each has
been advanced by futurists at one time or another. They are placed here, not because we expect
them to materialize, but to make us reflect and think about their implications for society and
culture. Each would change society in ways that are difficult to fathom. Each would have
118 Culture and the Individual

social, economic, and cultural consequences that in turn would affect society’s ability to use
that technology to its advantage and not to its detriment. Seeing that society uses technology
for good rather than evil is what social science is all about.

Study and Review

Key Points
! Technology comprises the tools, means, and
methods through which we interact with our
environment.
! The Industrial Revolution significantly changed all
aspects of society through its introduction of inter-
changeability and mass production of material
products.
! Technology influences culture, and culture influ-
ences technology.
! The limits-to-growth debate has two sides, and we
will find out which side is correct only when it is too
late to do anything about it.
! Many social scientists believe that the world has
entered the Anthropocene Age because of the feed-
back effects human activity is having on the
environment.
! Potential technological developments in the future
are limited only by the imagination.

Some Important Terms

Anthropocene Age (116)
assembly line (107)
climate change (115)
economic activities (114)
globalization (109)
Industrial Revolution (104) personal fabrication technology
information revolution (108) (116)
interchangeability (106) scarce goods (114)
mass production (107) standardization (105)
outsource (110) technology (102)

Questions for Review and Discussion

General Questions 6. Explain how the technology of the assembly line
led to other technological and cultural changes.
1. Give an example of a technological advance that
7. If the use of robots in factories becomes wide-
has greatly influenced your own life and explain
spread, will this mean a loss of jobs and a rise in
what its effect on you has been.
unemployment? Why or why not?
2. Name some technological change that took place
8. Explain how the information revolution is similar
in the past and explain how you think it has
to and different from the Industrial Revolution.
changed conditions ever since.
9. The jobs of some individuals are replaced by
3. What was the Industrial Revolution? What are
particular technological changes. What are some
some of the reasons it was successful in the United
ways to deal with this problem?
States?
10. Technology can be very expensive in terms of its
4. Why are standardization and interchangeability
effect on the quality of the air, water, soil, and
so important to mass production?
general environment. How can this expense be
5. When it became possible for machines to make
dealt with?
products formerly made by hand, what effects did
11. Technology can be very expensive in terms of the
this have on the number of people employed? On
amount of money it costs. Where do you think this
the level of wages? On the profit of employers? On
money comes from?
the quality of the products?

12. Do you think the advantages of technology are
worth the disadvantages? Why or why not?
13. Are there any technological changes you think
should not be made? What are they? If you oppose
a particular technological change, what alternative
solution do you have for the problem that change
was meant to address?
14. Try your hand at predicting a technological change
that may occur in the future. What effects on
society might that change produce?
Internet Questions
1. Using the website http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.
com/brooklynbridge.htm, learn about the technical
problems faced in constructing the Brooklyn bridge.
How did the builders overcome these difficulties?
2. Go to http://www.usbr.gov/projects and look up
the Hoover Dam. How large is the structure?
Where is it located and when was it built?
For Further Study
Books to Explore
Ackerman, Frank, and Lisa Heinzerling, Priceless: On Know-
ing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing, New
York: New Press, 2004.
Brown, David E., ed., Inventing Modern America: From the
Microwave to the Mouse, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
2002.
Brynjolfsson, Erik, and Andrew McAfee, The Second Machine
Age, New York: Norton, 2015.
Essinger, James, Jacquard’s Web: How a Hand Loom Led to
the Birth of the Information Age, Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2004.
Mead, Margaret, ed., Cultural Patterns and Technical Change,
New York: New American Library/Mentor, 1956.
Menzel, Peter, and Faith D’Aluisio, Robo Sapiens: Evolution of
a New Species, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000.
Millett, David, Anthropocene: The Age of Man, Create Space
Independent Publishing, 2015.
Othmer, James P., The Futurist, New York: Doubleday, 2006.
Ridley, Matt, The Evolution of Everything: How Ideas Emerge
Harper, 2015.
Shreeve, James, The Genome War: How Craig Ventner Tried
to Capture the Code of Life and Save the World, New
York: Knopf, 2004.
Toffler, Alvin, Future Shock, New York: Bantam, 1971.
Turkle, Sherry, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from
Technology and Less from Each Other, New York: Basic
Books, 2011.
Technology & Society 119
3. Go to http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.
php?storyId=19174580 and either read the article
or listen to it. Who makes Blu-ray discs? What
new technology may make Blu-ray discs obsol-
ete? What earlier formatting war is mentioned in
the article, and which brand came out on top
then?
4. Go to http://www.livescience.com/18801-greatest-
inventions.htm and take the quiz. How do you
score?
5. Go to http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/
slideshow?articleId=USRTXRKSI-a=10. What
country emits the most greenhouse gases per
year? Now go to http://www3.epa.gov/clima-
techange/impacts/. What are some of the con-
sequences of climate change?
Warschauer, Mark, Technology and Social Inclusion: Re-
thinking the Digital Divide, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
2003.
Wilmut, Ian, and Roger Highfield, After Dolly: The Uses and
Misuses of Human Cloning, New York: Norton, 2006.
Internet Sites to Explore
“http://www.asci.org” Arts and Science Collaborations, Inc.
“http://www.cdt.org” The Center for Democracy and
Technology.
“http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/” EPA, Climate Change.
“http://www.nist.gov/index.html” National Institute of
Science and Technology.
“http://www.avs.org/” Science and Technology.
“http://www.sierraclub.org/” Sierra Club.
“http://www.time.com/time/time100/builder/index.html”
Time100, Builders and Titans.
“http://www.wired.com/” Wired.
“http://peacetour.org/” World Peace through Technology.
“http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/05/20/406484294/
an-npr-reporter-raced-a-machine-to-write-a-news-
story-who-won”.
“https://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2014/03/25/why-com-
puter-scored-essays-could-eliminate-the-need-for-writ-
ing-tests/”.
“http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_ridley_when_ideas_have_
sex?language=en”.