Is 'Responsible Computing' an Oxymoron?

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Is 'Responsible Computing' an Oxymoron?

4/12/2007

By Terry Calhoun

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about "responsible computing," to put one label on it. Last week my editor, David Nagel, suggested that the phrase might be an oxymoron. He asked me this question: "Is there any such thing as responsible computing?" That's an interesting thought, and I'm disgruntled that I didn't think of it on my own. After all, aren't personal computers inherently revolutionary? Doesn't the power they represent, in the hands of individuals, threaten just about every form of authority?

He remembers "back in the mid-'80s, as modems and bulletin boards became accessible, thinking, 'I should enjoy this while it lasts. The government is going to shut this down any minute.' It very easily could have happened. PCs were used for so many illicit activities in the olden days that manufacturers could have been shut down as easily as Napster was, especially back before PCs had any economic significance."

So, is the world really ready for tens of millions of impoverished kids to have nifty laptops, which automatically connect them with each other and with the Internet? Are we ready to put that kind of power in their hands? Some people see problems arising from those newly empowered kids, if it happens. More below, for now, read the latest about the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project here. I hope you get as excited about it as I am.

Back to David's observation for a moment: When he was seeing the power of personal computing and wondering if it was going to be even allowed, or shut down when those in power understood it, I didn't even see that as an issue. And that irks me. I have an excuse, though. Even though I learned Fortran and Cobol in the '70s, sent one of the earliest e-mails (I think) from the Defense Special Research Projects Group (DSRPG) at the Naval Observatory, and even though I ran batch cards with statistical analyses of fossil pre-human skeletons through mainframes, my earliest uses of personal computers (PCs) were strictly for word processing and desktop publishing.

While David was connecting with others in the early versions of "online," I was laying out books and producing resumes and cover letters for about-to-be college grads. I realized the larger power of PCs, but by the time I did, they were already so ubiquitous that there never seemed to be a question about whether or not they and the connectivity would be "allowed," except for the "thin client" scare. Whew. We dodged a bullet on that one. As a user, the very concept offended me!

Some of the reading I have been doing has made me wonder if I am missing another "issue" That is: What kinds of bad things could all of those kids in the developing countries do once they start getting their hands on the One Laptop Per Child's (OLPC) 2B1 product, starting later this year?

Here I've got to admit to naivete and starry-eyed thinking. I love the OLPC project. I think Negroponte is a genius, and I have been following it from its early days.