D. M. MACKAY 
electronic computer suitably programmed. Already such 
devices are in use as an aid to government in the simpler tasks 
of digesting massive statistics, evaluating trends and correlations, 
and answering specific questions, with a speed and accuracy 
entirely new to the art. It is certain that at present we have 
barely begun to exploit the potentialities of such devices as 
auxiliary sense organs of responsible government. 
HAVE MACHINES ANY LIMITATIONS ? 
Is there any foreseeable limit to the competence and power of 
machines in these new roles? I am not a prophet, nor the son 
of a prophet, and the present symposium will have its fill of 
prognostication. Routine aspects of information-processing in 
such fields as science, medicine, law, commerce, transport, and 
even criminal identification are obvious candidates for me- 
chanization. Translation from one language to another may 
have an irreducible residue of obstacles to full automation; 
but no one doubts that in fields with sufficiently restricted 
contexts mechanical translation will eventually be with us if 
we want to pay for it. At present the chief benefit of research 
in this area has been to our understanding of the structure of 
language. 
Electronic and other computing analogues of economic or 
political situations become rapidly more expensive and 
cumbrous as they are refined to allow for the interactions of 
real life; but already, as we have seen, they have thrown some 
light (in simple cases) on the mechanisms subserving the 
stability of social functions. Applications to the mechanics of 
business strategy and of politico-military gamesmanship are 
confidently proposed. 
In fact, wherever the social function of human beings or 
groups can be reduced to a formula (if not too complex), there 
seems no reason to doubt that mechanistic thinking and 
mechanical computing devices will find increasing application. 
What I want to discuss now, however, is rather the impli- 
cations of such possibilities than their fulfilment. If societies are 
in some respects like machines, would it be possible in principle 
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