Gunfire at Sea: A Case Study of Innovation

This chapter presents a case study of innovation: the introduction of continuous-aim firing in the U.S. Navy. It first provides a background on the technical aspects of gunfire at sea prior to the introduction of continuous-aim firing, first devised by an English officer, Admiral Sir Percy Scott, in 1898. It then considers the benefits brought by Scott's invention, in particular in terms of improving gunnery accuracy in the U.S. Navy. It also discusses Washington's responses to William S. Sims's recommendations for adopting continuous-aim firing in the U.S. Navy, citing the reasons for what must be considered the weird response to the proposed technological change. It shows that personal identification with a concept, a convention, or an attitude appears to be a powerful explanation for resistance to change. The chapter suggests an “adaptive society” in which humans adapt to their own technological changes.

A Little More on the Computer

This chapter talks about the computer, first by putting it in historical perspective. After discussing how new machines and men have got on together in the past and what some men think they have found out about the perplexing dialogue between question and answer, problem and solution, the chapter considers earlier devices such as looms, engines, and generators that resisted at critical points human ignorance and stupidity; that is, they set clear limits to man's ineptitudes. For the computer the limits are not so obvious. Used in ignorance or stupidity, asked a foolish question, it does not collapse; it goes on to answer a fool according to his folly. The chapter also reflects on the role of computers in history and describes proper programming before concluding with proposals for exploring the machine in a series of experiments in which the machine would be asked to reconstrue a series of situations out of the past; for example, the machine would be used not so much in problem solving as a learning machine.

Data Processing in a Bureau Drawer

This chapter discusses the nature of bureaucracy and the things associated with a bureaucratic organization. It first considers various definitions of bureaucracy before turning to two or three things that come to anyone's mind when he is presented with the word “bureaucracy.” In particular, it looks at the career of General Fred Crayton Ainsworth, who made his reputation for his skill in the collection, the filing, and the organization of paper. Here, it becomes apparent that the real point of bureaucracy is data processing. After addressing paper work in bureaucracy, the chapter examines the impersonality of bureaucracy as well as red tape and regulations and those who work in the bureaucratic situation. It suggests that what we call bureaucracy, with its interest in fixed and uniform solutions, thrives best in static environments, but that science and technology constantly interfere to throw the bureaucratic balance of things out of balance.

Some Proposals

This chapter makes a number of proposals on how to organize and manage the system of ideas, energies, and machinery so it will conform to all the human dimensions. The problem is how to reverse the process by which technology tends to create its own environment and set of conditions. If we are to manage the powerful system we have created in our own interests, we must also create a new sort of culture that will give clear definition to what, in the new scheme of things, our interests really are. This chapter recommends an “experimental society” that will collectively weigh and sort through innovations, accepting some and rejecting others. This experimental society does not necessarily adapt to its technological means, but finds other means to control its ends.

Men and Machinery

This chapter tells the strange story of what happened in the U.S. Navy when a new steamship, the Wampanoag, was put into service in the 1860s. It first describes the physical characteristics of the U.S.S. Wampanoag before sharing some biographical remarks about the man who conceived of, designed, and built her: Benjamin Franklin Isherwood. It considers the case of Isherwood to illustrate the circumstances that produce what may be called intellectual or professional heroism. It also examines the naval officers' criticism of the steam engine and suggests that if you have a clear enough scheme of things, a firm enough regulatory system, a culture, you can exert a restraining influence, modify the design of the machinery to keep it doing useful work within the cultural and human boundaries.

Introductory Observations, Personal and Otherwise

In this introduction, the author reflects on how he began to think about problems and questions related to the nature of technological change and society's reaction to that change. He recalls how he discovered a series of papers in a house built by a great-uncle, who wrote the volume in the 1890s under the title The New Epoch. The thesis of this volume was that humankind's unprecedented ability to manufacture power would usher in “an era of destruction…” Drawing on the ideas of The New Epoch, the author has come up with this book, the main topic of which is innovation, and more specifically, the hyper-production of change that is the cause of the coming era of destruction. Throughout the book, the author keeps returning to the conflict between innovation and conservation. While he emphasizes the stupidity of culture-bound resistance to change, he also appreciates the logic of such resistance.

“Almost the Greatest Invention”

This chapter describes the development of the Bessemer steel process. In spring 1862, a rail of Bessemer steel was laid down between two abutting iron rails in the Camden yard of the London and Northwestern Railway. Three years later, in May 1865, the first rail manufactured from Bessemer steel in the United States was produced at the North Chicago Rolling Mill. The chapter first provides an overview of steelmaking and metallurgy before discussing the commercial and intellectual development of the Bessemer steel process, along with the use of Bessemer steel in making railroads. It also considers innovations in the production of the Bessemer steel process and the patent controversy sparked by the technology, tariff protection for the process, and the Bessemer Association's price-fixing scheme. The chapter concludes by highlighting the stages involved in the innovating process: the inventive stage, the stage in which the invention is applied by the first entrepreneurs, the stage in which other entrepreneurs and engineers refine and consolidate, and the stage in which still other entrepreneurs take over to expand.

The Pertinence of the Past in Computing the Future

This chapter discusses the pertinence of the past, or “what possible use is there in history,” in computing the future. It begins with a brief account of a situation that occurred in March 1943, when German submarines sank in the Atlantic Ocean 567,401 tons of U.S. merchant shipping. A conference was called in Washington to discuss ways to reduce the attrition caused by the submarine, and it was agreed—after much debate—that the convoy system would be the primary means of protection for the merchant tonnage. The chapter proceeds by considering the capacities of the computer: remembering, learning, discerning patterns, making surprising combinations of data. It examines the emotional and intellectual responses to computers, the role of the computer in fostering creativity, and the impersonality of the computer. It suggests that since the computer can only simulate, the work of creating the future still rests in man's hands.