Vice Adm. Hyman G. Rickover said tonight that both governmental and private organizations were disregarding human considerations in making technological decisions.
He traced this “ruthlessness” in technological decisions to what he called a widespread tendency, even among policy makers in government, to confuse technology with science.
The methods of science, he said, require the rigorous exclusion of the human factor. But technology cannot claim the authority of science, and what is done with technology must be subject to the traditional concepts of ethics and morals, he said.
Admiral Rickover spoke before a symposium on “cybernetics and society” being held in connection with the 175th anniversary celebration of Georgetown University.
Admiral Rickover called for a “humanistic attitude” toward modern technology on the part of the public and the public’s leaders. He said there must be a recognition that technology “is a product of human effort, a product serving no other purpose than to benefit man —man in general, not merely some men.”
That was from a NYT report on a Nov. 19, 1964 talk from Rickover.
Here’s a Rickover bonus from 1970, alluding to a different type of human factor:
It appears that the Human Factors “program” is another of the fruitless attempts to get things done by systems, organizations, and big words rather than by people. It contains the greatest quantity of nonsense I have ever seen assembled in one publication. It is replete with obtuse jargon and sham-scientific expressions which, translated into English from its characteristic argot — where this is possible — turns out to be either meaningless or insignificant. It is about as useful as teaching your grandmother how to suck an egg.
To implement the Human Factors “program” will require about as many additional people as are now engaged in doing technical work. New large organizations — a vast new social “science” bureaucracy contributing absolutely nothing to the building of ships-will have to be set up in the Headquarters of the Naval Material Command, in all the Systems Commands, and in contractor organizations. Should Human Factors succeed in its “objective” it will likewise succeed in stopping all useful work.
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