1981 Nightline interview with Steve Jobs

today's computer problem at Cape Canaveral was distressing perhaps but for most Americans not totally surprising as a society we've become used to computer problems of one kind or another just as we become used to computers we're so used to them in fact a few of us stopped to think of the extent to which they now play a role in our everyday lives a role that shows every sign of growing even bigger we have two reports the first from Bettina Gregory you can't do the simplest things today without using a computer you can't cash a personal check you can't even make a phone call without linking into the telephone company's computer and if you go to the supermarket the chances are good a computer will check out your groceries mechanically assisted by a human being in some areas computers have replaced humankind in Washington the subway system is run by computer true motormen riding the cabs but only as a backup to this computerized service in the airline industry computers will reserve your seat on a plane and make no mistake when you take off it's the computers who tell air traffic controllers how to get you safely to your destination computers have revolutionized the personal credit card industry credit card billing would be a lot harder to do without the computer and of course the computer provides the inevitable excuse for mistakes in your bills humans often feel like Don Quixote tilting at windmills when it comes to fighting the almighty computer miracles of modern medical diagnosis are made possible by computers and academic research is more comprehensive computers have had an enormous impact on television journalism ABC News researchers have millions of hours of film and video tape right at their fingertips film with an elephant there are 223 entries in the ABC news library an elephant of the circus we have 20 such entries but if you want an elephant with a rider the computer says we have only one such film it's a small computer that puts the letters on your television screen and another one that creates special effects which were once too expensive and time-consuming to produce before the age of the computer since Wall Street started using computers volume on the big board doubled and read to as much as 70 million shares a day the government certainly uses computers when you pay your taxes IRS computers will audit the returns the federal government also uses computers to track down runaway husband's on welfare and now the Reagan administration wants to cut down the number of welfare cheats by putting a computer cross-check on everyone who gets government help that's going too far says the American Civil Liberties Union but for the most part computers have become such a way of life that many people believe they don't invade their privacy that's because in America today life liberty and the pursuit of happiness is inevitably linked to a computer the Tina Gregory ABC News New York this is Ken kasha ihara personal computers are being welcomed in schools and in businesses and in homes without any mention of invasion of privacy in fact assembly lines are literally grinding them out attempting to keep up with demand personal computers have become popular because of their size and their cost they are compact because their tiny memory banks are made out of even tinier microchips a basic unit can be had for as little as $1,500 schools use the computers not only to teach children but to teach them about computers educators at this junior high school say students are going out into a computer world and should know something about it small businesses have latched on to the personal computer boom using the devices to map out financial plans and to print memos and letters all is a touch of a button and the personal computer is beginning to invade the home in this house the solar power is controlled and regulated by a computer here the computer is used to entertain video games are programmed and the battle is waged and Fred Wilkinson says he uses his home computer to store information and to learn it's a daily event there isn't a day that goes by that you get through a magazine or through the keyboard or through a program but you're talking to somebody that I don't pick up more and more information and it's a growing experience I know I see that in myself and I see it in other people who I deal with it started off much the same way I have the personal computer boom has been a boom to one company in particular it has become the Big Apple in this land of high technology since the Apple computer company was founded five years ago its sales have skyrocketed from about a hundred thousand dollars to more than a hundred million Steven jobs helped build the first Apple computer in his garage he is now 26 years old and his chairman of the board and he sees his computers future as the future of mankind this is a 21st century bicycle that amplifies a certain intellectual ability that man has and I think that the after this process has come to maturity the effects that it's going to have on society are actually going to far outstrip even those that the petrochemical revolution has had but these computers are not necessarily simply innocent playthings of the future some people feel threatened by them some think they tend to dehumanize and others fear they may eventually take over their jobs is a swatter a teeth loose and transistor but at least it still hasn't learned how to say back to you Ted back to you dig I'll have my computer talk to you in the moment and in a moment we'll talk live with the chairman of the Apple Computer company and with a writer who warns of the dangers that computers pose to society really an example of sort of the role that computers are now playing in our lives in a sense that that computer that malfunction was really is critical to the success of the shuttle is the thrust of the boosters that we're going to lift it up in the air and in essence both the boosters in the computer were really performing the same type of function both were amplifying an inherent ability that humans have in other words no more could even a small collection of people run the shuttle than they could jump up in the air several thousand feet in the atmosphere all right there is a sense though that many of us have who really don't understand how computers work or what they do for us or to us that we are becoming controlled by the computers any danger of that happening well as you know the product we manufacture many people see it for the first time and they don't think it's a computer it's about 12 pounds you can throw it out the window if the relationship isn't going so well and I think if you look at sort of the process of the technological revolution that we're all in it's a process of taking very centralized things and making them very democratic if you will very individualized making them affordable by in by individuals for a small collection of tasks if you will sort of from the passenger train to the Volkswagen alright we heard you talking on tape a moment ago about the bicycle of the 21st century what were you talking about well actually I read a survey in Scientific American in the early 70s and what this survey had done was it measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species of things on the planet birds fish dogs and it ranked them and it turned out that the Condor won the Condor took the least amount of energy to get from point A to point B and man sort of came in with a rather unimpressive showing about a third of the way down the list but someone at that magazine had the insight to test the efficiency of man riding a bicycle and man riding a bicycle is twice as good as the Condor all the way off the end of the list and it really Illustrated man's ability as a tool maker to fashion a tool to amplify an inherent ability that he has and that's really exactly what we feel we're doing we're really sort of blazing the trails for the 21st century bicycle but to amplify a slightly different inherent ability that man has the ability of a certain part of intelligence right now we're at the mechanical part of intelligence where one of these devices can free a person from many of the drudgery of life and allow really humans to do what they do best which is to work on the conceptual level to work on the creative level all right David Burnham you have some concerns about computers and I guess in part they have to do with the invasion of privacy and they do invade our privacy do they not they certainly do and we have many examples from our history mr. jobs said that the computer amplified the ability of man that's true but man history tells us has done good things and he's also done bad things the Census Bureau for example use computerized punch cards to help locate the japanese-americans in 1941 when they were all of so many of them were arrested on the west coast I keep borrowing this phrase from the NRA you know guns don't kill people people kill people computers don't do that to people people using computers do that isn't the computer in and of itself say a neutral tool that can be used for good or a or evil it is and men used guns to kill people and men use guns to hunt animals the question is is our society alert enough to understand the power of the computer and to turn it toward the good things or are there people and occasions when we use this tool for a bad purpose Steve Jobs I realize this is your baby and you've made you've made a career out of it but you're also something of a philosopher do you see the inherent possibility of bad coming out of all of this well I think one of the things you really have to look at is you have to go watch some kids using these things as an example 97% of the high school students that graduate from Minnesota have hands-on experience with these personal computers learning how to use them we call this computer literacy they're actually happening and you know in the elementary schools now and you go watch kids interact with these computers and what you find is far from something quite harmful in effect what you what you see is an instantaneous reflection of a part of themselves the creative part of themselves being expressed and it's just very very difficult to see these kids using this tool and realizing that they're going to have these tools available for the rest of their lives to portray that is something very harmful it's a it's actually something quite democratic all right but I mean the government and I think mr. Burnham was leading us in this direction the the government has the capacity by using computers to get all kinds of information on us that we're really not even aware that they had isn't that dangerous well I think the best protection against something like that is a very literate public and in this case computer literate and I think you're actually seeing that happen right now in the personal computer area again computers that people can afford themselves we've already reached approximately one in every thousand households in the United States and I think over the next five or six years that figure will be one in ten ultimately it will be one in one and I think the feeling of computer literacy among the populace is the thing that for me at least gives me the most comfort that that centralized intelligence will have the least effect on our lives without us knowing it mr. Birnam are you comforted by that thought that somehow we will all have the capacity to defend ourselves against computers by owning and being able to control computers well I wonder whether the individual citizen alone is any match say for the United States Army when a few years ago it began surveillance programs of hundreds of thousands of people who were lawfully opposed voicing their opposition to the war in Vietnam I wonder whether the individual citizen can control the army or whether the individual citizen can control the Census Bureau if it decides to break the rules and make information available which the citizen has given to it all right but on balance are you forum or again them I think there's a tremendous danger that the public is not aware of enough at this moment I think if we are aware that perhaps we can use them for the good things that mr. jobs sees in them all right computer literacy you're both in favor of that and I thank you both very much for being with it

