Language And Automation
F. W. Harwood · 2016
Automation is a convenient term to cover all applications of machinery which either replace a human being's function in controlling some process (either a production process, a problem-solving process, or an information-handling process), or make possible processes of the same kind but more complicated or more lengthy than any so far undertaken by human beings. Outside the field of automatic controls in production, most applications made so far have been to processes such as sorting, counting and arithmetical computation. The automatic digital computers, often popularly referred to as giant or electronic brains have largely been applied to mathematical problems. However these machines, or other machines built from the same basic components, can be applied to carrying out any process which can be fully analysed logically. In this article I propose to discuss present and possible applications of machinery to processes involving the use of word-language rather than number-language. Let us consider first three applications which have at present been developed to some extent and which illustrate the use of machinery to carry out processes which involve the use of language. (i) Use of punch card machinery for census, accounting, and administrative information. This application is well developed for handling large quantities of information which can be classsfied under a small number of headings. Typical applications are the production of statistical summaries of census information and the handling of administrative or accounting information. These machines replace the activity of human clerical workers in going through lists and returns of various kinds and compiling information under certain headings or groups of headings, counting the number of items in a list and so on. The information originally expressed in words is coded in terms of patterns of holes punched in the cards. The machines have scanning devices which respond to these patterns in the same way as a clerical worker responds to words.