- Email: [email protected]
Cultural dynamics in the diffusion of informatics
38
CULTURAL DYNAMICS THE DIFFUSION OF INFORMATICS Massimo
IN
Negrotti
The diffusion of informatics, particularly of artificial intelligence devices, could produce sociocultural effects unlike those accompanying the introduction of other revolutionary technologies. A particular philosophy is associated with the computerization of society-yet this is appropriate only as a technical approach to communication and information processing problems and offers little in broadening the intellectual dimensions of man. To enhance human potential in both mental and intellectual senses and to reduce the dangers of inter- and intracultural conflict, an intellectique (connecting epistemology to informatics) is proposed to give us informatic tools that would allow the expression of cultural and personal differences. Keywords: information
technology;
sociology of knowledge;
artificial
intelligence
TO THE Nobel Prizewinner Herbert Simon, “computers are splendid ink blots”. Exactly like the ink blots that the psychiatrist uses, in their public perception, stimulate fantasy, evoking the computers, unconscious, exciting wonder and, at the same time, fears. The diffusion of micro-informatics (microcomputer science) has somehow modified the course of things. As has been widely pointed out, the demystification of the esoteric world of informatics essentially derives from the spread of microcomputersboth personal and home computers. At the same time, because of the novelty of this phenomenon, the diffusion of relevant data-processing capacities, involving, potentially, socially and culturally heterogeneous groups, has led some scholars to speak in terms of a coming ‘computerization of society’ (in French, l’informatization de La socik’te~. This is based on lines of prediction that variously emphasize specific features of
ACCORDING
Massimo Negrotti is Professor of Sociology ofKnowledgeat the University of Genoa and of Methodology of Social Sciences at the post-graduate school of Sociology at the University of Parma. This article is an updated revision of a lecture given at the University of California (Santa Barbara) in November 1982.
0016-3287/84/001038-09$03.0001984
Butterworth & Co(Publishers)
Ltd
FUTURESFebruary
Cultural dynamics in the diffusion of inform&s
39
computers-the speed, the ‘intelligent’ sort capabilities, the ‘graphics’ capabilities, the networks of databases or databanks. There is already a rich literature on this topic, for example the work of economists such as Simon, philosophers such as Aaron Sloman, psychologists such as Margaret Boden, and public officials or managers such as Nora and Mint, or technicians like Adam Osborne; from such work it would seem that our future is definitively determined, if not in terms of values and other cultural dimensions, at least in what concerns the methods of our everyday lives, both at work and in the home. This may be defined as a ‘dataflow philosophy of life’. My purpose here is to present a view of informatics as an explosion of possibilities or opportunities and not as a simple, though new and powerful, tool that enables us to rationalize every dimension of our lives only from the point of view of information- or data-processing. In other words, my opinion is that the diffusion of informatics could produce cultural effects that are not comparable (in contrast to what many people think) to those produced by other crucial and revolutionary technological events, such as the invention of the and fascinating printing press, of steam power, or even that complex phenomenon, automation. Further, as a sociologist I am aware of the powerful influence that technological innovations have had on sociological theories and predictions: we must not forget that sociology itself was born as a consequence of the greatest socioeconomic event of these past centuries, the industrial revolution. Nevertheless, if we also take account of the fallacy of many contemporary predictions owing to the extremely rapid pace of change of the overall conditions of sociological variables (both structural and cultural ones), sociologists of knowledge should today frame the problem in terms of the cultural premises of informatics, rather than in terms of its consequences through prior acceptance of the technology as it now is and as it is likely to develop in the near future. Sociocultural bases of computerization From this point of view, the most crucial aspects are the nature and scope of human needs in regard to data- or information-processing and, particularly, the dynamics of the mental procedures that man uses in carrying out these activities. A dataflow philosophy of life is consistent with the leading socioeconomic sectors of computerization, viz office work, administration, and scientific and technological processing activities. Current efforts are largely oriented towards these areas, both in respect of computer hardware and software. In this aspect of computerization we are still concerned with a homogeneous field of needs, in which human needs and their satisfaction are simple to define and to carry out through software tools. The dataflow, in this case, is the perfectly functional one of fulfilling organizational aims of obtaining and processing economic, military, or medical data. The logical problems involved in this kind of computerization are, relatively speaking, traditional ones, and deal with the optimization of data storage and retrieval or, in the most sophisticated machines, with complex and overlapping mathematical and