Channel: robatsea2009

Views: 1,376,244

Rating: 4.8984532 out of 5

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Id: 3H-Y-D3-j-M

Length: 12min 6sec (726 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 03 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Interesting to see the other guy talking about potential privacy implications in 1981.

Edit: I believe that they were both right. Computer literacy is important, if you know how technology works you're better able to understand how it could be used against you.

[u/12thman-Stone]

What I find interesting is that the movies about him actually dumb his intellect down. He seems smarter in real life that they make him out to be.

[u/kennyheard]

What a remarkable watch. Just ~40 years ago, the concept of a computer in everyone’s home was being discussed, with very justified arguments from both sides. Now look at where we are. Honestly just blows my mind. Not to mention Jobs’ maddeningly accurate vision of the future.

[u/Dave_The_Dude]

Interesting Jobs mentioned one in a thousand people had a personal computer in 1981. We had one at that time. It was an Apple clone bought as a kit from Hong Kong for $100. Ran all the Apple software at the time like Visical. My homework at the time was printed on this computer. The homework content may have been crap but it sure looked good being the only one printed out using a dot matrix printer.

[u/NotRenton]

Cute… not Jobs, the rest of it. Jobs was way ahead of course.

[u/wizardlydray]

What a wonderful piece all around. Thank you for sharing it!

[u/naggingrash]

I miss Steve.

[u/gordonmcdowell]

4:25 is Jobs, although really worth checking out the whole piece for a great time capsule.

Had no idea Jobs bicycle metaphor was one he used in 1981.... I thought that was NeXT timeframe thinking.

[u/[deleted]]

The OG dark mode right there baby.