Result: Luddism for the twenty-first century

Summary: This is the text of a keynote speech at the Symposium. It first recalls the early 19th-century origins and history of Luddism and then gives a brief sketch of the recent unease and protest about new technologies, indicated by a revival of the term. Some problems of Information Technology are discussed: first, research on IT implementation suggests that policy initiatives and ``visions'' of what may be achieved do not take the operational realities involved seriously or pay enough attention to them. Second, the evolution of IT is such that the tool itself is a constant preoccupation; keeping up with its frequent changes distracts from the task which it is intended to serve. Third, its potential is best realized if different parties agree on the systems to be used, so that inherent in the technology are issues of centralized control. Research on control systems has shown that people respond to being controlled by reasserting controls of their own, and there are examples of this in IT implementations. The paper ends with a plea for raising the status of operational reality, and finding structural ways to link vision and operation.