Communications - April 2011

complicated.

There’s something in king and pawn endgames called opposition in which, essentially, you can force your opponent’s king to retreat to a weaker position. So, we had the computer gain the opposition in king and pawn endgames.

Another thing we did was a simulation of postal codes. They were adopted, and as a result Canada had its first postal strike, because there were all these questions about how computers would cause a loss of jobs.

[con TInuEd fRom P. 120]
You also got involved in timetables and
scheduling.

You were teaching at this time?

I was teaching, and since there was no graduate department, I was teaching in the School of Continuing Studies. Most of the students were busi-nesspeople—actuaries and bankers and insurance people and so on.

But eventually you did create a gradu-
ate program.

Yes. In 1962, we decided we wanted to form a graduate program. It didn’t have a budget, it only had appointments.

Presumably, since the people involved
in computing also taught in other de-
partments?

That’s right. The university said we had to get permission from mathematics, physics, and electrical engineering. But since I wanted to form a department that didn’t need a budget, they didn’t worry about it. Incidentally, our department is now ranked eighth in the world.

“administration is
an occupation where
the urgent preempts
the important.”
Are you still teaching?

I taught until three years ago. I was the oldest person teaching undergraduates.

for many years, you taught a course on
computers and society.

“Computers and Society” always had a wonderful audience. It qualified as a science course for humanists and as a writing course for scientists, so I had a wonderful mix of students.

You’ve explored a number of different
socioeconomic issues throughout your
computing career.

When we started with databases, people got very worried about privacy, so Canada appointed a privacy commission and put me on it. As a result of our commission, the first Canadian privacy laws were all passed. But people don’t really give a damn about their privacy these days. They sell it very cheaply. Do you know what privacy is worth? About eight dollars. If I give somebody eight dollars, they’ll fill out the longest form—name, credit history. Or just offer them a discount card.

In the 1960s, you were involved in a
united nations commission on what
computing could do for developing
countries.

This was the age of big mainframes, so nobody imagined that developing nations could use them at all. I remember coming to the World Bank in Washington, D.C. Protocol required that we had to be met by the head, but in about three minutes we’d passed three levels down the hierarchy—one person would introduce us to his assistant, who would introduce us to his assistant, and so on. But I remember being greeted by the head of the World Bank, and he said, “Now tell me, what about this boondoggle of yours?”

The 1971 report that grew out of your
united nations research, The Applica-
tion of Computer Technology for Devel-
opment, was a bestseller.

We had a big meeting in Bucharest, and we had written a draft report that was going to be presented to the General Assembly. It was quite technical, and all the other people were from human resources and management, and they just tore into us at Bucharest. They said, “You say nothing about training and management.” We thought about it and said, “They’re right.” So, in six weeks we completely rewrote the report, and we sent it to the U.N., and it turned out to be a bestseller.

In fact, you’re cited in the Oxford Eng-
lish Dictionary.

[J.N.P. Hume] and I wrote a book in 1958 called High-Speed Data Processing, and the Oxford English Dictionary found 11 words in it, like loop, that had new meanings. So, we’re cited 11 times in the Oxford English Dictionary. A friend of mine said, “You’re immortal.” And you know, it’s a lot cheaper than a gravestone.

on a personal note, you were married
to a writer for many years.

My wife Phyllis wrote 18 books of poetry and science fiction. She died about a year and a half ago. I’ve always said that she was a humanist interested in science, and I was a scientist interested in humanity.

nowadays I’d guess people are more
concerned with their Google results.

One day my wife and I were arguing about how long you cook fish in the microwave. She’s the cook, of course, but I’m the master of the microwave. So she goes to Google and comes back and says it’s 4. 5 minutes per pound, end of discussion. Of course, when we were arguing, I didn’t go to Google. She went to Google!