What can/should computers do?
Hello air-l-er's, I'm looking for literature reporting on empirical investigations of perceptions about both what computers can do and what computers should do. I'm familiar with a number of philosophical pieces considering potential abilities and/or limits of computers (Turing, Minsky, Dreyfus, Weizenbaum, etc.). However, most of those are philosophical or abstract arguments made by philosophers of or researchers in artificial intelligence. I've not been able to find any work that examines lay or non-expert beliefs about either what computational systems are (not) capable of or what are (in)appropriate tasks for computational systems to perform. To sum up, here's what I'm looking for: - perceptions of computers' (suit)abilities - empirical research (not philosophical arguments) - emphasis on lay/non-expert perceptions (not researchers in AI) - bonus points if related to natural language processing - bonus points if related to political coverage, opinions, and/or bias Thanks in advance, ~Eric
Eric, All.. One more seminal piece is Norbert Weiner's Cybernetics. Also can be quite theoretical in sections, but invaluable to your inquiry I'd think. He rewrote swaths of it, adding plenty of concrete examples and such, in The Human Use of Human Beings. As for non-expert stuff, I haven't too many leads. But Jaron Lanier's You are not a Gadget likely gets at some of what you are looking for there. I heard him speak and chatted briefly with him last summer and know that he has some very important things to say regarding your general question. Good luck, -rob Robert MacDougall Professor, Communication/Media Studies Coordinator, Video Game Concentration Coordinator, Faculty Center for Professional Development and Curriculum Innovation Curry College 65a Atherton St. Milton, MA 02186-2395 USA Office Ph: 617-333-2265 Skype: rhyperborean -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Eric P. S. Baumer Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 12:05 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: [Air-L] What can/should computers do? Hello air-l-er's, I'm looking for literature reporting on empirical investigations of perceptions about both what computers can do and what computers should do. I'm familiar with a number of philosophical pieces considering potential abilities and/or limits of computers (Turing, Minsky, Dreyfus, Weizenbaum, etc.). However, most of those are philosophical or abstract arguments made by philosophers of or researchers in artificial intelligence. I've not been able to find any work that examines lay or non-expert beliefs about either what computational systems are (not) capable of or what are (in)appropriate tasks for computational systems to perform. To sum up, here's what I'm looking for: - perceptions of computers' (suit)abilities - empirical research (not philosophical arguments) - emphasis on lay/non-expert perceptions (not researchers in AI) - bonus points if related to natural language processing - bonus points if related to political coverage, opinions, and/or bias Thanks in advance, ~Eric _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Perhaps Kevin Kelly's What Technology Wants<http://www.kk.org/books/what-technology-wants.php>could be helpful On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 5:48 PM, MacDougall, Robert < robert_macdougall@post03.curry.edu> wrote:
Eric, All..
One more seminal piece is Norbert Weiner's Cybernetics. Also can be quite theoretical in sections, but invaluable to your inquiry I'd think. He rewrote swaths of it, adding plenty of concrete examples and such, in The Human Use of Human Beings.
As for non-expert stuff, I haven't too many leads. But Jaron Lanier's You are not a Gadget likely gets at some of what you are looking for there. I heard him speak and chatted briefly with him last summer and know that he has some very important things to say regarding your general question.
Good luck,
-rob
Robert MacDougall Professor, Communication/Media Studies Coordinator, Video Game Concentration Coordinator, Faculty Center for Professional Development and Curriculum Innovation Curry College 65a Atherton St. Milton, MA 02186-2395 USA Office Ph: 617-333-2265 Skype: rhyperborean
-----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Eric P. S. Baumer Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 12:05 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: [Air-L] What can/should computers do?
Hello air-l-er's,
I'm looking for literature reporting on empirical investigations of perceptions about both what computers can do and what computers should do.
I'm familiar with a number of philosophical pieces considering potential abilities and/or limits of computers (Turing, Minsky, Dreyfus, Weizenbaum, etc.). However, most of those are philosophical or abstract arguments made by philosophers of or researchers in artificial intelligence. I've not been able to find any work that examines lay or non-expert beliefs about either what computational systems are (not) capable of or what are (in)appropriate tasks for computational systems to perform.
