The Millennium Bug

Ranulph Glanville, Bob Barbour, Michael Schreiber and Stuart Umpleby

Introduction to this Joint Column

In early April this year the Conference Problems of Participation and Communication was held in Amsterdam. Two contributions concerned the Year 2000 (Y2K) Problem, also known as the Millennium Bug: the Problem that many computing systems recognise the date partially, by only (for instance) the last two digits of the year — and will, therefore, confuse the year 2000 with the year 1900, with consequent, potentially damaging results. I had been aware of the technical nature of the problem for some years. What I had not thought through were the social and systemic facets. The conference presentations brought home the complacency with which I had been facing the problem. Enquiry amongst other conference attendees indicated that they, too, had been lax in their thinking.

With the Editor's agreement, I therefore decided that on this occasion I would use this column in an atypical and somewhat political manner, to bring to the attention of readers something of the nature of the Y2K Problem and some of the thinking associated with it. To that end, I invited those conference participants (Prof Stuart Umpleby and Dr Michael Schreiber) to contribute material for a special column. I also invited a colleague in New Zealand, Dr Bob Barbour, since I knew he had done a lot of work in this area and was taking decisive personal action.

The process of writing was an interesting example of the conferences theme (Participation and Communication) as each author offered and then added to and modified material. In the end, I cut and pasted from this material, adding the odd phrase, changing wording for consistency, and, in the case of technical material writing summaries. The final draft was returned to the (other) contributing authors for their approval, and the text you see here was created.

I did not attempt to silence differences in weighting or to remove the individuality of contributors' voices, or use of (different varieties of) English. Far from it. In fact, the author of each section of text can be seen from the initials following it (see note 1). It is perhaps amusing to note that the first paragraph of this mosaiced joint text was actually the concluding section in Bob Barbour's original: the process of mosaicing has lead, on occasion, to considerable re-ordering.

I am specially grateful to my author/colleagues for the generosity with which they have participated in this project, and to the Editor for agreeing to this unusual column. I believe, if you are as unprepared as I and the other conference attendees were, what you read here, while not directed towards alarm, panic r scaremongering (which should not result from it), may lead you to want to change certain aspects of your lives in time for the Millennium celebrations: and that you may wish to advise your colleagues, friends and relatives. It seems that the powers that be are keeping quiet and hoping for the best, which may not be the optimal course of action. Individuals can act otherwise. We can be better informed and consequently make better decisions than the powers are currently promoting and facilitating.

In the light of what I have discovered, I shall not, now, be going to Gisborne, New Zealand (Where the Sun Rises First) to join David Bowie welcoming in the New Millennium. My attitude is simple and self-centred: I prefer to look a little silly if nothing happens than to be miserable if something does.

THE Y2K PROBLEM

Preview

According to Information Week, the French don't take it seriously and the Italians have only just begun considering it. The Africans, generally, don't have budgets to do anything about it. Russia and the US plan monitors at each others nuclear sites (warheads, power stations et al.) to report potential accidents as accidents and not aggressive acts. But the presence of these monitors is threatened by NATO's war in Kosovo. Russia also demands $500,000,000 to fix it. In Japan, less than half the corporations responding to a questionnaire are doing anything about it. And so on and on!

IT is the Millennium Bug, the largest problem we have created for ourselves, yet, and generator of the biggest ever technological and co-operative project — if that is what it is.

The bug works like an audio system: the system is only as good as its weakest part, and in dealing with the Millennium Bug we are susceptible not so much to our own shortcomings and lack of preparedness (over which we have some control), but to those of others (over which we have none).1 Since everything in this cybernetic world of communication and control is connected to everything else, and since everything is by now infused with computing chips, the problem is truly worldwide. But it is of our own making. We could have acted to avoid it, but we chose not to. The consequences may be serious, even catastrophic, endangering life and social institutions. We do not know. We cannot know, for the problem is now beyond our imagining and beyond research, even if we had time. Yet there is much to learn from the problem. And there is, also, much to decide about how we face it. Below, some of the contingencies and arguments are presented. [RG]2