FUTURES February 1984
40
Cultural dynamics in the d$Jiion of informaticr
statistical models. No real anthropological or cultural problems are involved in this process, and even at the economic level, as Simon has pointed out, we are dealing with a traditional process of the optimization of procedures which already exist and, ideally, with the evolution of such procedures towards more effective and broader-based performance. Computerization in fields such as education, the coming standardization of some aspects of artificial intelligence, and the question of ‘expert systems’, are completely different. Although a dataflow philosophy clearly serves a functional role for a society that sociologists such as Comte, Sorokin or Scheler have variously seen as ‘positivist’, personality-based, or whose cultural premises derive from herschuftwissen (the rational domination of nature), until now it has been impossible to prefigure the culture that could come about as a result of the computerization of cultural processes that at present derive from the extraordinary heterogeneity of mankind’s conscious and unconscious thoughts, desires and activities. More simply, in the spread of informatics (and of its most popular devices like micros and personal and home computers) into cultural areas characterized by a high degree of heterogeneity, the very focus we are actually concerned with is human nature itself, or at least a group of mental categories and activities that both remain almost totally unknown, and that are also undoubtedly in their turn influenced by the totality of culture itself. In this broad cultural sphere that covers categories and human groups, ranging from families to philosophers, and from students to artists, who are all potential users of computer facilities, no standardization of dataflows or dataprocessing activities is conceivable without confronting the problem of human nature or, at least, its cultural manifestations. In any case, and this lends the discussion its most dramatic aspect, the actual achievements of computerization and the hardware and software devices that are available today, necessarily express some cultural conception of man; we thus maintain that the classic definition of the sociology of knowledge may be extended by maintaining that it is concerned with social influences on mankind’s way of thinking, and on the ‘thought processes’ of the computer. I do not maintain that computers, at present, are machines that can think: I do suggest, however, that computer programs and packages, and perhaps the architectures of the hardware itself, do reflect fragments of thinking, ideas, and weltanschauungen. For instance, in the definition of the concept of understanding knowledge K if S uses K given by Moore and Newell, “S understands whenever appropriate’ ’ . It is possible to draw an analogy here with Friedrisch Schelling’s idealistic view that there is an identity between the act of knowing and performing an action on reality itself. How far away is the Moore and Newell definition from the Cartesian position or from the Weberian definition of verstehen in terms of the relationship between understanding and values? Hence if we could imagine a scenario in which the three leading technological cultures that are dealing with informatics today-the USA, Europe and are isolated as distinct systems without cultural contacts, what kinds of Japaninformatics would originate from them, ceteris paribus? The fundamental difference between a classical technological product, such as an engine, and a computer is that the former satisfied psychophysical needs that are universally FUTURES February 1984
Cultural dynamics in the d&&n
of inform&s
41
similar, whilst computers enable man to amplify and express cultural dimensions that are the result of profoundly different histories and evolutionary paths of models of thinking, reasoning and inferring. The basic unity of the human being could thus be enhanced or even reduced to a metaphysical phenomenon, according to the level or degree of cultural localization that develops in the next few years. However, the problems are not yet this well delineated: even in a particular, or localized, culture, different subsystems tend to display different modes of thought. For instance, in a survey our research group is carrying out at present, we have asked various kinds of worker involved in informatics both in the USA and Europe the following question: “In general terms, how much will expected advances in informatics depend on advances in our knowledge of the bruin (as studied by physiologists), the mind (as studied by psychologists), or the intellect (as studied by philosophers)?“. The aim of this question is evident: it is actually designed to identify this kind of correlation, and to draw cross-cultural comparisons, (see Figure 1).
Intellect
Artlflcial
Mind
-
Brain
(psychology)
-
(physiology)
intelligence
Computer (software)
Figure 1. The human mind as interface between intellect and computer Inrellect: the seat of thought and knowledge; it has its own rules and formal categories (eg the Kantian ones); mind: the seat of representation and processing of data and models according to intellectual styles, and communicating them according to several standards (eg the mathematical ones); brain: the seat of low-energy input signals processing; culture: the whole of knowledge, mores, values, styles (including the mental ones) and beliefs of a society.
FUTURES
February
1994
42
Cultural dynamics in the difusion of inform&s
An artificial
philosophy
from artificial
intelligence?
