单选题 .  We have recently heard a great deal about the bad effects of computers on our social and economic institutions. In industry, computers mean automation, and automation means unemployment. The United States, with its extravagant investment in computers, is plagued (使得灾祸，烦恼) by unemployment for unskilled workers. Already computers have begun to displace workers whose tasks are simple. The variety of jobs, formerly done only by humans, that the machine can perform more rapidly, accurately, and economically, increases with each new generation of computers. If we follow this trend, say the pessimists (悲观主义者), we are faced with the prospect of mass unemployment for all but a handful of highly trained, highly intelligent professionals, who will then be more influential and overworked than they are now. Only recently a distinguished English physicist predicted that within twenty years electronic engineers might have to become conscientious objectors in order to prevent these machines from wrecking out (使遭难，破坏) social and economic institutions.
    What can we do about it? It is foolish to dream of reversing history. We cannot pass laws forbidding the advancement of science and technology. The computing machines are here, and they will grow because engineers want to build them, soldiers want to enlist them in new weapon systems and politicians want their help in the process of government. In short, they will flourish because they enable us to accomplish tasks that could never before have been undertaken, no matter how many unskilled laborers we might have set to work. Computers will continue to amplify our intelligence for just the same reason that engines continue to amplify our muscles. The question we must ask is not whether we shall have computers or not have computers, but rather, since we are going to have them, how we can make the most humane and intelligent use of them.1.  The author insists that ______.