Introduction: Digital Processing

The convention of applying digital processing and control to almost every aspect of society and social activity means that human activities become vulnerable to the flaws in those systems. The Year 2000 problem is just one such flaw. Possible problems arise because the convention in society is to continue to use systems beyond their designed life span. People have a little time left, when this piece was written in April 1999, to carry out the overdue computer system maintenance and upgrades that will ensure that the convention of applying computing power to human problems can continue to usefully enhance human existence. These systems are found in every economic sphere of activity from farming to transport to manufacturing and processing to distribution and retailing. Since there is no sector to which computing has not been applied there will be no sector of society not potentially impacted. Failure to properly remediate all suspect systems across the global information infrastructure will also significantly impact on every nation in the world. Some of the impact has already been felt in the millions of dollars expended on Y2K projects. Millions more will be spent to ensure our conversations with each other are supported by computer systems that have consistent date conventions. [BB]

The World Bank, in January 1999, said most of the worlds developing countries are woefully unprepared for social and economic disruptions that are expected from computer malfunctions at the turn of the Millennium. The U.S. Senate released a report in February 1999 calling Y2K a worldwide crisis and one of the most serious and potentially devastating events this nation (the U.S.A.) has ever encountered (U.S. Senate, 1999). Because there is now not time to fix all affected hardware and software, organizations and communities are currently developing contingency plans to deal with disruptions. [SU]

The primary issue of Y2K is this: Y2K could lead to complex combinations of ecologic, commercial and social effects ranging from nuclear risks to private inconveniences.

The secondary issue is: we might actually aggravate the issue by our efforts to prepare for the worst. [MS]

The Origins of the Y2K Problem: A Clash of Conventions

Date conventions in computing

Humans experience event sequences (time) as a continuous stream of unidirectional changes in states. We designate a single event as a base reference from which to distinguish other events, either those that went before or those which come after. We provide token names for the base reference event and for other events. We use rules for describing how the token names are to be applied to event streams. In shifting from human experience event streams to computer event streams the event sequence generator (real time clock) used by the computer to sequence processing events creates only a finite number of token names. Thus, while there does not appear to be an end to the sequence of events which humans experience, rules are required for managing the register roll-over of the finite set of event tokens generated by a real time clock. Herein lies the first Y2K Problem, handling the roll-over of real time clock event tokens. This problem particularly affects embedded chips and embedded systems logic where the way in which the roll-over is handled cannot be easily established once the devices are in service. Furthermore, the real-time clocks in embedded systems have different rates of token generation, different base reference events and rules for managing roll-over.

At the level of operating systems within individual computers some do not automatically use the correct token name to distinguish the change from year 99 to year 00 as being a Millennium change. In humanly readable terms 99 is interpreted as 1999 and 00 as 2000, not 1900 because human perception of dates assumes a priori that dates follow a forward linear sequence. Herein lies the second Y2K Problem, tokens for dates in a sequence are never less than the immediately prior event token.

At the level of application programs the rules for naming event sequence tokens cause problems to arise where character values are used, rather than numeric values. COBOL uses character values for dates. A second translation and set of rules must be used to ensure that there is a suitable mapping between the character values for dates in COBOL and a set of numerically manipulable values where numerical computations are required. Herein, lies the third possible Y2K Problem, the character which follows in the sequence from 00 to 99 is 00. In terms of temporal sequences this second 00 is the token for the event reference 2000 if the base reference is 00 AD. COBOL dates representations are in character strings (ASCII 75,75 for 99, not even ASCII 49,75,75,75 for 1999!) not the numeric value 1999. Most large business systems interact with legacy databases created by systems written in COBOL. Unless these databases are carefully remediated they will, in the future, cause problems for current functional systems. The very simple instance referred to in the COBOL context can potentially apply to many other legacy databases and the processing systems.

There are many ways in which the chosen sequence of reference events and calendar clock-time name-tokens can be out of synchronisation. Failure to include provision for the Y2K Leap Year and the associated calendar events such as the 366th day may also cause problems at all levels of computing.

Date Conventions in Day to Day Interactions

In Asia dates may be referenced to significant human events such as year of the reign of an Emperor or other important person. Most western people deal with dates at the human scale of days, months and years because that is the convention we are familiar with. Consequently, we think of the century digits (18, 19, 20) as being taken for granted. We write cheques with the date expressed as 02/02/99 instead of saying February 2nd in the year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Ninety Nine. Computations that require date values be treated as numeric values, because calculations are required, introduce significant problems when the values miss the century digits.

