If used for different purposes they can be the basis of public information systems and provide communications networks helpful for democratic discussion and debate. Predictions about the social future of information range from fears of widespread repression to visions of more individual freedom within democratic institutions. What actually occurs will be an outcome of our resolution of political issues now facing us. To these we must add a concern that the work of computer professionals does not undermine the social interactions, institutions, and processes that they themselves value. Of the many analysts of the computer's impact on society, perhaps Joseph Weizenbaum is the most adamant about what machines should not be designed to do.
Computers can make judicial decisions, computers can make psychiatric judgments.
They can flip coins in much more sophisticated ways than can the most patient human being. The point is that they ought not be given such tasks. The computer's speed in calculations can be used to answer questions previously unanswerable because of time limitations, or it can be used to perform necessary but boring operations quickly. Intelligent machines may prove to be valuable sources of advice upon which to base human decisions for human purposes, if the power of the computer is seen as a tool for decision-makers. If, however, the power of computers is viewed as outside the political process, we will lose the opportunity to make group decisions about the direction of technological development.