Few will note that the human signature upon the products we produce has grown yet a little fainter. Do not blame the computer. If you and I are satisfied with products and services that bear no moral, artistic, or purposeful imprint of another human being, then the computer is the perfect instrument of delivery. We can continue altering our expectations and habits until even those software telephone operators begin to seem progressive. Anyone who suggests we give up efficiency for the sake of human values has missed the critical issue.
Efficiency is never at war with value.
The question, rather, is whether we might still recover a sense for the artistic human gesture, for the inner significance of every personal meeting, for the communal sharing out of which a society's future can be fashioned. We will no longer lash out against our machines. Nor will we fail to recognize the anti-human consequences of a progress conceived in purely technical terms. Machines will then find their rightful place in our lives precisely because we are paying attention first of all to each other. Publication occurs roughly once per week.