Human culture consists of values, systems of logic, mores, rules, styles and so on. The administrative process, and even most scientific activities, are, more simply systems of rules; it is difficult even to identify in the former the basis for what can easily be achieved in the latter, namely arriving at a standard for informatic procedures around a general ‘philosophy’ of dataflows (and, obviously, data processing). The diffusion of informatics requires developing general modes of mind, but this is the same thing that the philosopher has been trying to achieve for the past 1000 years on the intellectual level. Cyberneticians have also been trying to simulate the brain for some decades. Owing to the dramatic success of computers in data processing and generating information flows, many scholars have tended to solve these problems in a similar way to, for instance, Marvin Minsky and a number of others. These researchers follow a sort of dataflow ‘philosophy of mind’, that is a too partial and limited view of human nature or, at least, of human mind. However, and this is a serious risk, such a conception, because of its concrete and useful practical achievements in some fields in which utility is an important value, has led even philosophers such as Aaron Sloman to state that, to solve the ancient problems of epistemology, it is necessary to “. . . design a working mind, ie a mechanism which can perceive, think, remember, learn, solve problems . . . “, hence confusing mental with intellectual entities and activities. We now face not only the possibility of artificial intelligence but also a kind of artificial philosophy since, evidently, Sloman does not think that all the things his mechanism should perform, can be called mental features-in some cases they are quite intellectual! together with others, shows the typical consequence of This example, informatics on sectors or areas of activity. Rather, the converse should hold: from these areas should come new inputs or inspirations for the evolution of informatics, ie findings or hypotheses about our cultural, mental and intellectual, premises. That there is such cultural diversity in the world, and that, in the same culture, there are many subcultures, are trivial points. But the important question that must be faced concerns the depth of these differences, particularly in relation to the mental or intellectual activities involved in informatics, both in programming activity and in the use of highlevel languages or packages and, among these, in artificial intelligence that is available now and likely to be in the future. What do data processing and the representation of reality mean in a humanistic culture, and what in a pragmatistic one? How long can a digital view of reality be compatible with the creative use of computers in these two contrasting cultures? Virgil stated that numero Deus impure guudet (‘God likes odd numbers’), and the Italian poet, Dante Alighieri, built up the whole Diuina Commedia on the number three. Informatics, however, is the realm of the power of the binary number, to such an extent that Laurence Lerner in ARTHUR, The Life and Opinions of a Digital Computer, imagines a weltanschauung of Arthur himself that begins with the following profession of faith: “I believe in the binary structure of reality: one substance but two possibilities, one process but two alternatives . . . “, and so on. The choice between two alternatives is quite
FUTURES February 1984
Cultural dynamics in the d;fiion
of infomatics
43
different, in its turn, from the dialectical concept of synthesis, on which is based not only the greater part of European philosophy, but also several methods of reasoning of European peoples. Computers and types of knowledge The major objection which may be anticipated is that, in any case, computers are freely programmable according to differing cultures or weltanschauungen. This is true, however, within the limits imposed by the programming languages we can use personally-limits deriving from the nature of logic, of the system type, and of versatility. In other words, the best and most general purpose language we may imagine should be, obviously, our own, that is the one we have in our mind, according to our own intellect. To update the Latin, quot capita tot sententiae, and tot programming languages! But the inevitable search for a standardization in interactive communication languages to program computers, produces an inevitable set of logical modules and rules. The more a language presumes to reach a high level, the more it must solve, in some way, the problem of the universal procedures that man follows not only in solving but also in posing his problems. The more a language presumes to act in such a way, the more it must disregard differences between cultures and, in the same culture, differences between subcultures or individuals. The development of artificial intelligence (AI) now presents even more difficulties in this respect-if the researcher is actually aware of them-since AI would deliver a very intelligent partner to a culturally undefined man, whose intellectual needs and dispositions could reside in various fields of knowledge and, above all, could require methodologies of reasoning that are quite different in different cultures. In short, the refusal or the fear of a number of subcultures or individuals to approach informatics for non-trivial applications, derives probably from their suspicions that the ‘intelligence’ of computers is a way of imposing a particular model of thinking rather than a way of amplifying their own. Unfortunately, some applications in fields such