p Up to the present time two main trends closely connected with each other have crystallised in the process of automation of social production. The first is the actual automation of production processes (automated machine tools, machinetool lines, workshops and automated factories which basically ensure higher productivity of physical work). The second is the development and improvement of cybernetic machines which basically ensure a higher productivity of brain work. The latter trend, which appeared comparatively recently and is a qualitative leap forward in the process of automation, is called cybernetisation by Academician A. I. Berg.

p Many Soviet scientists are of the opinion that the future of automation will be determined to a large extent by the extension of the use of cybernetic machines, which are able not only to carry out the production process, but also to take part in controlling it.

p Only some twenty years have passed since the time computers began to be used in production, but their rapid introduction into the most varied branches of economy has revealed that these machines may be utilised universally as devices capable in principle of transforming any information which man encounters in all the spheres of his activity. This ensures the automation of those spheres of production which have always demanded the direct participation of the human intellect. Moreover, computers have turned out to be a universal means for automating not only brain work (to say nothing of physical work), but of highlyqualified brain work. “Essentially,” writes Academician V. M. Glushkov, “the second technological revolution is 319 taking place before our eyes. The first revolution of this kind, which affected the sphere of physical labour, was due to the crealion of the engine thereby increasing mankind’s physical power. Now, however, we are witnessing the birth of universal automats which will help to augment mankind’s intellectual power to an unlimited extent."  [319•1 

p The present level of cybernetic development makes it possible to create a comprehensive automation system for planning complex technical projects. Computers are capable of producing programmes on magnetic tape for machine tools and automated lines, bypassing the engineer and designer, without any blueprints. This results in a vast saving of technical labour. It is, moreover, becoming an urgent necessity; with the present rate of scientific and technological progress and the ever-increasing volume of information, the whole population of the Soviet Union would be insufficient to solve scientific and design construction problems alone in twenty years’ time without cybernetic machines.

p These features of cybernetic machines are making it possible to revolutionise the whole process of social production. The application of cybernetics in industry is creating (given the right social conditions) the prerequisites for smoothing over the distinctions between brain work and physical work in the next 20–30 years. The energy of the future is quite inconceivable without a centralised system of cybernetic machines automatically maintaining an optimal operational regime for a single network of electric power stations. The same applies to maintaining an optimal operational regime for a centralised transport and communications network in the future. Cybernetics is also called upon to play an important role in the automation of agriculture which is just beginning, particularly, in solving the problems of controlling the weather and climate. Cybernetic machines will also be used extensively in the sphere of public health: in the near future the whole population of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries will periodically undergo a medical examination the results of which will be translated into computer language and then, in the form of magnetic and perforated tape, be processed by diagnostic machines capable of discovering deviations from the 320 normal development of the human organism and diagnosing the disease. In the sphere of public education and culture by the end of this century cybernetic machines will be able to translate efficiently from one language to another, and will become (in the form of teaching and examining machines) indispensable helpers for teachers in educational establishments. Finally, without “intelligent machines" it is difficult to imagine the future of space research: practically all the large space operations—from exploration of other planets in the solar system to establishing contact with other civilisations—are conceivable only given a high level of automation and cybernetics.

p The Soviet Union and other socialist countries are now faced with the task of automating the planning and management of the national economy. This, too, is impossible without the extensive use of cybernetic machines. By 1980 the Soviet Union is planning to put into operation several thousands of automated systems for the control of factories and whole branches of industry. In addition, some hundreds of computer information centres are to be set up, on the basis of which a single state network of computer centres will be established to provide all calculations on the optimal planning and economic management.  [320•1  The single state network of computer centres will be composed of the main centre performing the function of control of the whole system, several dozen primary centres and the ground network. The primary computer centres will deal with individual problems of economic planning and management and draw up optimal branch plans. Communication lines will be established between the primary centres to link the branch plans into a single national economic plan.

p “In contrast to capitalism,” says the CPSU Programme, “the planned socialist system of economy combines accelerated technical progress with the full employment of all ablebodied citizens. Automation and comprehensive mechanisation serve as a material basis for the gradual development of socialist labour into communist labour."  [320•2 

p Soviet scientists are paying special attention to the automation of research work. This applies not only to automation 321 of various types of calculations carried out in the course of research, but also to automation of information and synopsis work. It will not be long before we have automation of experiments and studies with constant processing of the data under investigation in nuclear physics, stellar astronomy, hydro- and aero-mechanics and a number of other sciences.

p In the opinion of Academician V. M. Glushkov, the most interesting aspect will be automated proof of theorems within the framework of various deductive theories and constructions of theoretical systems generalising the results of experiments. The prospects in this sphere are very impressive.

p It is well known that the “capacity” of the brain places a certain limit on the complexity of the theories and proofs created by it. Cases are already being encountered where the solution of a particular problem in mathematics or theoretical physics would require several decades of intense brain work by a researcher. The use of machines, if only for partial automation of this type of work, will make it possible not only to reduce the time it takes to solve complicated problems, but also to construct theories of a complexity which is practically inaccessible to man at the present time.  [321•1 

The widespread view in the West that the emergence of such complex self-teaching cybernetic machines, capable of organising their own activity, will lead to the subjugation of man by machines, to people becoming their slaves or to the annihilation of mankind by them, is refuted by Soviet science as an ill-founded speculation engendered by the automatic transference of the ways of the capitalist world to a world of a completely different kind, totally incompatible with the capitalist one.