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Article: The Trouble with Computers: Usefulness, Usability and Productivity.
- Article from:
- Southern Economic Journal
- Article date:
- July 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Southern Economic Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Man's hankering for intelligent devices dies hard. Since the time of our cave-dwelling ancestors, the adaptability of our physiology has not changed much; the size of our brain and the dexterity of our hands have not improved. But we have constantly added new tools for growing crops and building shelters, for governing and waging wars, and for building jet airlines. We have also learned how to design and apply computers, which have fascinated many visionaries including economists.
Economists have been constantly interested in the information technology that was made possible by computers. Herbert Simon and others economists believe that this is equivalent to the ...