as education or simulation seem to give justification to such suspicions. To sum up this section we could say that informatics deals with at least three levels of ‘entities’: elementary information (bits), data and knowledge. The computerization of society (or, better, of culture) in terms of the first level, ie according to a data philosophy of life and a dataflow philosophy of mind, poses problems which are relatively easy to solve, owing to the homogeneity of the areas and of the roles in which computers are to be used. At the third level, that of knowledge, we should look at computers as open problems, both in hard and in soft terms. At this level, certainty disappears and the question arises whether we are dealing with a device that, like engines, radios or televisions, will have some influence on limited, though important, dimensions of our life, or rather, with a device that per se is a vehicle of culture that is quite different from the mass media because its very messages are not manifest ideas or opinions but models of reasoning, methodologies of mind and of intellect. Specifically these messages are formal and not substantial ones. FUTURES February 1994
More clearly, my view is that, paraphrasing McLuhan, the real knowledge we can get from a computer resides in its form, that is, eventually, its algorithm, and not in the data or information it gives us. In this sense it is evident that a global network of computers oriented to delivering not only trivial economic or utilitarian data but also ‘intelligent’ procedures or services is, today, not simply difficult but impossible, as it would be an unattainable ideal to impose a universal system of values. It should be enough here to refer to the debate between inductivists and deductivists, empiricists and rationalists, to conclude that at present we lack both a universal form of intellect and also tend, according to our particular culture and opinions, to conceive knowledge itself in different and sometimes incompatible terms. Towards an intellectique If the diffusion of informatics, and, particularly, that of micro, home and personal computers, follows the style and the patterns of perception and use that have characterized until now the diffusion of traditional technical tools, we shall on the one hand lose the possibility of enhancing our knowledge of man both in the mental and intellectual senses, and, on the other, we shall introduce new kinds of conflict between cultures and subcultures. Freedom in interpreting the data flowing in our home computers will be limited by the logic implied in their structure and organization, and, even more, in their form of data representation. When we speak of computer literacy, we speak of something that implies set standards in dataflow and data processing (which do actually exist), but we disregard the human attitude towards personal processing -man’s lack of correct methodologies in inferring, his sensitivity towards numbers, his analytic or synthetic disposition and so on. Freedom in reading and commenting on the news that flows daily through newspapers is granted by the fact that the language (eg English) is the only link between the source and the receiver, and flows according to well known syntactical and semantic rules. But between man and computer or, better, between man and an artificial intelligence device, there is a syntactics of mind and, above it, one of intellect. But whose mind? And whose intellect? From which culture? This is the problem. If I were able to suggest an original task to the artificial intelligence device I would propose that it should standardize not the logic, say, of the questionanswering system, but, rather, the method by which everyone could teach his own computer, or ‘intelligent’ videotex terminal, how to think, what logical conditions and models it used to think, according to a personally chosen definition of what understanding is. If computers are defined as devices that should be able to amplify our capabilities in problem identification and not simply problem-solving, then they must be designed in such a way that they could be actually personally perceived and operated. There is today a meaningful separation between two trends that deal with the real production and diffusion of hardware and software informatics -first, tools, and second the research on AI and related areas. While the former propagates a ready-to-use informatics whose appeal is inversely proportional to the degree of involvement of mind (and, obviously of the intellect), the latter is FUTURES February 1984
Cultural dynamics in the diffusion of infomntics
45
searching for models of the human mind to enhance the human-like features of the computer itself. The separation is not dysfunctional, but, in a sense, our future depends on the effectiveness and the appeal of the achievements in AI and related fields. My opinion is that the direct involvement of the human mind in the use of informatics is the only way to improve our natural abilities and, at the same time, our intellectual freedom in interpreting reality. But such an involvement requires the discovery of standards of human mind that are unavailable today and that, in any case, are dependent on our intellectual and cultural traditions. Provocative books such as the recent Mind’s I by Hofstadter and Dennett, give us the exact measure of the development and status of AI. Typically, in these books there are frequent discussions on the intrinsic capabilities of present and future hard and soft tools to understand, to have real mental statuses, consciousness, intentionality and so on. Yet all these problems