The convention of omitting the final digits from the year date (originally to save expensive machine memory see on) causes ambiguity about which century the year refers to.

The Clash of Conventions

The convention of using two digits for year values causes problems when the year values are used for calculations. The convention of building embedded systems, without explicitly considering the register role over problem, causes problems when embedded systems outlast their designed lifespan. The convention of requiring new software to interact with old software meant that there was no real incentive to remediate database and other date sensitive systems.

The convention of using date values to trigger events leaves systems open to date or time related virus and worm software.

Resolving Problems by Careful Planning.

Understanding the clash of conventions helps in the process of Hazard and Risk Evaluation for the Y2K Problem. We reduce the possibility of having to bear the impact of foreseen events by taking action to mitigate their possible effects before the event. Checking the way computer systems manage date-related data at all levels is a mitigation strategy. Because the future is essentially unknown and the complexity of Y2K Problems is systemic in nature we also plan to take action should events occur outside of the range of current preparations. Such contingency plans are designed to reduce the impact of failures of systems by providing well-understood ways of working around problems. [BB]

Facets Of The Y2K Computer Crisis

In the early days of computing one megabyte of memory cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Today it costs less than a dollar. Although shortening four digit dates to two digits, for example 1999 to 99, possibly made sense at one time, it no longer does. Yet software programs written in the 1950s and 1960s using the 2 digit year convention are still in use and many have not been repaired. The use of two digit dates has been a convention that was widely used until only the last year or two — consider Windows 98. If date-sensitive computer equipment had been recognized as an important problem ten or more years ago, it would have remained a technical and management problem. Since it was not fixed in a timely fashion, it is now a social, economic, and political problem. There are several facets to the Y2K computer crisis.

a) Mainframes and PCs are vulnerable on several levels (see above). Hardware, operating systems, application programs (e.g., a spreadsheet program), and specific applications (e.g., a spreadsheet containing two digit macros) all need to be checked. Fixing Y2K is the largest technical project in human history. There are many management challenges involved in making the repairs: large projects with fixed deadlines, overseas contractors, unfamiliar tools, and psychological issues (blame, guilt, and denial).

b) Embedded systems were recognized as a Y2K Problem only in about 1997. Of the chips that are manufactured only 10 to 15 percent go into computers and calculators. The rest go into automatic control equipment. This equipment is used in networks that distribute water, electricity, and natural gas. Consider the case of a utility company. If an electric utility does not repair its computers and software, it will not be able to bill customers or pay employees. But if, however, it does not fix its embedded systems, it will not be able to generate electric power. Embedded systems are also used in chemical plants, refineries, and nuclear reactors. If embedded systems are not repaired or if the equipment is not shut down at the end of the year there may be multiple accidents such as Bhopal, Chernobyl, and the Exxon Valdez, precisely at a time when telephones and other services may be disrupted.

c) There are serious economic and political implications. Manufacturing firms have thousands of suppliers. If only a few parts are unavailable, assembly lines shut down. Suppliers who have fixed all of their equipment thereby lose large customers. Hence, ripple effects can be significant. Government services are also threatened. In October 1997 the Canadian Auditor General issued a report saying that unless the pace of fixing code was dramatically increased, the Canadian government would not be able to collect taxes or make payments. State and local governments lag behind national governments. Canada is ahead of most other countries in repairing its computer equipment.

d) There may also be cultural effects. At the present time people have faith in technology, progress, and government programmes. If technology disrupts the current standard of living, if companies go bankrupt, and if governments are unable to respond, faith in current institutions will be undermined. [SU]

The Complexity of Y2K and Difficulties in the Division of Labour

Y2K is too big an issue for an individual to handle. Yet a division of labour may create additional and unsuspected difficulties. Consider the risks associated with nuclear power generation, for example. There may well be failures in, for instance, cooling systems of nuclear facilities, if we do not manage to upgrade them in time.