To sum up, here's what I'm looking for: - perceptions of computers' (suit)abilities - empirical research (not philosophical arguments) - emphasis on lay/non-expert perceptions (not researchers in AI) - bonus points if related to natural language processing - bonus points if related to political coverage, opinions, and/or bias
Thanks in advance,
~Eric _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Giorgio Guzzetta PhD Student Digital Arts and Humanities Institute & Italian Department UCC http://dahphd.ie/giorgioguzzetta/ http://giorgioguzzetta.net/webzone
Try Thomas Landauer "The trouble with computers" also dated (1995?) but had hard data on how much increased computer use *reduced* worker productivity. Not quite what you want, but just think, even before Facebook and Twitter. . . . Cheers, Denise Dr Denise N. Rall, Adjunct Lecturer, School of Arts & Social Sciences Chair of Textiles stream, Popular Culture Australia-New Zealand Currently in Siem Reap, Cambodia Phones - Mobile +(61)(0)438 233344 Fax +(61)(0)2 6624 5380 ________________________________
Hi, There are several parts of your question which could use clarification. Perhaps there are assumptions in the body of literature under which you are operating, but since you are looking to expand your inquiry beyond it, clarification would still be helpful. First, from my vantage point, there is no question of applied social science research on the perception of computers without a question of intended use, which is why I make a reference below to the book on the 'right tools' for the job. Second, without being able to disentangle the question of what the job for the tool is, the question of what the computer is becomes insurmountable. In other words, when you ask about people's perception of computers, does that include aspects of pervasive computing, such as mobile devices? Does it include cloud computing? Does it include facebook? Computers have become so ubiquitous that I suspect much of it is utterly invisible to most people. This is something of an epistemological question, but I would recommend looking into some of the literature on the contingent nature of matching work and tools. My favorite on this is older, but has been helpful to us in studying data practices in the sciences: Clarke, A., & Fujimura, J. H. Eds (1992). The Right tools for the job : at work in twentieth-century life sciences. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. You might also consider looking at folks like Susan Leigh Star, or Lucy Suchman working with scientists to design computer systems: Susan Leigh Star. 1999. “The Ethnography of Infrastructure,” American Behavioral Scientist, 43: 377-391. Suchman, L. A. (1987). Plans and situated actions: the problem of human-machine communication. New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press. -l On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 9:04 AM, Eric P. S. Baumer <ericpsb@cornell.edu> wrote:
Hello air-l-er's,
I'm looking for literature reporting on empirical investigations of perceptions about both what computers can do and what computers should do.
I'm familiar with a number of philosophical pieces considering potential abilities and/or limits of computers (Turing, Minsky, Dreyfus, Weizenbaum, etc.). However, most of those are philosophical or abstract arguments made by philosophers of or researchers in artificial intelligence. I've not been able to find any work that examines lay or non-expert beliefs about either what computational systems are (not) capable of or what are (in)appropriate tasks for computational systems to perform.
To sum up, here's what I'm looking for: - perceptions of computers' (suit)abilities - empirical research (not philosophical arguments) - emphasis on lay/non-expert perceptions (not researchers in AI) - bonus points if related to natural language processing - bonus points if related to political coverage, opinions, and/or bias
Thanks in advance,
~Eric _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Thanks all for the suggestions. I was trying to cast a wide net, so I didn't provide much detail. Let me see if giving a bit more context helps. I have interview data from a field study on a novel tool that analyzes and visualizes patterns of language in political content (news coverage and blogs). There's a portion of the data where study participants speculated about abilities the tool might have or how they might like to use it, e.g., showing whether the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal was more biased and in what direction. I'm trying to find some previous research in which to ground the analysis of these data. Hopefully this addresses some of the questions about, e.g., what constitutes "computers" and the intended use. Thanks again, ~Eric On 1/22/13 6:36 PM, L. Wynholds wrote:
Hi,
There are several parts of your question which could use clarification. Perhaps there are assumptions in the body of literature under which you are operating, but since you are looking to expand your inquiry beyond it, clarification would still be helpful.
First, from my vantage point, there is no question of applied social science research on the perception of computers without a question of intended use, which is why I make a reference below to the book on the 'right tools' for the job.
Second, without being able to disentangle the question of what the job for the tool is, the question of what the computer is becomes insurmountable. In other words, when you ask about people's perception of computers, does that include aspects of pervasive computing, such as mobile devices? Does it include cloud computing? Does it include facebook? Computers have become so ubiquitous that I suspect much of it is utterly invisible to most people.
This is something of an epistemological question, but I would recommend looking into some of the literature on the contingent nature of matching work and tools. My favorite on this is older, but has been helpful to us in studying data practices in the sciences:
Clarke, A., & Fujimura, J. H. Eds (1992). The Right tools for the job : at work in twentieth-century life sciences. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
You might also consider looking at folks like Susan Leigh Star, or Lucy Suchman working with scientists to design computer systems:
Susan Leigh Star. 1999. “The Ethnography of Infrastructure,” American Behavioral Scientist, 43: 377-391. Suchman, L. A. (1987). Plans and situated actions: the problem of human-machine communication. New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press.