are posed as important obstacles in building true ‘thinking’ machines and not as philosophical problems. That means that the final aim is considered to be quite obvious, that is to build duplicates of the human mind: but that aim itself could be, and perhaps should be, discussed. Replication of the brain Does artificial intelligence answer real and universal human needs or not? If our need for knowledge is a need for novelty, why should we be interested in the availability of a simple duplicate of our mind or even of our intellect? I personally would prefer a computer whose ‘personality’ was different from my own, and which could be helpful to me just because it is different from my mental or, better, my intellectual habits. It should help me, for example, to look at things in alternative ways to my own, and I am perfectly sure that this point of view of mine, expresses an exact, though implicit, philosophy of life, aiming at pointing out in the choice (or creation) of problems, rather than in their solution, the real purpose of AI. Others may, on the contrary, prefer a computer whose ‘personality’ could be a tool through which it would be possible only to verify models or possible choices, as normally happens in the use of simulation programs. At this point, there is only one name for the whole problem: human creativity. There is not sufficient space here to review the several definitions already proposed for this matter, but one point should be emphasized: no creativity is possible without an ability in the use of concepts, that is without the use of all that is performable with intellectual rather than mental procedures. According to a diffused analogy, the brain should be our hardware, while the mind should be our software. To complete, or rectify, this analogy we might say that our true software resides in our intellect, that is in the place where concepts and ideas give form and substance to our thought, to our way of looking at reality, to creating and solving problems. The mental procedures whereby symbols act as a means of representing reality and communicating our models of it, have nothing to say if no ideas have been formulated previously by the intellect. Hence a datajlow philosophy of mind could be accepted if and only if it refers to non-creative activities and if it only tries to find the most plausible model man FUTURES February 1984
follows to represent and communicate something that has been already created by intellect. When my colleague Professor Mario Borillo, of the French CNRS, speaks of intellectique, I think he is on the right lines. The intellectique, viz the attempt to connect. epistemology to informatics, is perhaps the most useful attempt at giving us informatic tools which enable us to express our cultural and individual differences, rather than merely imposing on us a standardization of mental procedures. The improvement of our creativity, and the future of our cultures does not depend on the standardization of brain and mind models but on the improvements in our intellectual efficiency that standardization at the mental level will enable. The intellectique, at least in my opinion, should be directed towards placing the formal structures at the mind’s disposal in such a way that intellect could be interfaced with computers. Data and symbols work at the mental level, while concepts and ideas (and, obviously, theories) work at the intellectual level. A datajlow philosophy of mind (or of life) could perhaps be accepted as a technical approach to communication and processing problems, but not as a set of theories concerning the intellectual dimensions of man. My criticism on current tendencies in informatics must not be misunderstood: I am sure that informatics is a great source of opportunities for the future. I only wish those working in informatics to be aware of the various levels of the matter they deal with. Too many people consider computers as solving vast and long-standing problems about human nature: others think that computers are only tools to simplify our everyday life. A third group, finally, think that informatics is a science of man that is sometimes able to simulate human behaviour, giving us useful hypotheses about what really happens in the human mind. I agree with this last group and I hope that a growing possibility for creativity and intellectual freedom will derive from a deeper knowledge of our mind. But in saying this, I am sure that I am influenced by my culture, and I am also sure that this is an intellectual problem, not a physiological or mental one. References e comunicazione nelle scienze dell’uomo e della societa”, in M. M. Borillo, “Formalizzazione Negrotti and D. Bertasio, Lafowra e iljuturo (Milano, 1982). A. Comte, Corso di Filosofia Positiva (Torino, 1967). D. R. Hofstadter and D. C. Dennett, The Mind’s Z(Brighton, 1981). L. Lerner, A. R. T. H. U. R. The Life and Opinions oja Digital Computer (Brighton, 1974). M. McLuhan, GliStrumentidel Comunicare(Milano, 1967). J, Moore and A. Newell, “How can Merlin understand? ” in Knowledge and Cognition, Lee W. Gregg (ed) (Potomac, 1974). S. Nora and A. Mint, L’Informatization de la Soci&(Paris, 1978). M. Scheler, Sociologia del Sapem (Roma, 1976). in Perspectives on Computer Science, Anita K. Jones H. Simon, “On the nature of understanding”, (ed) (New York, 1977); TheShapeojA utomationfor Men and Management (New York, 1966). A. Sloman, The Computer Revolution in Philosophy (Stanford Terrace, 1978). P. Sorokin, Dinamica Sociale e Culturale (Torino, 1975). M. Weber, I1 Metodo delle Scienze Storico Sociali (Torino, 1958). H. G. Wells, Antic&zioni(Milano, 1922).