Working with my students last year in an economic simulation I designed, we attempted an enactment of the issues in the following manner. Imagine two groups (of students), one reporting to a student acting as the manager of a nuclear power plant; while the other group reports to a student acting as the manager of an enterprise selling Y2K security system upgrades. The question becomes, will the representatives of the two groups agree on the pricing of the upgrade if one side hopes for a bargain price while the other is briefed to recover total cost? In our role play, my students could not reach an agreement within an acceptable timeframe. That is, the upgrade, though available, was not bought. The division of the task between different labour groups did not help us arrive at a solution.

This non-representative warning might help us understand why I believe it is useful to try unconventional ways to organize direct participation around the Y2K Problem.

(I do this by suggesting an application of my rather formal research on fractally superimposed maps in the special context of Y2K. This approach can be found referenced on my web site:

http://www.schreiber.at/schreiber.

It is not included in this generalist piece because of its technical nature.) [MS]

Y2K Seen as an Opportunity

What Universities might do to help

Y2K is a challenge to universities, given their roles in education, research and public service.

So far the Y2K activities of universities have focused primarily on fixing their internal equipment. However, the education, service, and research functions of universities suggest a greater role for them. In terms of education, the general public needs to understand the problems that may arise and how to prepare. A great deal of community organizing is needed in order to be sure that all members of society will be cared for. Universities can render public service by providing occasions where local utilities and emergency planning professionals can share information with the public so that contingency plans focus on areas of greatest need.

Universities can provide meetings where people work through their psychological reactions to Y2K. Those who have been active in the field agree that people need to go through a series of stages in adjusting to Y2K. The stages are similar to the stages described by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in her book Death and Dying, i.e. denial, anger, negotiation, and acceptance. The dangers that Y2K presents are large and important, and the uncertainty surrounding what will actually happen is far greater than the uncertainties normally dealt with by corporate strategic planners. Y2K will affect people in both their professional and private lives. Planning for Y2K requires that we learn more about modern society than many people want to know. A common coping strategy is to deny that the problem exists or that it is serious. But this reaction increases the chances that the social consequences will be more serious than they otherwise might need to be.

In terms of research, Y2K can be seen as an unprecedented opportunity. For the next several months the interconnections within modern societies will be revealed as never before. As systems break down, we shall learn what other systems depend upon them. For social scientists interested in action research, Y2K presents a unique opportunity to test theories and methods. I suggest that social scientists be asked to predict what they think will happen and why. These papers could be presented at a conference in September 1999. At a second conference in April 2000 we could compare the predictions with events. Furthermore, those engaged in efforts to increase awareness and to prepare organizations could be asked to describe what they did, why they chose the methods they chose, what they expected to happen, and how their expectations were confirmed or refuted. Papers by authors from different countries could be compared. My hypothesis is that papers by Americans will be pragmatic and action oriented whereas papers by continental Europeans will be more abstract or theoretical (Mueller, 1998). By taking an experimental approach to Y2K, we could greatly increase our understanding of social systems.

What I Have Done

Since June 1997 when I read the article in Newsweek, The Day the World Crashes, (Levy and Hafner, 1997) I have been working on the Y2K computer crisis. As a professional academic I operate a listserv on Y2K for academic colleagues in the U.S. and in other countries. I have built a website with the aid of student assistants (www.gwu.edu/~Y2K). I have published articles (Umpleby, 1998a and 1998b) and I have lectured on Y2K at conferences in several countries. I have lobbied for attention to the issue within my university and my neighbourhood community. With others I have organized a series of panel discussions on Y2K beginning in March 1998. I have participated in briefings for managers of government agencies, corporations, and associations. Others associated with the Research Program in Social and Organizational Learning have published books and newsletters and lectured and consulted widely regarding Y2K. [SU]

Y2K and a New Approach to Working Together

A General Perspective

Let us start by defining a general perspective. We can conduct Y2K discussions by the introduction and exclusion of risks through the combination and separation of risks. We can try to simplify participative discussion and action by providing tools to assess and handle selected portfolios of such threats. In order to present a tool for this and other issues of similar complexity, we focus here on the latter.

For Example, Y2K

Should I buy an oven to burn wood at home? Should I withdraw some or all my money from my bank? Should I go to a foreign country? Will I eat old bread for weeks if nothing happens in spite of my precautions? Can I trust those technicians and managers who believe this is the end of the world? Will I enhance my reputation by expecting Y2K troubles, or by not expecting them.

