THIRD AUSTRALIAN COMPUTER CONFERENCE

CANBERRA

Under Auspices of the Australian National

Committee on Computation & Automatic Control

Official Opening Address by  The Hon. ALLEN FAIRHALL, M.P.,

MINISTER FOR DEFENCE

Monday, May 16th, 1966

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen—  It is altogether appropriate

that this Third National Computer Conference should be held here in the

national capital of Canberra, because as you know our great industry is

Public Administration and it is administration of all kinds that is

coming to lean so heavily on computers.

It’s an important conference because it brings to our shores some

noted guests from overseas who come generously to share with us their

knowledge and experience. Happily, they will observe here that we are

not backward in taking up these modern developments.

Tdday, as I understand it, there are something like 400 computers

small and large in Operation in Australia and it is estimated that by  1970 there will be something like 1,Â©00 computers in service in  Australia.

I stand in complete awe before the computer when I realise its  enormous capacity to Ã¢ÂÂ  extend the range ef the normal intellect, and. I

stand in profound respect for all you gentlemen who understand how these  instruments work and who understand the capacity which technology has  placed in your hands.

As I look at the profound impact which computer technology is

making, I'm fascinated by the theme of this conference— "A Decade of  Computers— What Now?" and I shall wait eagerly for the end of the

conference to share with you the conclusions yop. have reached.

The last two words of that theme— "What Now?" surely challenges  the imagination of those who work in or on the periphery of this new

science. I may be permitted to remind you that you and I are partners.

We both seek to serve the public interest.

Since computers create problems in the social, economic and  political fields, it is my task in concert with my colleagues to try

to solve those problems, and then we are partners. You create the  difficulties and we'll do our best to solve them, and you won't be

surprised if we come back to rely heavily on you for some of the

solutions.

We stand today on the threshold of a new technology. There are  more scientists at work in laboratories today than have existed in  aggregate since science began. Everywhere in industry and science,  the lead-time between the development of an idea and its bringing into  practice is decreasing. It took something like 40 years for the early  work of Maxwell and Hertz to find its way into the experiments of  Marconi and all that we have today in radar, electronics and television.

It took only 10 years for nuclear theory tÂ© develop into atomic  explosion. Five years saw the transistor move from the drawing hoard

and laboratory into communications systems of every kind. Only three

years has gone by in seeing a beam of coherent light— the laser— become

almost a universal tool in industry, medicine, meteorology, navigation

and in communications, opening up a field undreamed of only a few years

ago ÃÂ  And if these uses of the laser are embryonic today, who knows

where they will finish.

Less than 10 years ago, man put his first orbiting artificial

satellite aloft. Within a decade of that day, we will depend heavily on

satellites for weather forecasting, for communications of every kind.

Indeed, the common carriers of the world are budgeting to put half of

their international communications via satellites and the other half by  cable for safety and diversion. All of this,  within 10 years of man

putting a miserable handful of satellites aloft and the vast resources of  the U*S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration gives some idea of

the magnitude of the effort being devoted to this scientific and technical  effort.

Today, NASA has an annual.budget of about U.S.$>5 Billion. It is all

devoted to the development of new technology, and when ultimately we put  a man on the Moon, as I have no doubt we will before too long, that great

fact will be of less importance than the technology we have developed in  getting him to the Moon and bringing him safely back to Earth.

Part of this space technology has been the development of the

computer, at once borne of the need for greater speed and precision in

calculation, itself a by-product of the technology to which it has made

such a magnificent contribution. Here surely is the chicken and the egg  situation; which came first? the need for the computer or the help that

came from the computer.

Today, your interest, your concern is with the application of

computer techniques. My own personal interest rests very much in the  technical side, very much in the technology, because it is from this  source that we will hope in this young country to enrich our technical  and our manufacturing resources. .

But in developing the electronic techniques which stand behind the  computer, we've gone sÂ© much further than the mere need of the computer  itself. The transistor was a magnificent break-through in technology.

Since then, in short order, we have seen development of thin film and  integrated circuit techniques. We have seen miniaturisation proceed to  the point where today's computer is only a fraction of the size and a  fraction of the weight of the earliest examples. It bears hardly any  relation to its original counterpart in terms of its power requirements  and yet its capacity has been vastly multiplied. And even to produce the

new components which go into computers today, we have developed a whole  new series of techniques in micro-photography. Developments in precision  engineering rather stagger the imagination. We have developed a whole new

metrology to allow us to deal with these techniques and the end is not

by any means yet in sight.