FUTURES February 1984
CULTURAL DYNAMICS THE DIFFUSION OF INFORMATICS Massimo
IN
Negrotti
The diffusion of informatics, particularly of artificial intelligence devices, could produce sociocultural effects unlike those accompanying the introduction of other revolutionary technologies. A particular philosophy is associated with the computerization of society-yet this is appropriate only as a technical approach to communication and information processing problems and offers little in broadening the intellectual dimensions of man. To enhance human potential in both mental and intellectual senses and to reduce the dangers of inter- and intracultural conflict, an intellectique (connecting epistemology to informatics) is proposed to give us informatic tools that would allow the expression of cultural and personal differences. Keywords: information
technology;
sociology of knowledge;
artificial
intelligence
TO THE Nobel Prizewinner Herbert Simon, “computers are splendid ink blots”. Exactly like the ink blots that the psychiatrist uses, in their public perception, stimulate fantasy, evoking the computers, unconscious, exciting wonder and, at the same time, fears. The diffusion of micro-informatics (microcomputer science) has somehow modified the course of things. As has been widely pointed out, the demystification of the esoteric world of informatics essentially derives from the spread of microcomputersboth personal and home computers. At the same time, because of the novelty of this phenomenon, the diffusion of relevant data-processing capacities, involving, potentially, socially and culturally heterogeneous groups, has led some scholars to speak in terms of a coming ‘computerization of society’ (in French, l’informatization de La socik’te~. This is based on lines of prediction that variously emphasize specific features of
ACCORDING
Massimo Negrotti is Professor of Sociology ofKnowledgeat the University of Genoa and of Methodology of Social Sciences at the post-graduate school of Sociology at the University of Parma. This article is an updated revision of a lecture given at the University of California (Santa Barbara) in November 1982.
0016-3287/84/001038-09$03.0001984
Butterworth & Co(Publishers)
Ltd
FUTURESFebruary
Cultural dynamics in the diffusion of inform&s
39
computers-the speed, the ‘intelligent’ sort capabilities, the ‘graphics’ capabilities, the networks of databases or databanks. There is already a rich literature on this topic, for example the work of economists such as Simon, philosophers such as Aaron Sloman, psychologists such as Margaret Boden, and public officials or managers such as Nora and Mint, or technicians like Adam Osborne; from such work it would seem that our future is definitively determined, if not in terms of values and other cultural dimensions, at least in what concerns the methods of our everyday lives, both at work and in the home. This may be defined as a ‘dataflow philosophy of life’. My purpose here is to present a view of informatics as an explosion of possibilities or opportunities and not as a simple, though new and powerful, tool that enables us to rationalize every dimension of our lives only from the point of view of information- or data-processing. In other words, my opinion is that the diffusion of informatics could produce cultural effects that are not comparable (in contrast to what many people think) to those produced by other crucial and revolutionary technological events, such as the invention of the and fascinating printing press, of steam power, or even that complex phenomenon, automation. Further, as a sociologist I am aware of the powerful influence that technological innovations have had on sociological theories and predictions: we must not forget that sociology itself was born as a consequence of the greatest socioeconomic event of these past centuries, the industrial revolution. Nevertheless, if we also take account of the fallacy of many contemporary predictions owing to the extremely rapid pace of change of the overall conditions of sociological variables (both structural and cultural ones), sociologists of knowledge should today frame the problem in terms of the cultural premises of informatics, rather than in terms of its consequences through prior acceptance of the technology as it now is and as it is likely to develop in the near future. Sociocultural bases of computerization From this point of view, the most crucial aspects are the nature and scope of human needs in regard to data- or information-processing and, particularly, the dynamics of the mental procedures that man uses in carrying out these activities. A dataflow philosophy of life is consistent with the leading socioeconomic sectors of computerization, viz office work, administration, and scientific and technological processing activities. Current efforts are largely oriented towards these areas, both in respect of computer hardware and software. In this aspect of computerization we are still concerned with a homogeneous field of needs, in which human needs and their satisfaction are simple to define and to carry out through software tools. The dataflow, in this case, is the perfectly functional one of fulfilling organizational aims of obtaining and processing economic, military, or medical data. The logical problems involved in this kind of computerization are, relatively speaking, traditional ones, and deal with the optimization of data storage and retrieval or, in the most sophisticated machines, with complex and overlapping mathematical and
FUTURES February 1984
40
