Taking SWAGS in the Chinese Copy Room, I-Robot, and other space junk
Orr’s interaction of man and machine demonstrate Searle’s Chinese room in action. Technicians, like the computer, have a list of procedures to abide by for given error codes, or inputs. But as technicians evolve with experience, they are able to improvise. Understanding and adapting to the context of the problem (customer is using cheaper toner is being used to due to a scam or maintaining the peace in an ongoing battle with the other half of the building over mooching off supplies) is an essential component of being a successful technician. Even use of directive documentation (106) in conveying information to the technicians which would seem to treat the technicians as automatons is still insufficient in fixing the copiers as evidenced by technicians’ taking SWAGs, which would simply be impossible for machines. Will Artificial Intelligence ever surpass the human ingenuity which created it?
The question we should be concerned with is less that we will have Will Smith running around trying to shut down the master brain in I-Robot due to a lethal faulty logic stream, but rather, the extent to which humans depend on artificial intelligence and change their behavior according to it. Could one argue that the Asian Financial Crisis is the result of machines capable of transferring billions of dollars, enabling capital flight at the press of button and therefore causing financial shock waves through Southeast Asia, Russia, Mexico and the United States? Clearly, globalization and along with, what some would argue, an increased standard of living, would not be possible without machines.
Along the lines of increasing globalization, modernization theory, and subsequently, development theory holds that progress is linear and that industrialization is an essential component of becoming a “modern” or “developed” state. As a result, economists would argue that developing countries need to increasingly specialize their industrial output and move away from commodities towards manufactures in order to become “developed”. However, Orr argues that increased specialization removes the individual from the work and work becomes an increasing abstraction. So, what do we lose, if anything, in becoming “modern”?
The question we should be concerned with is less that we will have Will Smith running around trying to shut down the master brain in I-Robot due to a lethal faulty logic stream, but rather, the extent to which humans depend on artificial intelligence and change their behavior according to it. Could one argue that the Asian Financial Crisis is the result of machines capable of transferring billions of dollars, enabling capital flight at the press of button and therefore causing financial shock waves through Southeast Asia, Russia, Mexico and the United States? Clearly, globalization and along with, what some would argue, an increased standard of living, would not be possible without machines.
Along the lines of increasing globalization, modernization theory, and subsequently, development theory holds that progress is linear and that industrialization is an essential component of becoming a “modern” or “developed” state. As a result, economists would argue that developing countries need to increasingly specialize their industrial output and move away from commodities towards manufactures in order to become “developed”. However, Orr argues that increased specialization removes the individual from the work and work becomes an increasing abstraction. So, what do we lose, if anything, in becoming “modern”?
posted by Anonymous at 5:03 PM
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>>>However, Orr argues that increased specialization removes the individual from the work and work becomes an increasing abstraction. So, what do we lose, if anything, in becoming “modern”?
In layman’s terms, the argument of the Chinese Room is that “machine” doesn’t amount to “man,” and “man” doesn’t boil down to “machine.” If modernization has meant increasing machination, it hasn’t meant decreasing humanism, so to speak. One of Orr’s conclusions is that the increasing robotization (routinization, repetition, instruction manuals, and so on) of the technician’s work hasn’t obviated the need for human spontaneity and creativity. The analogies between the technicians and war heroes or shepherds are slightly strained, but this is what Orr wants to say—these technicians, whose work is fundamentally defined by tedium, are modern day “heroes.” They still have to deal with unpredictability and this allows them to retain a great deal of human instinctiveness in their work. I think there’s a similar argument to be made about development and modernization theory. The increasing machination of modernization has had to contend with human ingenuity, or lack thereof. This is why there is no singular, universal development model, right? So, to answer the question, I think Orr would say that we lose nothing. Copy room workers can still be heroes.
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