I think this might be of interest for FISers too. ---P.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Fw: [bisc-group] The Curse of Efficiency
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2013 09:45:41 +0800
From: 赵川 <zh...@cdut.edu.cn>
To: Pedro C. Marijuan <pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es>, Joseph Brenner
<joe.bren...@bluewin.ch>, Mihir-work <mihi...@gmail.com>
lets share this reflection idea of Zadeh. Zhao Chuan
-----原始邮件-----
*发件人:* "Lotfi A. Zadeh" <za...@eecs.berkeley.edu>
*发送时间:* 2013-06-28 06:53:42
*收件人:* bisc-gr...@lists.eecs.berkeley.edu
*抄送:*
*主题:* [bisc-group] The Curse of Efficiency
Dear members of the BISC Group:
Sometime ago, January 1, 1998, I wrote a piece on efficiency. On
reading this piece, it occurred to me that what I said at that time is
still valid. Following is what I wrote. Comments are welcome.
Regards to all,
Sincerely,
Lotfi
*The Curse of Efficiency*
Recently, I had a brush with efficiency. My experience added a notch to
an accumulating level of anger and frustration over what is becoming an
all-too-common experience in our efficiency-driven society.
A friend locked himself out of his car in front of my house. He asked me
to call Emergency Road Service for assistance. I dialed the number and,
as usual, was greeted with a recorded message: “Your call will be
answered by the next available representative. Thank you for waiting.
Our call center is presently experiencing a high volume of calls and all
service representatives are busy servicing other member calls. Please
accept our apology.”
For the next several minutes, I heard the same message repeated over and
over again, with recorded music in between. As I was holding the
handset, my blood pressure was rising. I asked myself: What would I do
if I had to place the call not from the comfort of my home but from an
outdoor phone in freezing weather? In a state of frustration, I felt an
irrational urge to smash the handset down. In a related way, the
exasperating experience of dealing with menu-driven voice-mail systems
make many of us nostalgic for the days when such labor-saving systems
did not exist.
The issues which underlie experiences like mine are well-understood. By
downsizing its workforce, a company lowers operating costs, increases
profits, improves its competitive position, increases stock price, wins
applause from Wall Street and, not coincidentally, increases the value
of stock options of its executives. The losers are the laid-off workers
and the company’s clientele. For a company, the advantages of downsizing
are clear-cut. The pain and inconvenience inflicted on others carry much
less weight. However, as in the case of price wars, unilateral moves to
improve efficiency may result in a situation in which everybody is worse
off.
Beyond the obvious issues there are two that stand out in importance.
First, the benefits of efficiency are usually measurable and immediate,
while the costs are diffuse, hard to quantify and many lie in the
future. An example is the addition of lead to gasoline, which had
greatly improved the efficiency of gasoline engines. It took decades to
realize that the use of lead additives is a serious health hazard,
particularly in the case of children. Once the consequences were
understood, the use of lead additives, at least in the United States,
was phased out.
Another example is the use of antibiotics in animal feed. In this case,
improvement in efficiency has led to the development of drug-resistant
bacteria and a growing number of allergic reactions in the general
population. A more recent example is the unfreezing of land rents in
Egypt—aimed at improving the efficiency of land utilization—which may
pauperize hundreds of thousands of tenant farmers and lead to serious
social unrest.
Second, a move to improve efficiency generally leads to a small gain for
many and a large loss for few. A classic example is a reduction in
tariffs on importa. In this case, many gain a little and a few
experience the trauma of losing their jobs. Another example is our
health care systems. In this instance, an improvement in efficiency
leads to lower health care costs for many and a substantially reduced
income for a relatively small number of specialized medical personnel.
At what point does a small gain for many outweigh a large loss for a
few? There is no theory of justice or rationality that provides an
answer to this fundamental question and it is not likely that there will
be one in the foreseeable future.
A basic issue that relates to efficiency plays a pivotal role in the
current turmoil in financial markets.
In the United States, it is an article of faith that deregulation,
privatization, free trade and globalization lead to higher efficiency
and bring about economic growth. However, in a paper which I wrote in
1974, I suggested that the growing degree of interdependence brought
about by technological progress and its concomitant globalization
necessitate a higher degree of coordination and regulation to maintain
stability and prevent catastrophic failures. This necessity is in
conflict with acceptance of deregulation as a prime component of
economic policy.
The problem is that in democracies the electorate is resistant to higher
levels of coordination, regulation and taxation, and future generations
have no vote. The result is a growing imbalance which I described as the
crisis of undercoordination. In my view, it is primarily this imbalance
that underlies the financial, economic and social crises that are
spreading in extent and growing in intensity.
--
Lotfi A. Zadeh
Professor Emeritus
Director, Berkeley Initiative in Soft Computing (BISC)
BISC Homepage URLs
URL: http://zadeh.cs.berkeley.edu/
--
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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