Cultural dynamics in the d$Jiion of informaticr
statistical models. No real anthropological or cultural problems are involved in this process, and even at the economic level, as Simon has pointed out, we are dealing with a traditional process of the optimization of procedures which already exist and, ideally, with the evolution of such procedures towards more effective and broader-based performance. Computerization in fields such as education, the coming standardization of some aspects of artificial intelligence, and the question of ‘expert systems’, are completely different. Although a dataflow philosophy clearly serves a functional role for a society that sociologists such as Comte, Sorokin or Scheler have variously seen as ‘positivist’, personality-based, or whose cultural premises derive from herschuftwissen (the rational domination of nature), until now it has been impossible to prefigure the culture that could come about as a result of the computerization of cultural processes that at present derive from the extraordinary heterogeneity of mankind’s conscious and unconscious thoughts, desires and activities. More simply, in the spread of informatics (and of its most popular devices like micros and personal and home computers) into cultural areas characterized by a high degree of heterogeneity, the very focus we are actually concerned with is human nature itself, or at least a group of mental categories and activities that both remain almost totally unknown, and that are also undoubtedly in their turn influenced by the totality of culture itself. In this broad cultural sphere that covers categories and human groups, ranging from families to philosophers, and from students to artists, who are all potential users of computer facilities, no standardization of dataflows or dataprocessing activities is conceivable without confronting the problem of human nature or, at least, its cultural manifestations. In any case, and this lends the discussion its most dramatic aspect, the actual achievements of computerization and the hardware and software devices that are available today, necessarily express some cultural conception of man; we thus maintain that the classic definition of the sociology of knowledge may be extended by maintaining that it is concerned with social influences on mankind’s way of thinking, and on the ‘thought processes’ of the computer. I do not maintain that computers, at present, are machines that can think: I do suggest, however, that computer programs and packages, and perhaps the architectures of the hardware itself, do reflect fragments of thinking, ideas, and weltanschauungen. For instance, in the definition of the concept of understanding knowledge K if S uses K given by Moore and Newell, “S understands whenever appropriate’ ’ . It is possible to draw an analogy here with Friedrisch Schelling’s idealistic view that there is an identity between the act of knowing and performing an action on reality itself. How far away is the Moore and Newell definition from the Cartesian position or from the Weberian definition of verstehen in terms of the relationship between understanding and values? Hence if we could imagine a scenario in which the three leading technological cultures that are dealing with informatics today-the USA, Europe and are isolated as distinct systems without cultural contacts, what kinds of Japaninformatics would originate from them, ceteris paribus? The fundamental difference between a classical technological product, such as an engine, and a computer is that the former satisfied psychophysical needs that are universally FUTURES February 1984
Cultural dynamics in the d&&n
of inform&s
41
similar, whilst computers enable man to amplify and express cultural dimensions that are the result of profoundly different histories and evolutionary paths of models of thinking, reasoning and inferring. The basic unity of the human being could thus be enhanced or even reduced to a metaphysical phenomenon, according to the level or degree of cultural localization that develops in the next few years. However, the problems are not yet this well delineated: even in a particular, or localized, culture, different subsystems tend to display different modes of thought. For instance, in a survey our research group is carrying out at present, we have asked various kinds of worker involved in informatics both in the USA and Europe the following question: “In general terms, how much will expected advances in informatics depend on advances in our knowledge of the bruin (as studied by physiologists), the mind (as studied by psychologists), or the intellect (as studied by philosophers)?“. The aim of this question is evident: it is actually designed to identify this kind of correlation, and to draw cross-cultural comparisons, (see Figure 1).
Intellect
Artlflcial
Mind
-
Brain
(psychology)
-
(physiology)
intelligence
Computer (software)
Figure 1. The human mind as interface between intellect and computer Inrellect: the seat of thought and knowledge; it has its own rules and formal categories (eg the Kantian ones); mind: the seat of representation and processing of data and models according to intellectual styles, and communicating them according to several standards (eg the mathematical ones); brain: the seat of low-energy input signals processing; culture: the whole of knowledge, mores, values, styles (including the mental ones) and beliefs of a society.
FUTURES
February
1994
42
Cultural dynamics in the difusion of inform&s
An artificial
philosophy
from artificial
intelligence?
