Part IIThe New Computer Cultures: The Mechanization of the Mind

5. Personal Computer with Personal Meanings

6. Hackers: Loving the Machine for Itself

7. The New Philosophers of Artificial Intelligence: A Culture with Global Aspirations

Computer - Children

development of fundamental conceptual categories

• world construction

• identity construction

development of their personalities

development of ways of looking at the world

Computer - Adults

• world construction

basis for thinking about large/puzzling philosophical issues

opens up long-closed questions

stimulate to reconsider ideas about themselves

provocations to reflection

• identity construction

Computer – "Something New" • aesthetic values• cultural forms

the basis for new • rituals• philosophy

conceptions of themselves

conceptions of their jobs

conceptions of their relationships with other people

conceptions of their ways of thinking about social processes

• emphasize on these developments by focusing on the role of computer as a catalyst of cultural formation

• show how this issue of transparent understanding remains an important theme for a new generation's relationship with their machines

Chapter 5:

The Birth of Personal Computer Culture

1975 IBM card

"Do not fold, spindle, or bend".

"The computer did it".

"The computer is down" to get "hooked" and become addicted to a machine

MITS

Personal computer magazines

• how computers could teach French• how could they help with financial planning

and taxes• monitoring a home heating system• keeping records fo small business• establishing an inventory

Late '70

"understanding a system at many levels of complexity" ="cognitive play" + "puzzle solving"

noninstrumentalHOW IT MADE THEM FEEL

instrumentalWHAT IT MIGHT DO

Computer changing one's self-conception

working with the computer has made him reconsider himself/he has come to see himself as a learner

Sense of power that came from having full knowledgae of the system – feeling control/good

"technichal person" but "scared out of real science"(inability to do mathematics)

lose respect for himself as a student

gets a computer = numbers stopped being theoretical, but practical, playful/the computer put mathematics into a form he could relate to

Personal Computer and Personal Politics

Computer came on the scene at a time of dashed hopes for making politics open and participatory – use to bring people together

• to work out of their homes• to have more personal autonomy• to have more time for familiy/the out-of-doors• to feel they have more control over my time

Excitement about new kinds of relationships

1970PC

allow people

Ecology

people attending electronic meetings

do more work out of their homes

save transportation/energy costs

schools would become obsolete as computers brought individualized curriculum into the home

Education

The actual experience of using the machine offered a way to think about •WHO ONE IS AND WHO ONE WOULD LIKE TO BE•ISSUES BEYOUND THE SELF: POLITICS, SOCIETY, EDUCATIONand became a depository of LONGINGS FOR A BETTER, SIMPLER, AND MORE COHERENT LIFE

• symbol of hope for ny populism

• practical help in creating new political networks and decentralized information resources

• compensation for dissatisfactions in the world of politics and the world of work

Looking for a direct relationship with the CPU (Central Processing Unit), the "body" of the machine.

If the mind of the computer is that part of computation which involves thinking in terms of high-level programs, then relating to the body of the computer means not only working on hardware, but also working with programs in a way that is a close as possible to the machine code, the language the "body" understands

REFLECTS INDIVIDUAL PERSONALITY

Risk and Reassurance

Differences among computer culture: 2 persons may work with the same computer but they approach it with different aesthetics and are looking for different satisfactions

2 posibilities to the programmerlocal simplicity

FEEL IN CONTROL each step in a program is easy to understand

global complexity CONTROL SLIPS AWAY unpredictable

feeling of having direct contact with what is really going on inside the computer

having control from the botton level of the program and up makes me feel confortable, safe, sort of at home (sense of safety)

feel in close contact with the machine logicreassuring step-by-step mastery

the culture of the first generation hobbyist and the hacker

subculture of programming virtuosos devoted to programming as an art in itselfsubculture of programming virtuosos devoted to programming as an art in itself

When something goes wrong , it is between oneself and the bare machine.

The Next Generation midt-1980s

early personal computer culture

• a way of asserting status - this is someone who has not been left behind

• entering a new world of inf. to be gathered + assimilated + discussed

A computer game is what comes to feel most real.

You live out an existence. There is nothing you don't have control over.

• the computer changes lifesEx. somebody no good in mathematics starts programming – feeling of

knowing the right answer, of understanding everything that's happening.

Technical hobbysists1st generation

2nd generation technology for the young bussinesses computerplaying games

What means owning a computer?

• looked to as a medium of compensation for what is not found at work

• impulse to find a way to a sense of intimate understanding of the logic of the machine

What is it like to work within a formal system?What is it like to work within a formal system?

I find exciting about computers the way in which unpredictable and suprising complexity can emerge from local ideas.

I wanted to get down there and play with the machine. I liked getting inside, changing things around, seeing that I really understood them.

