SEVERAL media pundits have recently proclaimed that the massive computer investments over the past 50 years have done nothing for world or individual productivity. Where are they looking, what are they thinking, and is this true? Globally we are now spending an estimated £500 billion a year on information technology. Are we really so stupid as to waste such huge amounts of money to no effect? I think not. The impact of computers on every aspect of our global economy is sometimes not so obvious.

In 1881 a revolution started with the installation of the first electric motor. But it took 50 years for the world really to feel the impact of this new technology. However, within 70 years every car had an electric starter, and some even had electric motors for the windscreen wipers and the petrol pump. Today most cars have at least six electric motors, and a top-of-the-range model will exceed 50. We no longer see or even think about them, but they are everywhere and in everything. Electric motors are now compact, efficient, low-cost, and generally invisible. Central heating systems, washing machines, microwave ovens, hi-fi, VCRs, PCs, camcorders, wrist-watches and lifts, in fact just about everything, are now full of motors. More subliminally, every aspect of modern manufacturing and production employs electric motors in vast numbers, and it is a technology on which we depend. Not bad for something considered a curiosity in the late 1800s.

The history of the computer mirrors very closely that of the electric motor, but with an even greater impact on society. However, there are those who insist on making it all so hard to understand. They proclaim a paradox in that all the huge investments have had no impact on the world economy or individual productivity. I don't think so!

There are also those who argue that the measures of modern productivity have changed, or that we have yet to invest the critical sum in computer technology to see a real difference. I think it more subtle. On an industrial basis, there is absolutely no comparison between the cars of today and those of the 1950s. Visit a vintage car rally to see the engineering junk we used to love and polish and worse still, go for a ride in. We now get 100 times more car for our money. Remember the days when a heater was an optional extra and a car radio almost impossible? Many improvements are hidden in the production tolerances and the huge reductions in raw material usage. Today we enjoy better than Rolls-Royce performance at 1950s prices for all our white and brown goods.

When making productivity comparisons it is erroneous simply to count the cars and washing machines shipped per working day when their complexity and sophistication index has escalated. It is also insufficient to use the old productivity measures. Computer technology has revitalised the old economies and created new, bigger, and more subliminal ones. We now take embedded sophistication for granted because it is invisible and subliminal. We already have far more embedded chips than electric motors, and we never saw it happen. The next leap will be even greater when they all get online and start talking, and most will enjoy the benefits without even noticing it.

Peter Cochrane holds the Collier Chair for the Public Understanding of Science & Technology at the University of Bristol. His home page is:
http://cochrane.org.uk