-l
On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 9:04 AM, Eric P. S. Baumer <ericpsb@cornell.edu> wrote:
Hello air-l-er's,
I'm looking for literature reporting on empirical investigations of perceptions about both what computers can do and what computers should do.
I'm familiar with a number of philosophical pieces considering potential abilities and/or limits of computers (Turing, Minsky, Dreyfus, Weizenbaum, etc.). However, most of those are philosophical or abstract arguments made by philosophers of or researchers in artificial intelligence. I've not been able to find any work that examines lay or non-expert beliefs about either what computational systems are (not) capable of or what are (in)appropriate tasks for computational systems to perform.
To sum up, here's what I'm looking for: - perceptions of computers' (suit)abilities - empirical research (not philosophical arguments) - emphasis on lay/non-expert perceptions (not researchers in AI) - bonus points if related to natural language processing - bonus points if related to political coverage, opinions, and/or bias
Thanks in advance,
~Eric _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Another suggestion: Computers and humanities work in text analysis (1970s), especially Smith, J.B. (1978), "Computer Criticism," Style, 12, 4 (Fall), 326-356. Catherine F. Smith ________________________________________ From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] on behalf of Eric P. S. Baumer [ericpsb@cornell.edu] Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2013 11:46 AM To: L. Wynholds Cc: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-L] What can/should computers do? Thanks all for the suggestions. I was trying to cast a wide net, so I didn't provide much detail. Let me see if giving a bit more context helps. I have interview data from a field study on a novel tool that analyzes and visualizes patterns of language in political content (news coverage and blogs). There's a portion of the data where study participants speculated about abilities the tool might have or how they might like to use it, e.g., showing whether the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal was more biased and in what direction. I'm trying to find some previous research in which to ground the analysis of these data. Hopefully this addresses some of the questions about, e.g., what constitutes "computers" and the intended use. Thanks again, ~Eric On 1/22/13 6:36 PM, L. Wynholds wrote:
Hi,
There are several parts of your question which could use clarification. Perhaps there are assumptions in the body of literature under which you are operating, but since you are looking to expand your inquiry beyond it, clarification would still be helpful.
First, from my vantage point, there is no question of applied social science research on the perception of computers without a question of intended use, which is why I make a reference below to the book on the 'right tools' for the job.
Second, without being able to disentangle the question of what the job for the tool is, the question of what the computer is becomes insurmountable. In other words, when you ask about people's perception of computers, does that include aspects of pervasive computing, such as mobile devices? Does it include cloud computing? Does it include facebook? Computers have become so ubiquitous that I suspect much of it is utterly invisible to most people.
This is something of an epistemological question, but I would recommend looking into some of the literature on the contingent nature of matching work and tools. My favorite on this is older, but has been helpful to us in studying data practices in the sciences:
Clarke, A., & Fujimura, J. H. Eds (1992). The Right tools for the job : at work in twentieth-century life sciences. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
You might also consider looking at folks like Susan Leigh Star, or Lucy Suchman working with scientists to design computer systems:
Susan Leigh Star. 1999. “The Ethnography of Infrastructure,” American Behavioral Scientist, 43: 377-391. Suchman, L. A. (1987). Plans and situated actions: the problem of human-machine communication. New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press.
-l
On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 9:04 AM, Eric P. S. Baumer <ericpsb@cornell.edu> wrote:
Hello air-l-er's,
I'm looking for literature reporting on empirical investigations of perceptions about both what computers can do and what computers should do.
I'm familiar with a number of philosophical pieces considering potential abilities and/or limits of computers (Turing, Minsky, Dreyfus, Weizenbaum, etc.). However, most of those are philosophical or abstract arguments made by philosophers of or researchers in artificial intelligence. I've not been able to find any work that examines lay or non-expert beliefs about either what computational systems are (not) capable of or what are (in)appropriate tasks for computational systems to perform.
To sum up, here's what I'm looking for: - perceptions of computers' (suit)abilities - empirical research (not philosophical arguments) - emphasis on lay/non-expert perceptions (not researchers in AI) - bonus points if related to natural language processing - bonus points if related to political coverage, opinions, and/or bias
Thanks in advance,
~Eric _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
participants (6)
-
Denise N. Rall -
Eric P. S. Baumer -
Giorgio Guzzetta -
L. Wynholds -
MacDougall, Robert -
Smith, Catherine