In 1946, Ford Motor Company’s vice president of manufacturing, Delmar Harder, instructed his engineers, “Give us more of that automatic business, that automation.” With this command, Harder is credited with coining the term that would define America’s postwar industrial boom.
The automation revolution following World War II resulted from applications of the mathematical language described by Norbert Wiener in his best-selling 1948 book “Cybernetics,” involving a new science of communication and control that allowed machines to talk to one another. But Wiener soon grew alarmed at the real-world consequences of his theories. Just as current MIT professor Max Tegmark recently organized his counterparts in a letter calling for a moratorium on AI development, in 1949 Wiener — also an MIT professor — sought allies among corporate and labor leaders to confront the dangers of automation.
He eventually linked up with Walter Reuther, the new 42-year-old president of the United Auto Workers. Though mired in contract negotiations with Ford, Reuther was captivated by Wiener’s letter warning of “the very pressing menace of the large-scale replacement of men of labor by machines.” The two met in March 1950 to plot a strategy.
Reuther quickly became recognized for his visionary ideas to address the human effects of the automated workplace, including a guaranteed annual wage that required automakers to pay employees who lost their jobs to the new machines. But when he appeared before Congress in 1955 to address what was known as “automation hysteria,” lawmakers seemed conspicuously unconcerned. After hearing from scores of witnesses over nine days of hearings, Joint Economic Committee chairman Wright Patman (D-Tex.) stated sanguinely that “every witness recognized automation as progress” — ignoring the views of those like Reuther, who believed that technological progress was inevitable but asked Congress to take measures to alleviate its human toll.
One of those seeking to bridge the gap was John F. Kennedy, then a freshman senator from Massachusetts. His first Senate floor speeches addressed the calamitous hollowing out of the textile industry in New England. The ideas he offered to help resuscitate the region became a template for later reform efforts, including the Area Redevelopment Act, one of the first bills he signed as president.