2 different styles (cultures of artificial intelligence)of relating to the computer

2 different styles (cultures of artificial intelligence)of relating to the computer

focusses on magic focusses on transparency

How individual use the computer to think about other questions

What is life? What makes

us special?

How do computers change our definition about ourselves?

How do computers change our definition about ourselves?

Different computational aesthetics & directions when they use what they know about computers to think about themsleves.

Hackers: Loving the machine for itself

The Social Construction of the Engineer

Profound anxiety about self in relation to a life in science and engineering.

Science-people who are good dealing with things

Sensuality-people who are good at dealing with people

Children pay the social costs Ron: I have always thought of myself as ugly, inept. … There I was. All alone, fixing used ham-radio equipment. And all of the other kids I knew who were into ham-radio stuff felt just as ugly as I did. … So don’t expect me to be suprised to come to MIT and find that all the other loners, doing their math and science and thinking of themselves as losers, make themselves an ugly-man contest.

Chapter 6

He sees the power of his mind as a gift that brought him mastery over technology, but for which he has had to pay with shame and misery in the world of people

Polarization

world divided between flesh things and machine things

• have feelings• need you to know how to love them• take risks (to much risk)• never know what to expect from them

• know how to get it perfect• no risks• perfection.

I stay away of the flesh things.

Makes me a sort

of nonperson

I might get

rejected.

I might do it wrong.

I often don’t think

as a flesh thing

myself.

I think that if you become obesessed with computers it makes it

easy to give up trying to be a real person.

Struggle to create a bridge between a world of things and a world of people.

The Image of the Hacker

MIT culture

Computer science becomes a projective screen for the insecurities of others in the community.

• archetypical nerds• loners• losers

The self-image of the engineering students is low. – the world of machines has cut them off from people because they are the «kind of people» who demand perfection and are compelled by the controllable.

• computer person• hackers• wizards• wheels• freaks• addicts

Mid-1980s

Labels

+ way of life, more than an object of study

The image of the hacker crystallizes a fear of getting lost in the world of things + leads to isolation

Passion of Virtuosity

MIT hacker supply virtuositybe left free to construct their own way of life around of the most powerful computer system in the world

Fair trade

Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

first large computer community of dedicated young men16-18h/7day

many dropped out of MIT academic programs in computer science

ITS

created

Incompatible Time Sharingmost advanced time-sharing operating system

CTSS Compatible Time Sharing System

compatible with systems outside MIT to make it easier to run programs written by collegues at other institutions

PRACTICAL advantage by compromising its power

people who loved the machine-in-itself

ITS model development - production built on passionate involvment with the object being produced + no industries profit

the machine no longer belonged to makers

Data General hackers

created a successful new machine EAGLE

What motivates people?

to buy things that they and their families want.

Sales manager, Data General

MIT

ITS

story of how a new computer (Eagle) was designed and built by poeple with uncommon devotion within Data General Corporation for the period of production the

hackers lived a monastic life – personal ego/reward has no place. !!! important: to win

The Hacker Controversies* allows rapidly to attain a level of virtuosity that makes someone nearly indispensable

Machine are made to be used, not played with

They should belong to work life not to intimate life. criticism

1976

awarness of the existence of hackers hollow-eyed young men glued to computer terminals

work until they nearly drop, 20/30h at a time.withdrawl from society

narrowing of focus and life purpose

THE HACKER PAPERS Psychology Today, aug. '80 defense

of the hackers

they are no different from other people seriously devoted to their work

Perfect Mastery

key to autonomy

many people define themselves in terms of competence/what they can control

A way of making fears about the self and the complexities of the world beyond. People can become trapped.

Supports growth and personal development + entrapment You can make a deal with yourself that you won't be satisfied, that you won't eat or og out or do anything until you get it right. People are addicted to playing with the issue of control.

sports death pushing mind and body beyound their limits

The computer offers a seductive refugee to someone who is having trouble dealing with people

Loneliness and Safety

Hackin is a safe lifestyle. .. There's always things to do, you're never alone.

THE HACKER CULTURE IS A CULTURE OF LONERS WHO ARE NEVER ALONE.

Being Special

I feel a very strong need to be different. I have spent all my life set apart and have been taught that this is the right way to live. My dream, what I want to do, is to be a person that does something, discovers something, creates something, so that people will look at me and say. "Wow, this guy is really SOMETHING SPECIAL, LET'S LOVE THIS GUY". That is all I ever wanted.

TO BE LOVED BY EVERYBODY IN THE WHOLE WORLD.

There are programs on the system right now that can't be fixed without my help, and that makes me happy. I don't know why I need this so bad.

