motive emissions, computers-communications, industrial enzymes, sea farming, and water pollution from domestic wastes.

In a general introductory volume, the Mitre study offered a "Project Summary" of "A Technology Assessment Methodology," discussing the kinds of issues that any assessment of the impacts of a technology must deal with:

THE ISSUES

Among the broad range of complex questions addressed by each pilot study are the following:

(a) Where does the technology currently stand?

(b) In what directions does it seem to be developing?

(c) In what ways is the technology likely to be applied?

(d) What factors are likely to influence that application?

(e) What are the likely secondary and tertiary consequences of the application?

(f) What benefits and costs are likely to accrue from public efforts to alter either the technology applications or their subsequent consequences?

(g) Which community or interest groups are most likely to be affected by the anticipated impacts of the technological application and are most likely to take action to influence those impacts?

It is hardly necessary to state that there is no generally accepted method for conducting the comprehensive types of analysis that would be required to answer such questions. Of course, the problems addressed are not new; philosophers and kings have tried to divine the future and control human destiny since man has inhabited the earth. However, modern man is still far from being able to understand many of the forces at work, let alone to control them.

The frustrations of trying to deal analytically with a task of this magnitude were well stated by Prof. Raymond Bauer when he asked:

How does one carry out technology assessment? I suppose that at this stage the problem is akin to that of how one can eat an elephant. The only answer is that one must begin by biting the elephant. And, considering the magnitude of the task, it is difficult to argue that one place is better than another for the biting to start. And, after a considerable amount of biting has taken place, the elephant remains largely unscathed-I fear.*

In the Mitre study's discussion of possible methodologies to be employed, the following comment was offered:

THE APPROACH

The difficulties of developing a comprehensive assessment methodology do not mean that an analytical base for developing such a methodology is totally lacking. Many "assessment" studies have been made in the past. For many years economists have made assessments of the impacts of new legislation (e.g., tax

4 Raymond Bauer, "Second-Order Consequences: A Methodological Essay on the Impact of Technology," MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1969, pp. vii-viii.

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measures) on the national income level, market researchers have assessed the impacts of new products on a company's sales, sociologists have assessed the impacts of a proposed change in the parole system on the crime rate, educators have assessed the impacts of a major curriculum change on student achievement, etc.

A technology assessment methodology should utilize a whole host of techniques developed in each of these separate disciplines. A technology assessment methodology should also seek to apply and extend the decision-aiding methodologies developed in the last decade to systematize the process of management problem solving. In this category there are operations research, costbenefit analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, systems analysis, management science, computer simulation, the program-evaluation-and-review-technique, the program-planning-budgeting-system, and the so-called policy sciences.

A technology assessment methodology, in building upon this disciplinary and interdisciplinary research, must make a special effort to do two things: (a) Employ multidimensional criteria

Ways must be sought to assess impacts in multidimensional terms. By definition, disciplinary research stresses a particular dimension (economics, sociology, engineering, etc.). Similarly, many interdisciplinary studies in the past have compressed the entire decisionmaking criteria into some simple cost-performance ratio, i.e., the dollar cost per patient serviced in a medical treatment center. (b) Consider feasibility of implementation

In evaluating alternative public action programs for influencing the impacts of a new technology, the analyst must carefully consider the feasibility of implementing alternative solutions, as well as defining them technically. In other words, the technology assessment analysis must incorporate into the formal study, political, legal, administrative, and institutional, as well as economic, engineering, and related considerations.

As the Mitre team saw the process, it consisted of seven major identifiable steps in making a Technology Assessment as follows:

Step 1. Define the assessment task.-Discuss relevant issues and any major problems; establish scope (breadth and depth) of inquiry; develop project ground rules.

Step 2. Describe relevant technologies.-Describe major technology being assessed; describe other technologies supporting the major technology; describe technologies competitive to the major and supporting technologies.

Step 3. Develop state-of-society assumptions.-Identify and describe major nontechnological factors influencing the application of the relevant technologies. Step 4. Identify impact areas.-Ascertain those societal characteristics that will be most influenced by the application of the assessed technology.

Step 5. Make preliminary impact analysis.-Trace and integrate the process by which the assessed technology makes its societal influence felt.

Step 6. Identify possible action options.-Develop and analyze various programs for obtaining maximum public advantage from the assessed technologies. Step 7. Complete impact analysis.—Analyze the degree to which each action option would alter the specific societal impacts of the assessed technology discussed in step 5.

The functional sequence (and in some cases, interactions) of these seven steps were graphically set forth in the Mitre publication as

"

STEPS 5 AND 7

1 Martin V. Jones. "A Technology Assessment of Methodology: Some Basic Proportions.' The Mitre Corp., June 1971.

The excerpts from the Mitre study provide a summary description of a substantial study, involving five preliminary assessments of future technological impacts. The findings of these studies, the report warns, are not to be taken as policy guidance, because the studies themselves were strictly aimed at developing a methodology. A broader study, by Stanford Research Institute with NSF sponsorship, has recently been completed which generates policy information concerning weather modification on the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Other studies are also underway directed toward the goal of advancing the concepts, methods and tools for conducting technology assessments. Many of these will train teachers and analysts to provide the professional manpower expected to be needed.

This section started with the question, do we know enough to proceed with a technology assessment activity for the Congress? It is hoped that sufficient evidence has been presented to support the contention that sufficiently powerful concepts and methodologies, and sufficient qualified personnel are available now. If an appropriate policy and organizational framework backed with adequate resources is established, the Congress can have a new and valuable input to its deliberations and actions. It can also have confidence that the institution and the methods it enlists in this effort will by their very nature aim at their own improvement toward an ever-improving quality of factfinding and analysis of problems of foremost public concern.