ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that implicitly held beliefs about the nature and value of rationality and the nature of expertise largely account for the conflicting conclusions. The hope for computer modeling as the means of attaining a more frictionless society is founded on formalizing the short-term expertise and using it as the basis for computing accurate long-term, possibly counterintuitive, predictions. The faith in computerized expert-quality short-term forecasting of the impacts of incremental changes is more plausible. The chapter then describes the following five stages for the acquisition of skill by knowledge-workers: the novice; the advanced beginner; competence; proficiency; and expertise. If a computer program could predict the short-term effects of contemplated decisions in a large variety of different situations, it could extrapolate the knowledge well into the future and prove as an invaluable aid in choosing long-range social and economic policies.
