Computing and its
consequences
HPSS*S689 -- Blumberg
Notes: Thursday, January 3
http://www.cs.brown.edu/risd/s689.jan3.html
1. The
syllabus
Why study the
history and philosophy of technology?
"The hand
mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam mill society with the
industrial capitalist." Karl Marx, from The
Poverty of Philosophy (1846-1847)
"The
machine accommodates itself to the weakness of the human being in
order to make the weak human being into a machine." Karl Marx, from Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844.
"’Globalization’
is understood as a competition between foreign companies and American companies
for jobs. But it was nothing of the sort. The revolution that began around the
start of the 1970s was technological, and its practical effect was to break
down
Why privilege
computers or computing?
a. Compare computers with refrigeration technology.
b. Compare the rise of computing with the advent of television.
Like
the industrial revolution, the computer revolution has changed the meaning of
work for large numbers of people; but unlike industrial machinery the success
of the computer is having an unprecedented impact on: our sense of self; our
beliefs about the nature of communication and community; our ideas about
institutions; and the way we conceive of and/or value the human condition.
Why this
course?
By combining
history, philosophy, and social science in our examination of computers and
computing, we'll try to evaluate the claim that not a single significant aspect
of human life has been unaffected by the advent and triumph of computing.
We’ll also try to develop a concrete meaning/interpretation of larger
claims about technology as they apply to computing. For example:
“Technological
change is in large part responsible for the evolution of such basic parameters
of the human condition as the size of the world population, life expectancy,
education levels, material standards of living, the
nature of work, community health care, war, and the effects of human activities
on the natural environment. One does not have to embrace any strong form of
technological determinism or be a historical materialist to acknowledge that
technological capability... is a key determinant of the ground rules within
which the game of human civilization is played out at any given
[time]." Nick Bostrom,
"Technological revolution and the problem of prediction." (2007)
2. Who is here?
We'll spend some
time on introductions, asking everyone to say why they signed up for this
course, and what they've been paying attention to most these days.
3. Michael Mahoney and the "Histories of
computing”
If the turn of the
20th century was a glorious age for the Encyclopedia, we might say the turn of
the 21st century heralds something new: the age of the
“Wikipedia” (or something like this that privileges multiple
perspectives in different ways of telling stories). Needless to say, presenting
the history of a particular science or discipline was easier in the age of the
Encyclopedia, at least if you believe in a modern notion of truth. So:
What
makes for a good history of science or any discipline?
What
would be the qualities of good history of an institution like RISD?
What
are the qualities of a good history of a nation?
What
are the qualities of a good history of a person?
In Mahoney's
article, he makes clear that there are different ways to tell the history of computing.
Two perspectives which providence very different accounts are: a) the machine
centered version (figure 1); and b) the communities of computing version
(figure 5). As all explanation is relative to a description, it will matter how
we describe the history and philosophy of computing if/when we wish to explain
its consequences.
4. Modern
Times vs. The Matrix
As we look at the
opening scenes of these two films, you're some questions to consider:
How do these movies
highlight differences between industrial and computing technology?
How do these movies
highlight similarities between the two as technologies-in-society?
How does each film represent
a contemporary morality or set of moral or ethical norms?
How does each film represent
"the human condition"?
5. For Next time:
Read
Mahoney’s “Histories of computing”
Read
Turing's 1950 paper, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”
Read
the first page of
Buy
the books for the course and begin reading at least one of them.