F. B. Wood
ABSTRACT
Recently there has been some interest in the question of the social responsibility of engineers. A series of articles and letters to the editor appeared in the early part of 1958 in Computers and Automation which dealt first with whether a journal such as Computers and Automation should publish articles on the social responsibility of computer scientists. Then specific topics such as the possibility of the destruction of civilization due to some component failure in the computer linked to a missile-warning radar network were treated. A series of viewpoints has been presented ranging from conscientious objection to working on a computer system that might be used for destructive purposes at one end of the scale, to a viewpoint of no concern with the use of one's work at the other end. My interpretation of these discussions is that people are arguing about the implied hypothesis: there is a danger to the existence of our civilization because social institutions have too long a time lag in making adjustments to utilize the latest technological advances wisely.
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