PATHS TO DIGITAL MODERNITY 373
discursive level. The general idea was that technology was supposed to
provide solutions for present-day problems in society.^76 At the beginning
of the 1970s, however, a debate broke out in West Germany about the
“limits of growth.” In 1976, the American computer scientist Joseph Wei-
zenbaum published his critique of the research on artifi cial intelligence
in a book called Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to
Calculation.^77
The widespread sense of insecurity surrounding new technologies
does not necessarily imply a rejection of scientifi c-technical advancement
on the whole. Although studies are lacking on this issue, there are still
clear indications that there was a relatively broad level of consensus in all
Western countries concerning the paradigm of progress associated with
computerization. Indeed, much of the insecurity did not stem from com-
puters themselves, but rather from a “loss of trust” in political structures
to be able to control these technologies and keep them on a development
trajectory that was acceptable to all of society.^78
Doubts about the feasibility of technological progress also surfaced
in the GDR, but they by no means resulted in a kind of technological
pessimism. Rather, the reality of economic and technological stagnation
increasingly contradicted the offi cial political rhetoric of advancement.^79
There were no signs, for example that microelectronics would present
any danger to the existence of East German workers. In fact, to the con-
trary, the diffi culties in dealing with technological progress and the worn-
out state of production facilities due to a lack of investment funds were
akin to a guarantee for workers. The right to work was never questioned,
not by anyone. The implicit job guarantee that went along with this gen-
erated a sense of security, which should not be underestimated as a sta-
bilizing factor.^80
Yet computerization and the advancements in electronic data process-
ing that went along with it also generated fears outside the world of work.
In the mid-1980s, these threat scenarios unleashed hefty public debates
in West Germany. The fi lm Alles unter Kontrolle: Notizen auf dem Weg in
den Überwachungsstaat (Everything under control: Notes on the way to
a ‘Big Brother’ state) appeared in West German cinemas in April 1983.^81
With a mix of documentary material and staged scenes, the fi lmmakers
presented a shocking panorama of all the methods of electronic surveil-
lance over the population and personal data collection practiced by the
Bundeskriminalamt (BKA, akin to the FBI in the Unites States), the police,
and other government authorities. Before the fi lm premiered, the disclo-
sures made by the BKA engineer Bernd Rainer Schmidt had caused an
uproar in the press and on TV. Schmidt revealed the methods of computer-
aided video surveillance that he had developed, which the BKA used to