1955
Selekoa’s 29 records dated 1955, in date order, grouped by topic.
Selective: what the records hold, not a history of the year.
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Ideas & lineages 29 records
August 1955
· publication · dated to the day
“A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence” (1955-08-31) credits C. E. Shannon as one of its 4 authors. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the day
“A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence” (1955-08-31) credits J. McCarthy as one of its 4 authors. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the day
“A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence” (1955-08-31) credits M. L. Minsky as one of its 4 authors. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the day
“A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence” (1955-08-31) credits N. Rochester as one of its 4 authors. Evidence ↗· event · dated to the day
The 1955 Dartmouth proposal lists self-improvement as a research topic: a truly intelligent machine will probably carry out activities best described as self-improvement. Evidence ↗· event · dated to the day
The 1955 Dartmouth proposal names self-improvement as a problem for study. Evidence ↗
October 1955
· event · dated to the month
Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization of the Joint Committee on the Economic Report, “Automation and Technological Change: Hearings (statements by non-economists)” (1955-10) bears on M05. Speaker: UAW-CIO report (Economic and Collective Bargaining Conference, 12 November 1954), submitted for the record by Walter P. Reuther, president, CIO (non-economist witness). The UAW report collects predictions of rapid automation to argue for an expanding economy built on broad purchasing power. Evidence ↗Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization, Automation and Technological Change (1955) →Claim page →
· event · dated to the month
Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization of the Joint Committee on the Economic Report, “Automation and Technological Change: Hearings (statements by non-economists)” (1955-10) bears on M09. Speaker: John Diebold, president, John Diebold & Associates (management consultant; not an economist witness). Diebold lists basic questions automation poses for 'economic theory, the way we measure productivity', and for cost accounting. Evidence ↗Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization, Automation and Technological Change (1955) →Claim page →
· publication · dated to the day
“A Condensation of the Book Automation”, printed in the 1955 hearings Automation and Technological Change (1955-10-14), condenses John Diebold’s book Automation; the condensation was prepared by the Controllership Foundation. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the day
“Statement (testifying as an economist), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings” (1955-10-14) credits Walter S. Buckingham Jr. as its author. Evidence ↗· event · dated to the day
Buckingham, “Statement (testifying as an economist), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings” (1955-10-14) articulates M01. Speaker: Walter S. Buckingham Jr., associate professor, Georgia Institute of Technology (economist). Under 'mechanization', the first of four principles of automation, Buckingham says mechanization sometimes substitutes machinery for muscle (the steam engine) and sometimes substitutes machinery for routine brainwork (the electronic computer). Both appear as cases of one general principle. Evidence ↗Buckingham, Statement (testifying as an economist), in Automation and Technological Change (1955) →Claim page →
· event · dated to the day
Buckingham, “Statement (testifying as an economist), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings” (1955-10-14) bears on M01. Speaker: Walter S. Buckingham Jr., associate professor, Georgia Institute of Technology (economist). Buckingham lists three things called automation in 1955: electronic computers processing data, automatic machines on assembly lines, and the hypothetical fully automatic enterprise. Evidence ↗Buckingham, Statement (testifying as an economist), in Automation and Technological Change (1955) →Claim page →
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Buckingham, “Statement (testifying as an economist), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings” (1955-10-14) bears on M05. Speaker: Walter S. Buckingham Jr., associate professor, Georgia Institute of Technology (economist). Buckingham says this picture 'has charged the imagination of some and struck terror in the hearts of others', and that it too is called automation. He then complains of a 'flood of verbiage' lacking quantitative evidence. Evidence ↗Buckingham, Statement (testifying as an economist), in Automation and Technological Change (1955) →Claim page →
· event · dated to the day
Buckingham, “Statement (testifying as an economist), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings” (1955-10-14) contests M05. Speaker: Walter S. Buckingham Jr., associate professor, Georgia Institute of Technology (economist). Concludes his assessment of the employment criterion before turning to stability. Evidence ↗Buckingham, Statement (testifying as an economist), in Automation and Technological Change (1955) →Claim page →
· event · dated to the day
Buckingham, “Statement (testifying as an economist), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings” (1955-10-14) articulates M06a. Speaker: Walter S. Buckingham Jr., associate professor, Georgia Institute of Technology (economist). Buckingham classifies eight direct effects of automation, starting with abolished production jobs and fewer new jobs that need higher skills. Citing a Chicago dissertation by David G. Osborn (12 automation cases, average 63.4 per cent reduction in employee requirements) and industry figures, Buckingham argues that displacement takes the form of reduced hiring and 'hidden unemployment of downgrading'. Evidence ↗Buckingham, Statement (testifying as an economist), in Automation and Technological Change (1955) →Claim page →
· event · dated to the day
Diebold, “A Condensation of the Book Automation, in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings” (1955-10-14) articulates M06a. Under “Labor resistance” the condensation says that when automation makes a specific human skill obsolete it works a hardship on the individual worker who is displaced. Evidence ↗Diebold, A Condensation of the Book Automation, in Automation and Technological Change (1955) →Claim page →
· event · dated to the day