The computer therefore is a by-product of the technical revolution.

It has gone off to begin an entirely new technical revolution in its

own right. And it will come back powerfully to influence for good the

technology which gave it birth. If one were able to look at the curve

of the rate of progress of technology in our modern world, it would be

to see a line which stands almost on end.

.  It would be presumptuous of me to talk about the capabilities of the  computer, because your best thoughts on them are enshrined in the  Papers which will be presented during this conference. But so important

are these techniques for the future of this country that we shall

look with interest to read the Papers and see something of your

consideration of them.

'  Computer technology and computer techniques hit very largely at the

root of Australia’s greatest problem. Here we are, a nation of about

11 million people, almost at the ends of the Earth, seeking to build

for ourselves hopefully a great industrial future. Whatever the

position of the future will be, inevitably we are going to be short of

man-hours in our productive efforts. Almost inevitably, at least for

a long period,  we are going to depend on overseas technology.

Trying to compete in the world markets of those more fortunate people  who have bigger domestic markets and more long-term access to markets,

then it becomes clear that we in Australia will need to produce with

superb efficiency. We will need to save every man-hour. We will have  need to apply faithfully and well in Australian Industry every advantage

of m o d e m  technique and equipment. And in all of this, the computer  will be a big saver of man-hours. It will make an enormous contribution  to automation, to which we in Australia must inevitably move.

For anybody who has seen computers working in industry, it is a  miracle to watch production organisation at the great Volkswagen plant  in West Germany where 6000 motor cars of different specifications  fellow each other through the line and ultimately are put on on their

delivery vans for movement all over Europe and overseas.  All of this  would not be possible on a daily basis without the flexibility of the  computer.

In defence today, we' depend on the miracle of terrain-following  aircraft. We depend on electronics and computers for fire-power

control in supersonic aircraft. In the field of research, the computer  is really coming into its own. Mathematical models are saving enormous

amounts of time and therefore saving enormous costs.  It would not be  going too far to say that the application of these techniques in  Australia will alone give Australian scientists the chance to take part

in worthwhile sciences and engineering ^f world class. Today, the

Commonwealth Department of Supply has engineered what is regarded as  the finest anti-submarine weapon system in the world. I doubt if any

of this would have been possible without the application of computer  techniques.

Monitoring of g:reat construction programmes by critical path

techniques and analysis by computer will save millions of punds in  the great building undertakings to which we in Australia will find :

ourselves increasingly committed. And when one looks at industry to

see the development of computers which will thke mathematical formulae

and from them generate the technical drawings, develop their own tapes

for the use of tape-controlled, automated machines, then I believe we

in Australia are beginning to be in reach of those vital savings in

production which will give us a chance in world markets.

More important, the versatility they will bring to industry will

enable us to make greater use of the enormous capital equipment we have

in this country, but too much of which today is working only one shift,

Â®r one shift and part-time after that. .

But the efficient use of all-tdo-scarce manhours may well be one of  the greatest contributions which computers, through automation, will

make to Australia’s industrial future.

And yet it seems to me there are some shadows over the promise of the

future. When one looks back to the first Industrial Revolution in

England, it is to see that a good deal of the suffering which arose  was completely unnecessary. The suffering was not caused by the steam  engine or the power loom. It was the consequence rather of a great

step forward in to'chniealcnnnovation which was not matched by an '   equivalent step forward in social, economic and political thinking.

It has taken us almost a century to see that the factory was not an

evil, that in fact the factory is the focus around which the bulk of  our modern economy depends. And perhaps today's new revolution faces

something of the same kind of problem as did the first.

For automation, it is said, threatens social upheaval. Certain it is

that social change is inevitable and there will be those people who,

misunderstanding the direction of this development, will fear for the

consequences. But you people at this conference today are now

occupying a function in society which did not exist 10 years ago, and

to that extent 800 or 900 new positions have been found. '

When one looks at the automobile industry which is continuing to1   multiply its employment opportunities into the.millions, it is to

realise that this is the replacement of the horse and buggy. Here in

Australia, we have come through a long period of full employment; a

period when we have not only employed the whole of our manpower  resources,'but we have added considerably to them, and we have  provided rising standards of living with ever-decreasing hours of

effort.

Yet in all this, it would be idle to say there have been no advances  made in industry towards mechanisation, leading in turn towards

automation. And this seems to me to be perhaps an oversimplified but  nevertheless evident proof that the new revolution need not therefore

be disrupted.