The hack (the hacking experience) The Holy Grail

John Draper

1960 telephone hackersphone phreaking

1. dial a long-distance tel. no. 2. blow the Crunch whistle Disconects the dialled conversation BUT: kept the trunk open without further toll charge

From that point on, any number of calls could be dialed free.From that point on, any number of calls could be dialed free.

In the hacker aesthetic, "wining" requires making the system and the challenge ever more complex.

Mark Crispin Miller

battle between good and evil computer cultures.

hacker culture

culture of the "straights" – administrators, "computer-as-tool" programmers

7. The New Philosophers of Artificial Intelligence: A Culture with Global Aspirations

report about artificial intelligence: it is a fraud, an illusion (1965)Ex. real chess, unlike checkers, required human thinking, intuition, it couldn't be done digitally

Herbert Simon

Within the decade a computer

program would be chess champion of the world (1957)

First computer to play chess (PDP-6)

Richard Greenblatt (hacker MIT) wrote MacHack

Hubert Dreyfus

1950 A group of mathematicians Use the computer to build a mind

Describe mechanism that might allow machines to take the first steps toward manifesting intelligence (ex. playing chess)

Alan TuringJohn von NeumannNorbert WienerClaude Shannon

the birth of Artificial Intelligence discipline conference, Dartmouth College1956

mid-1960s

Specialized artificial intelligence laboratories

Carnegie Mellon – directed by Allen Newell, Herbert Simon

MIT - directed by Marvin Minsky, Seymour Papert

Stanford, directed by Hohn McCarthy

1970 established academic field • International congresses• Journals• Textbooks• University courses

Little discussion about where these scientists expect to

og in the really long term

Science is too young to justify speculation beyound the next decade

Machine will exceed human intelligence in all respects (when it is not important)

2 categories of work with A.I.

expert systems (mind programs – knowledge engineering)

Play chessAdvice a medical

diagnostician

*physical interaction nonexistent

industrial robotics

Machines do "child's play": recognizing and picking up an object

* A.I. is not adequate to get machines to do things that 2yrs old find easy

Theoretical psychology not just thinking about

machines and programming

Is there a general mechanism of intelligence at work no matter what subject matter the intelligence is turned to?

Are there many varieties of intelligence?

A.I. has invaded the fiel of psychology*theories (comun: the idea of unconcious) in which the idea of mind as program occupies center stage

Programming as a Prism

1957

Herbert Simon

3 predictions about programs would compose music of serious aesthetic value

would discover and prove an important mathematical theorem

would be the standard form of psychological theory

refers to rel. program-theory (work with Allen Newell)

paradigm

how to build computer models of how people think

Cryptarithmetic problem "SEND+MORE=MONEY" Each letter stands for a digit from zero to nine – subject's job is to break the code

Programs that captured the steps taken by human subjects

GETTING COMPUTER TO EMULATE MINDS

Using programs to think about Freud unconsciuos

Donald Norman

a new look of freudian slips

research in the field of memory, Harvard psychology department

THEORIZE ABOUT THE MIND AS EMULATING A COMPUTER

Another science of self-reflection

artificial intelligencegoal

Finding out how to program machines to do certain acts people do

How the human mind

works?

* human mind was the only model available

Was there a line between

"subjective" and "objective" reflection?

Roger Schank

Donald Norman

Minsky & his students

project – computer program designed to improvise jazz

You can make a machine do only what you yourself know how to do

method: engage in selfanalytic activity

• trying to capture one's thought processes in the form of a program forces you to confront objectively your initial idea of how you think you think

• the idea of program offers a profusion of concepts for representing processes that native introspection fail to capture becuase the introspecting mind has an inadequate concept vocabulary for talking about process

A.I. theorists

Philosophy is yet another new key

What is meant by

to believe

to know

Psychoanalysis excludes any model of mind which demands that an individual's "KNOWLEDGE" or "BELIEF SYSTEM" be consistent

In a program - coherent behavior can emerge from conflicting elements

Philosophers: traditional logic is not sufficient.

What do you do when you see the word "know/believe"? Philosophy of A.I:

Between science and myth

A.I. philosophers = an enterprise of mythic proportioncreators of life

"I have a dream to create my own robot. To give it my intelligence. To make it mine, my mind. To see myself in it." (Donald Norman)

I have always wanted to make a mind. Creating something like that, it is the most exciting thing you could do. The most important thing anyone could do. (Roger Schank)

challenging the notion of truth/life

When people create a new consciousness they are acting like gods & deal with new ethical problems.

simulating thought

Will computers

think?

Alan Turing

Centralized versus decentralized minds

Computer – a formal program that attaches no meaning, interpretation or content to any of the symbolsSearle

The systems reply (defenders of A.I.)

"while it is true that the individul person who is locked in the room does not understand the story, the fact is that he is merely part of whole system, and the system does undestand the story"