The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology (2021)
I understand this is ACM, but I would say the decline has strictly been a failure of <i>software</i>.<p>Specifically, corporate IT&#x27;s failure to deliver general purpose development tools usable by anyone in a company to make computers do work for them (aka programming).<p>There&#x27;s still a ton of general <i>value</i> that could be delivered by general purpose processors&#x2F;computers.<p>But instead, most non-programmers live in a Kafkaesque reality where the only programs they have access to don&#x27;t do what they want, and so their work becomes &quot;working around the bad program.&quot;<p>I helped a lady on Friday at a midsized bank whose job it was to take a set of dates in an Excel file, search each one individually into an internal search tool, then Ctrl+f the result report and verify that every code listed in the original document exists in the report.<p>For 100+ entries.<p>Every month.<p>In 2023.<p>What the fuck are we doing as a society, that this lady, with a machine that could compute the above in a fraction of a second, has to spend a decent chunk of her work time doing this?<p>Example specifically chosen because I&#x27;ve seen innumerable similar &quot;internal development will never work on this, because it&#x27;s too small of an impact&quot; issues at every company.<p>Computers should work for us. <i>All</i> of us. Not the other way around.