OnÂ· the other..hand,  there is a challenge to the computer

technologists of today because so much of the direction of this future  development lies in your own hands. I had the privilege of standing

recently in the Goddard Space Flight Centre at Greenbelt (Maryland).

The technicians there told me they were putting 140 miles of tape

through the recorders every day. I watched these tapes being fed through  the computers. I looked at the read-out and the time for the filing of

the ultimate document and I saw the mounting stack 0f filed documents*

It occurred to me to ask what was going to happen to these documents,

and the odd answer I got was that they had taken a little space down at

the furniture store and they were going to put them away until an  opportunity came around to analyse them.

And so there may well be the possibility that through the computer

and the ease of processing data, we may come to process data for its own

sake rather than for the use we can make of it.

The London "Financial Times" some little time ago reported that in

the 12 years from 1948 to I960, workers in manufacture rose by 12 per cent.  In that same period, clerical workers in the same industries increased  by 48 per cent. Here in Australia in much the same period, in 1949 there  was one.white-collar worker for every nine employees. Ten years later in

1959 there was one white-collar worker for every seven employees. And  quite clearly, the valuable man-hours that we have got are being

increasingly devoted to clerical work of one kind or another.

It is to attack this possible waste of man-hours that the computer  will offer its most valuable services. There is always the danger of

over-systematising, but the computer can either multiply data processing

and storage without the need, or it can eliminate the wasteful clerical  work and return valuable man-hours to productivity.

I know it is useful to speculate on the computer and to romance

about the future of the computer and its place in modern society. But,  for example, democracy does not exist in the ease of voting from home

by means of electronics and computers. It exists in the mental

information and the attitude of mind that the elector brings to this

task, and much of the responsibility of seeing that there is a balance  between the development of the computer and the understanding of its  functions by the man in the street will rest with you.

There could of course be other and deeper problems. I note with  particular interest that you have devoted a section of Papers agenda to  the social implications of computers, and I am sure you will give due  attention to this important aspect of the art. One is always fascinated  by a machine which can analyse with precision and speed, which can reach  a decision without emotion, I assure you in these difficult days in  politics I wish we could have some decisions without emotion. But we in

our field are required to remember all the time that man is an emotional  being, is always insistent on the rejection of good advice, always  insistent on making his own mistakes. And I doubt that even the coming

of the computer will produce a revolution in human attitudes which will  avoid, this kind of situation.

— 6—

No matter how attractive it might he to have a machine with a

computer memory which can hold the wisdom of the ages,  I believe we

have got to look at the effects Â©f this kind of impact on humankind.

Because if we can go to a machine that holds all knowledge in its

memory, and if we can question the machine and it produces the

information, with the answers more precise, more free of errors than

anything we can do, then what will happen to the challenge to the human

.mind which is the only force which develops the intellect?

These and similar kinds of problems lie at the very base of the effect  of computer technology on our society^ Your motive,  and I hope birrs  as politicians, is to serve the public interest, I am always brought

back to the words af Albert Einstein who,  in an address to the

California Institute of Technology in 1931,  said these words;  'It is

not enough that you should understand about applied science in order

that your work may increase Man s blessings. Concern for Man himself

and his fate always forms the chief interest of all technical endeavour.

Be concerned for the greater unsolved problems of the organisation of

labour and the distribution of goods in order that the creation of cur

minds will be a blessing and not a curse to mankind. Never forget that

in the midst of your diagrams and equations'Â·

Daily, technology grows more complex. Daily, the realities of modern  techniques and their effect on society grow further from the understanding

of Mr. Average Citizen, who may become either the beneficiary or the

victim of these contemporary developments. These facts I think impose

a great responsibility upon you because of your special knowledge—

where they are going, what effects they are likely to produce. And as  you look for gains in your own techniques I hope you will not overlook

the problems which flow from them, even Wokugh those problems can and  will be solved.

The organisations and groups represented at this Conference are  widely representative of computer application at every level. You are  peculiarly the custodians of what we have of computer techniques,  of

computer expertise. I hspe as you study the Papers and exchange ideas  the thought will come through all qf your work that in this you are

serving the public interest. The future in this country for you is rich  in opportunity and rewards. Through your specialty, you can make a  magnificent contribution to the development of this young nation, in all

of its aspects, and I have the assurance that you will have this thought  prominently in your minds as you work together and exchange thoughts and

ideas. May your experience be richly rewarding as I declare this Third

Australian Computer Conference duly open.

With Compliments;

KEVIN NODAN  Presp Secretary to the Hon. Allen Fairhall

Monday, May 16th, 1966  CANBERRA. A.C.T.