Buckingham, “Statement (testifying as an economist), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings” (1955-10-14) bears on M06b. Speaker: Walter S. Buckingham Jr., associate professor, Georgia Institute of Technology (economist). Buckingham argues that automation serves consumer satisfaction, efficiency and progressiveness, but that mass purchasing power must be maintained. He also notes that automation may not create the waves of secondary investment that the automobile did. Evidence ↗Buckingham, Statement (testifying as an economist), in Automation and Technological Change (1955) →Claim page →
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Diebold, “A Condensation of the Book Automation, in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings” (1955-10-14) articulates M06b. The condensation says that responsibility for retraining and restoring the earning power of displaced workers lies with management as well as with the worker, and that accepting a fair share of it will ease the labour problem that automation brings. Evidence ↗Diebold, A Condensation of the Book Automation, in Automation and Technological Change (1955) →Claim page →
· event · dated to the day
Buckingham, “Statement (testifying as an economist), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings” (1955-10-14) bears on M09. Speaker: Walter S. Buckingham Jr., associate professor (industrial management), Georgia Institute of Technology; testifying as an economist. Introducing his written statement, Buckingham says he is neither an engineer nor an athlete and speaks for himself as an economist. The chairman introduces him as associate professor of industrial management who had spoken at the CIO automation conference in April 1955. Evidence ↗Buckingham, Statement (testifying as an economist), in Automation and Technological Change (1955) →Claim page →
· publication · dated to the day
“Statement (president, Congress of Industrial Organizations), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings” (1955-10-17) credits Walter P. Reuther as its author. Evidence ↗· event · dated to the day
Reuther, “Statement (president, Congress of Industrial Organizations), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings” (1955-10-17) articulates M06b. Reuther urges the subcommittee to consider earlier Social Security payments for workers forced into retirement before 65 because technological changes have taken their jobs and their age keeps them from finding other work. Evidence ↗Reuther, Statement (president, CIO), in Automation and Technological Change (1955) →Claim page →
· publication · dated to the day
“Statement (former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings” (1955-10-28) credits Edwin G. Nourse as its author. Evidence ↗· event · dated to the day
Nourse, “Statement (former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings” (1955-10-28) articulates M01. Speaker: Edwin G. Nourse, former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers (economist). Nourse's first point: automation is 'only one inseparable part of the larger problem of technological progress', alongside jet propulsion, new metallurgy, plastics and atomic fission. He says it 'is only a way of increasing this varied and highly productive technology'. Evidence ↗Nourse, Statement (former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers), in Automation and Technological Change (1955) →Claim page →
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Nourse, “Statement (former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings” (1955-10-28) bears on M01. Speaker: Edwin G. Nourse, former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers (economist). Nourse says the hearings, from Ford's vice president to Vannevar Bush, traced automation as mechanization: new devices, with electronics applied to the control of mechanical and chemical processes. Commenting on Buckingham's four principles, Nourse argues that continuous process is old and that the real change came with electronic feedback control. Evidence ↗Nourse, Statement (former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers), in Automation and Technological Change (1955) →Claim page →
· event · dated to the day
Nourse, “Statement (former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings” (1955-10-28) bears on M02. Speaker: Edwin G. Nourse, former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers (economist). Nourse locates the 'real change' in electronic devices that remove the need for human judgement in process control. Evidence ↗Nourse, Statement (former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers), in Automation and Technological Change (1955) →Claim page →
· event · dated to the day
Nourse, “Statement (former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings” (1955-10-28) contests M05. Speaker: Edwin G. Nourse, former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers (economist). Nourse contrasts the 'preponderant attitude of business executives' with labour officials' concerns and goes on to side with labour's call for study (p. 621). Evidence ↗Nourse, Statement (former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers), in Automation and Technological Change (1955) →Claim page →
· event · dated to the day
Nourse, “Statement (former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings” (1955-10-28) articulates M06a. Speaker: Edwin G. Nourse, former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers (economist). Nourse asks whether automation will disturb the price-and-income relations behind the postwar prosperity, and lists its effects on wages, capital, costs, prices, profits and taxes. Evidence ↗Nourse, Statement (former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers), in Automation and Technological Change (1955) →Claim page →
· event · dated to the day
Nourse, “Statement (former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings” (1955-10-28) articulates M06b. Speaker: Edwin G. Nourse, former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers (economist). Nourse suggests that adoption might come closer to the optimum if companies had to provide for workers' costs of change, and lists severance pay and reimbursement for time lost or skills scrapped as devices to explore. Evidence ↗Nourse, Statement (former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers), in Automation and Technological Change (1955) →Claim page →
· event · dated to the day
Nourse, “Statement (former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings” (1955-10-28) bears on M06b. Speaker: Edwin G. Nourse, former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers (economist). Nourse rejects the view that technological progress 'takes care of its own economic problems'. Responding to members' and staff questions on automation-specific legislation. Evidence ↗Nourse, Statement (former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers), in Automation and Technological Change (1955) →Claim page →