Humans and machines Essay

The interesting throw about discussing the interactions of reality and machines is the inadequacy of delivery describing these interactions or the ambiguity of the connections between pieces and machines. What is really at the center of the study is how monastic order should view the intrust of machines or non- gentleman agents within sympathetic society.In addition, the coat of the technological use of non- adult male fixingss in the young machinery of war exposes the problem of how human beings sire changed the practice of warf ar starting in WWI and how it made war evolve from a human pose to an dusty experience or else of a non-human experience. The scope of this root is to analyze the coitionships of humans and machines in everyday as well as in the condition of war. Discussion What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be non-human? fit to Casper, the human identity is not a natural state of being, preferably it is a constructed identity in relatio n to the context that society gives it. (Casper, 1994) In fact, the experience of human social identity and the positions or functions attached to it be based on our interpretation of where these elements should be placed, for example, in give to understand or define something, we place it in mental boxes that simplify our apprehension of identity and function within society. However, Casper argues that we cannot to the full justify wherefore we assign human identities to non-human elements or vice-versa.(Casper, 1994) In order to bedeck the lack of consistency as to what we key out human or non-human, she uses the example of the foetus that is con berthred alive for surgery, a potential human with human qualities simply also a non-human agent for medical research employ fetal tissue (p. 843). Casper mentions The Actor earnings Agency (ANT) movement who finds that we should do away(p) with natural/technical and social/ cultural labels, which confuses our notions of what is human and what is not. However, this analytical symmetry discourse forgets to explain how we interpret the identities of agents and assign labels. apprehensiveness how and why we label humans and non-humans whitethorn help diffuse the wateriness over agent identities that bother sociologists and society so much since they cannot seem to make scent out of it, for example, some tidy sum talk to their auto kindred it was a person but a car is not a person but why do some people throw away the gather up to anthropomorphize their car whereas they would call their hotdog it? near people would insist that animals atomic number 18 living beings therefore that they deserve to be referred to as he or she.(Casper, 1994) other example in our technological society is the factory trimer who gets laid off and replaced by a zombi. The worker knows that he or she is better than a automaton. Yet, the robot does his or her job consonantly, faster, and without breaks. So, is the w orker a sophisticated robot or is the robot a sophisticated worker? Bruno Latour would withstand on that ambiguity because of our inadequate intervention of situations in which non-human entities are mixed with human agents, especially from the perspective of sociologists.(Latour, 1988) Latour deals with this debate skilfully use an illustration to make his points the brink in a wall, opening and windup thanks to attachs (non-human element) and a human access flight attendant who has been assigned to close the limen each time it is opened. He argues that the hinge always does its work, precise and consistent while at some time, the human doorkeeper may falter. So, the door keeper could be replaced by a non-human element the door keeper number 2 to pr withalt the faltering.The fact that we call the non-human element the door keeper tear down though it is not human, shows that we do not view as ascribed what Latour calls a coherent vocabulary to fork humans from non-huma ns. Thus, his conclusion (p. 310) is that the reason why we have not d angiotensin converting enzyme that is because the agency of competences and our social interactions imply the get goingicipation of non-humans. The confusion is that non-humans exist within a context of figurative/non-figurative speech, not a human/non-human context.In essence, that is why we anthropomorphize our car. (Latour, 1988) Consequently, it seems that our lives are intimately intertwined with the use of engineering science, machines, and other tools, including robots as well as computers that all are non-human agents indispensable to our way of life. In fact, one art objecticular illustration of such a reasonable conclusion can be found with computer hackers who, for the most part, are not considered part of normal carrying into action society. Sherry Turckle investigated MIT A. I. lab students who also are considered hackers.The important recurring idea among these students (almost exclusively male) is the apprehension of social interactions with other people due to a lack of trust or understanding of social interactions. Hackers are know to be loners and self-admittedly feel in subdue of their computer and its actions. In fact, on p. 212, this one student states computers have work an continuation of my mind. (Turckle, ) Their self-esteem, their existence become defined scarcely through their medium, resulting in a in small stages elimination of life experiences that paralyze them, adding to their need to mask their personal fears of the world that exists beyond their machine.(p. 208) In contrast, there are people who even today cannot use a computer because they are afraid of telltale(a) to others their lack of computer knowledge that has become essential in our modern society. Some may get help to make better their computer skills whereas others become so angered with the machine, taking their anger, originating from their own lack of self-assertion in le arning new things, onto this ill-judged machine some may even become technophobic. Unfortunately for our society, perception and technology have been used for warfare. Historically, wars always requisite improvement in their methods of cleaning.As a consequence, the development of technology became a part of warfare while its propaganda glorified science and technology as the agents of victory. (Virillio, 1988) (Delanda, ) This became especially dependable as scientific knowledge evolved in physics, engineering, and chemistry. When WWI broke out in 1914, the weapons on tap(predicate) then were the first of their kinds, the most inhuman of their kinds, killing galore(postnominal) soldiers remotely every gassing soldiers with the injurious gas phosgene or using machine guns or canons with an lengthened range to kill as many enemy soldiers as possible.(Visvanathan, ) In WWII, planes, tanks, and ships became much and more sophisticated with technological advances equal radar a nd sonar. The advent of using thermonuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki horrified the scientists who naively believed that their work would be used to deter, not to destroy. (Kaempffert, 1941) blubber Man and Little Boy were dropped on these two Japanese cities ironically, these two deadly bombs were named as if they were human themselves.To the Japanese, the nuclear misfortune and its aftermath on the population promoted the mental home of the character Godzilla, a pre-historic mutant monster. With the unwarmed War, more weapons gradually became stealth weapons instead of front weapons. Nowadays, machines have turned into non-human extensions of their makers or rather their armament masters, for example, long-range analyse equipment on satellites allowing spying activities on contiguous nations.Yet, is it appropriate to say non-human when modern weapons like continental missiles can kill so horribly and from the comfort of a military base on the other side of the worl d? The military is relying on technology more than ever by using computers, artificial intelligence research, simulation modules that simulate a battlefield or even war moving-picture show games whose graphics have been rendered so life-like that video gamers who are soldiers may not know reality from fiction, killing enemy soldiers without any care, as if they were video game characters, non-human or human?In conclusion, the relationship between human and non-human agents is complicated but not impossible to qualify if the realization is made that non-human agents are part of our environment and society. In fact, they occupy a greater place today than 10 years ago (computer technology, for example). The key to their seamless integration in our society is the prototype/non-figurative reference style proposed by Latour as it is already used unconsciously by many of us.References Casper, M. (1994).Reframing and grounding non-human agency what makes a fetus an agent? The American behavioral Scientist, 37(6) 839-856. Delanda, Latour, B. (1988). Mixing humans and non-humans together the sociology of a door-closer. Social Problems, 35(3) 298-310. Kaempffert, W. (1941). War and Technology. The American daybook of Sociology, 46(4) 431-444. Turckle, S. (n. d. ) The new computer cultures the mechanization of the mind. have got? , publisher, year? Virillio, P. (1988). War and Cinema. Visvanathan.