We might brainstorm many additional potential issues connected to Y2K. But we want to invite people to share co-operatively in facing the problem, by visiting sites where we place distinct icons that refer to these issues. This forces us to limit the number of distinctions we may handle.

The web is as well suited as actual physical presence for this. We can outline dimensions (for instance 6) of Y2K danger. Then we can imagine how we might blend them into one scenario map (a matrix like a chessboard in which possible combinations or danger are represented in the squares), for real and netbased participation. And then we can play out combinations and matrix locations to examine them, developing our understanding of them as options within courses of action. (This is the material that may be referenced on the web site http://www.schreiber.at/schreiber: see above.) [MS]

Personal Actions and Precautions

People living in New Zealand are advised to prepare for geophysical hazards. National and local Emergency Services preparations for the technological hazards possible as a consequence of Y2K Problems are focused on responses similar in time scale to those for geophysical hazards. In general, such preparations are made for three day to one week event-responses. The major theme in hazard preparedness is self reliance. A secondary but growing concern is for the possible legal consequences of failure to meet contractual or other obligations in relation to Y2K Problems. It is accepted that insurance cover cannot meet the risk exposure since the event is known beforehand. Because the Y2K is systemic in origin, stemming from the highly interrelated and integrated nature of modern society, it is vulnerable to very small failures in systems. The potentially widespread consequences have caused me concerns over the magnitude and actual impact of computer systems failures as events play out following the Millennium.

To that end I began mid 1997 to explore ways in which events could play out more satisfactorily. It was very obvious that the more people took Y2K issues seriously the less the threat to the community as a whole. My own straw poll among local business people indicated knowledge of the problem as early as 1997 but rates of progress that still had completion dates well after 01/01/2000. I drew attention to the systemic nature of Y2K Problems to a number of community organisations and, for my pains, was co-opted on the Hamilton City Emergency Services Group Committee and the University of Waikato Y2K Contingency Planning Group

In New Zealand, the Emergency Services (Police, Civil Defence, Fire Brigade, Hospitals and Ambulance) are the key response organisations that attend to failures of normal systems. It was my view that people in Hamilton City needed to build onto existing knowledge appropriate actions that would reduce their dependence on core utilities. Choosing alternate energy sources and modifying water use could substantially reduce exposure to electricity failure, by far the greatest community wide susceptible system. In a prior water crisis when rationing was introduced, many Aucklanders bought water tanks to trap rainwater from their roofs for domestic use. This, and similar exposure reducing strategies have not been adopted by the City as a whole. However, key Emergence Services are, as I write, buying generators. The University of Waikato is in the process of evaluating the extent to which an existing mini computer UPS generator can meet short-term energy needs for data processing.

The greatest effort in the wider New Zealand community has been put into mitigation strategies. These strategies have been applied directly to the technology that may cause the problem: embedded chips and computer systems such as desktop machines. The work was intended to remove the perceived cause of risk exposure. The strategy here is to modify the event rather than change the behaviour that caused the event in the first place. There has been little serious planning, as at mid April 1999, into possible contingency plans or reducing exposure by making changes in social organisations or their expectations.

Individual responses to Y2K Problems are very difficult to gauge because they are made in private and against strong social pressure to adopt the engineering solution and fix the technological problem rather than adjust human behaviour and expectations. It is fairly clear that the social disruption of lost services and utilities could change the fabric of society. Such changes would be felt first among the most vulnerable, the young, the old, the housebound and the sick and the economically stressed. For the dependent in society there is no choice but to accept what comes along. Advising such folk to take steps now to prepare would not be productive of anything other than seriously increasing their stress levels. It is also clear that there are people who are placing wider global events, such as the share market bubble, in a Y2K context and predicting an inevitable correction. The key questions of when to sell up or sell short on the share and commodity markets have entertained many pundits. There are no clear answers but it is widely accepted that world share markets are vulnerable and over-priced. Furthermore, many people are investing heavily in property because interest rates are at historically low levels. Consequently indebtedness levels are high in New Zealand, at almost the levels of America, Britain and Ireland. The equity loss likely following a major share market correction would have ripple effects throughout New Zealand society and economy.

