The Wizard Inside The Machine

By Alexander L. Taylor III Monday, Apr. 16, 1984
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month for IBM computers, permits a business executive to get information from a computer by giving simple, direct commands—for example, Give me last week's sales report. The development of this kind of software is extremely complex, however, and the programs require extremely powerful machines. It will be several years before artificial-intelligence software is widely available.

Since the invention of the primitive hand ax, humanity has turned to tools as a way of making life easier or work more productive. "Man is a tool-using animal," wrote the 19th century Scottish historian and essayist Thomas Carlyle. "Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all." Computer software is only the latest of those tools, and programmers are only beginning to understand the true potential of software. Says Dan Bricklin, chairman of Software Arts: "We're just really getting started. I think that you will see programs coming along in the next few years that will make the current ones look like the stone axes of computing." —By Alexander L. Taylor III. Reported by Michael Moritz/San Francisco and Peter Stoler/Boston

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