These factors and other local and international events, such as the Balkan debacle, point to a time of high uncertainty. At a community level increasing self-reliance and reducing community dependencies seems a useful strategy. My efforts are directed towards achieving these goals in the community. At an individual level cashing up on debts and consolidating equity in property also seems an appropriate hedge against uncertainty. In times of high uncertainty people should be encouraged to adopt Pascal's wager: if there is a choice (and there always is), choose the option the outcome of which will affect you least. At a personal level, I have chosen options the outcome of which I believe will affect me least. I am cashed up. I have no debts. I don't use a credit card. I am in the process of moving to a mortgage free rural home. What few assets I have are portable. I have shed much of the superstructure and clutter of urban living. I have done so because, for me, all the indications are that Y2K Problems either directly or indirectly will bring about significant social disruption for at least ten years in New Zealand. [BB]

________________________________________________

What can we do? You and I could try to protect our own interest by

a) leaving areas with nuclear infrastructures,

b) buying property and other non-commodities etc, or gold or platinum,

c) selecting a supposedly stable destination to be at,

d) buying food and drinks while preparing to burn wood,

e) staying away from crowds and mass transport,

f) doubting mass media and internet sources concerning Y2K.

But a strategy like this could actually contribute to the overall complexity of Y2K. What if many others tried to move, divest etc? [MS]

________________________________________________

In my personal life I have made the following arrangements:

a) My finances are in a defensive posture.

b) My mother is receiving double prescriptions. We set aside half for next year. Soon we shall go back to normal prescriptions.

c) We have bought a vacation home at a resort in the mountains. It has a wood stove. I plan to have the family there for New Years. It is not off the grid, so I have ordered a small generator, since the sewage system requires electricity.

d) I have installed a wood stove in the basement in my home in the city much more efficient than a fireplace. There is a cord of wood in the garage. My elderly neighbour is not preparing. He has a key to my house and is welcome to use it.

e) For several months I have been saving hard plastic fruit juice and soft drink bottles for water storage.

f) We are gradually increasing the food in the pantry.

g) I have purchased an oil lamp and oil.

Etc.

These are very standard Y2K insurance policies. Many books recommend how to prepare. Lord's book is good. I have heard that Hyatt's book is good. [SU]

________________________________________________

We live in a town. My wife travels 120 km per day to work (there is no public transport option). My biggest concern, still unresolved, is what to do with and for elderly relatives. What we have decided is this:

a) food etc: we are building a stock of food that can be eaten with little or no cooking, and which can be heated easily (to give warmth in winter). We are building a stock of mineral water and fruit juices. We will fill our freezer at the end of the year, expecting that a power loss will destroy the contents. We will stock 2 weeks supplies. We also have a basic supply of drugs.

b) sanitation: we are installing a water butt to collect rainwater from the roof (a step we should have taken long ago), and we are filling empty bottles to give us non-drinking water.

c) heating, cooking and lighting: we have a gas heater for emergencies and will order spare cylinders. We will also order cylinders for a camping gas stove. We have a stock of candles and an oil lamp.

d) entertainment: I am considering how to entertain myself in a time without electric light and power, and without heating. Bed seems a good answer. Living by nature's clock another. I anticipate this will be an interesting experience from which I will learn a lot and through which I may become aware of — and adjust — various habits.

e) communication: we are becoming as connected as we can: phone, fax, mobile, email (alternative service providers) and webmail. I shall send details with my annual Christmas message. But I expect not to communicate much until well into the new Millennium.

f) computing: since we run Macs, we don't have the Y2K Problem. It's you PC people (and others) who have it! Nevertheless, I will back up our network on old years day and will presume not to use computers much until well into the new Millennium. I will also recommission old computers, just in case. (This is an example that the problem stems from others.)

g) work: I am organising my work to be at home, and not to involve computers. My wife has no such options.

h) travel: apart from my wife's commuting to work, we will not travel except to see relatives and sick and elderly friends. I am doing my best not to schedule any use of public (and especially air) transport until well into March 2000.

i) finances: our assets are being moved to safe investments. We may lose out, but it is nothing to what we might lose to vulnerable stocks in an overvalued market. I specially do not like service providers of all sorts, and high tech industries: they stand to lose too much in lost income and claims against them. We will also arrange to have ready access to cash.

j) We will try not to leave our house unattended/unguarded.

k) My stockbroker advises keeping very careful records around the Millennium. Since electronic records may go astray, it is important to have reliable personal records. Banks, for instance, rarely admit they're wrong. [RG]

Y2K and the Cybernetics Community

Y2K is a particularly suitable topic for cyberneticians and systems scientists given their interests and unique skills. Below, I list the several reasons why I believe Y2K is a particularly appropriate topic for the cybernetics community to both study and act in.

a) It is important. People around the world will be affected (Marcoccio, 1999; Peterson, et al., 1998; Yourdon and Yourdon, 1997).

b) It is interdisciplinary. Thoroughly understanding Y2K requires knowledge of technology, management, economics, politics, psychology, anthropology, and of course systems theory and cybernetics.

c) It is the frame problem on a grand scale. The frame problem is the second order problem of choosing the most appropriate conceptualization of a problem. Here are two examples. As a first example, a software engineer designs a payroll system and is very careful to correctly build in deductions for taxes and the pension system. But he uses a two-digit date for the year and the software malfunctions at the end of the century. This is the frame problem in that his conceptualization of the task was incomplete. As a second example, President Clinton in his January 1999 State of the Union address said that Y2K is a big, big problem and that small businesses, and state and local governments in particular need to be working on it. However, later that week he and Al Gore, together with others in a panel discussion on Medicare, proposed using some of the budget surplus to support Medicare 15 years in the future. But the Y2K literature says that Medicare will not be functioning a year from now due to software problems. This is the frame problem in the form of lack of appropriate connections being made in the mind. From now to the end of the year no decision should be made without considering the context of Y2K.

d) Those who have worked on the Y2K computer crisis are intrigued by issues of learning, adaptation, and participation in families, communities, organizations, nations, and the world as a whole. Those who are interested in cognition and are concerned about other people will find it a rewarding topic to investigate. As a case study to engage students in systems thinking, Y2K is unsurpassed. [SU]

What is interesting about the Y2K Problem, looked at dispassionately as a subject for investigation, is that it is based in uncontrollability. This may be thought of in terms of Ashby's ÒLaw of Requisite VarietyÓ, about which I've written extensively in earlier issues of this Journal. There are two aspects to this.

The problem lies in sheer the vastness and inaccessibility of the information: it is not possible to even consider defining the states the system of world computation might take, let alone to possible or actual combinations. So the problem cannot be defined. But if it could be, there's a fair chance it would be transcomputable. The strategy for dealing with the vast complexity of local responsibility for control is only viable when that responsibility is taken. See next paragraph.

The problem also lies not in what each of us (or each organisation or government) does, but in what others do (or do not do, in the case of Y2K). My compliance (as the term is) is useless without your compliance. Therefore, control is beyond us, because we do not (in the case of Y2K, cannot) control these others. This is why all the assertions of, for instance, power companies cannot be taken to be reliable: they depend on others, are not autonomous and uninfluenced by them. Unless everyone has performed to the same standard of excellence, ie, there can be no guarantees. This is the problem referred to above as that of taking local responsibility for control.

Both of these leave us with one of the major challenges that faces cybernetics. How to confront systems which are in essence, or should be in order not to distort, beyond the realms of effective control. There are many questions in here which we may benefit from by studying, some of which I have already suggested in earlier columns. If we can face these and arrive at solutions and strategies for action, cybernetics will make a tremendous contribution to our ability to live in our world. It will have become a science for effective organisation, as Stafford Beer has told us it should be. [RG]

References

Information Week, 14 April 1999, opinion column Small World Big Problem (p 7 and http://www.iy2kcc.org/YES.htm) and Stuart Lauchlan International Rescue (p 19).

Levy, Steven and Katie Hafner, The Day the World Crashes, Newsweek. June 2, 1997, pp. 53-59.

Marcoccio, Lou. Y2K Global State of Readiness and Risks to the General Business Community.

http://gartner5.gartnerweb.com/public/static/aboutgg/pressrel/testimony1098.html, March 26, 1999.

http://www.schreiber.at/schreiber

Mueller, Karl. The Epigenetic Research Program: A Transdisciplinary Approach for the Dynamics of Knowledge, Society and Beyond, Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Austria, Sociological Series # 24, March 1998.

Peterson, John L., Margaret Wheatley, Myron Kellner-Rogers. The Y2K Problem: Social Chaos or Social Transformation? The Futurist, October 1998, pp. 21-28.

Umpleby, Stuart A. Will Universities Continue to Operate in January 2000? On the Horizon, May/June 1998a, pp. 13-14.

Umpleby, Stuart A. A National Action Plan for Y2K Recovery, in Doug Carmichael, et al. (eds.) The Millennium Bug, The Y2K Computer Crisis, 1998b.

U.S. Senate, Special Committee on the Y2K Technology Problem, Investigating the Impact of the Y2K Problem. www.senate.gov/~y2k. February, 1999, 164 pages.

Yourdon, Edward and Jennifer Yourdon. Time Bomb 2000: What the Y2K Computer Crisis Means to You! Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall PTR, 1997.

Biographies of Authors

Ranulph Glanville is the regular author of this column in Cybernetics and Human Knowing. He retired early and is now an independent academic working from home, with several appointments including a professorship in the Faculty of the Constructed Environment, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia. His wife is a physiotherapist at a school for the profoundly physically disabled.

Prof Ranulph Glanville, Independent Academic, CybernEthics Research, 52 Lawrence Road, Southsea, Hants PO5 1NY, UK.

tel: +44 23 92 737779, fax: +44 23 92 796617, email: ranulph@glanville.co.uk, ranulph.glanville@rmit.edu.au

Dr Bob Barbour teaches courses in Systems Analysis and Design, and Communications and the Internet at the Department of Computer Science, at University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. After 20 year career in secondary teaching he carried out research into Pask's Conversation Theory. He now applies that theory to his current work in Computer Science. His current research interests are in the systemic consequences of problems arising from Y2K date related issues. He is a member of the Hamilton City Y2K Emergency Services Planning and Education Groups. He is also a member of the University of Waikato Y2K Policy advisory group.

Dr R.H. Barbour (M.Soc.Sci.(Hons)), Senior Lecturer, Department of Computer Science, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

tel: +64 7 838 4403, cellular: 025 280 7902, email: r.barbour@waikato.ac.nz

Stuart Umpleby is a professor in the Department of Management Science at The George Washington University in Washington, DC. He is director of the Research Program in Social and Organizational Learning.

Prof Stuart Umpleby, Research Program in Social and Organizational Learning, 2033 K Street NW, Suite 230, The George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052 USA,

tel: +1 202 994-5219, fax: +1 202 994-5225, URL: http://www.gwu.edu/~umpleby, email: umpleby@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu

Dr Michael F. Schreiber has taught Methods of Marketing Planning and High Tech Marketing at the Department of Marketing at the University of Economics and Business Adminstation Vienna.

Since his traineeship with Matsushita in Japan and his responsibility for Long Range Planning and Organization Development at his Alma Mater WU he has tried to integrate formal and multicultural aspects of participation. He is minority stakeholder of a small industrial company following a management buyout, and consults for companies and cities.

Dr. Michael Schreiber, Department of Marketing University for Economics and Business Administration, Wirtschaftsuniversitat Wien Marketing, WU, A-1090 Vienna, Augasse 2

tel: +43-1-31336-4402, fax: +43-1-31336-732 fax, web sites: http://www.wu-wien.ac.at/marketing, http://www.schreiber.at/schreiber, email: Michael.Schreiber@wu-wien.ac.at

NOTES

1  While finalising the editing of this text I was staying with a friend in Sydney. His burglar alarm was being repaired. The engineer told me that it has a 15 hour back-up battery. I asked about the Millennium Bug. He said the company had checked all its systems. I asked about the generation of electricity. Incredulous, he wondered whether I was mad! His company had not considered that anyone they depended upon might not be Millennium compliant. [RG]

2  I  indicate authorship of paragraphs (subject only to my lightest of editorial touches) by the addition of the authors initials in square brackets at the end of a paragraph. All paragraphs preceeding these initials until the previous set of initials are by that author. Initials are in accordance with the author names at the top of the column. [RG]