Human culture consists of values, systems of logic, mores, rules, styles and so on. The administrative process, and even most scientific activities, are, more simply systems of rules; it is difficult even to identify in the former the basis for what can easily be achieved in the latter, namely arriving at a standard for informatic procedures around a general ‘philosophy’ of dataflows (and, obviously, data processing). The diffusion of informatics requires developing general modes of mind, but this is the same thing that the philosopher has been trying to achieve for the past 1000 years on the intellectual level. Cyberneticians have also been trying to simulate the brain for some decades. Owing to the dramatic success of computers in data processing and generating information flows, many scholars have tended to solve these problems in a similar way to, for instance, Marvin Minsky and a number of others. These researchers follow a sort of dataflow ‘philosophy of mind’, that is a too partial and limited view of human nature or, at least, of human mind. However, and this is a serious risk, such a conception, because of its concrete and useful practical achievements in some fields in which utility is an important value, has led even philosophers such as Aaron Sloman to state that, to solve the ancient problems of epistemology, it is necessary to “. . . design a working mind, ie a mechanism which can perceive, think, remember, learn, solve problems . . . “, hence confusing mental with intellectual entities and activities. We now face not only the possibility of artificial intelligence but also a kind of artificial philosophy since, evidently, Sloman does not think that all the things his mechanism should perform, can be called mental features-in some cases they are quite intellectual! together with others, shows the typical consequence of This example, informatics on sectors or areas of activity. Rather, the converse should hold: from these areas should come new inputs or inspirations for the evolution of informatics, ie findings or hypotheses about our cultural, mental and intellectual, premises. That there is such cultural diversity in the world, and that, in the same culture, there are many subcultures, are trivial points. But the important question that must be faced concerns the depth of these differences, particularly in relation to the mental or intellectual activities involved in informatics, both in programming activity and in the use of highlevel languages or packages and, among these, in artificial intelligence that is available now and likely to be in the future. What do data processing and the representation of reality mean in a humanistic culture, and what in a pragmatistic one? How long can a digital view of reality be compatible with the creative use of computers in these two contrasting cultures? Virgil stated that numero Deus impure guudet (‘God likes odd numbers’), and the Italian poet, Dante Alighieri, built up the whole Diuina Commedia on the number three. Informatics, however, is the realm of the power of the binary number, to such an extent that Laurence Lerner in ARTHUR, The Life and Opinions of a Digital Computer, imagines a weltanschauung of Arthur himself that begins with the following profession of faith: “I believe in the binary structure of reality: one substance but two possibilities, one process but two alternatives . . . “, and so on. The choice between two alternatives is quite
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Cultural dynamics in the d;fiion
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different, in its turn, from the dialectical concept of synthesis, on which is based not only the greater part of European philosophy, but also several methods of reasoning of European peoples. Computers and types of knowledge The major objection which may be anticipated is that, in any case, computers are freely programmable according to differing cultures or weltanschauungen. This is true, however, within the limits imposed by the programming languages we can use personally-limits deriving from the nature of logic, of the system type, and of versatility. In other words, the best and most general purpose language we may imagine should be, obviously, our own, that is the one we have in our mind, according to our own intellect. To update the Latin, quot capita tot sententiae, and tot programming languages! But the inevitable search for a standardization in interactive communication languages to program computers, produces an inevitable set of logical modules and rules. The more a language presumes to reach a high level, the more it must solve, in some way, the problem of the universal procedures that man follows not only in solving but also in posing his problems. The more a language presumes to act in such a way, the more it must disregard differences between cultures and, in the same culture, differences between subcultures or individuals. The development of artificial intelligence (AI) now presents even more difficulties in this respect-if the researcher is actually aware of them-since AI would deliver a very intelligent partner to a culturally undefined man, whose intellectual needs and dispositions could reside in various fields of knowledge and, above all, could require methodologies of reasoning that are quite different in different cultures. In short, the refusal or the fear of a number of subcultures or individuals to approach informatics for non-trivial applications, derives probably from their suspicions that the ‘intelligence’ of computers is a way of imposing a particular model of thinking rather than a way of amplifying their own. Unfortunately, some applications in fields such as education or simulation seem to give justification to such suspicions. To sum up this section we could say that informatics deals with at least three levels of ‘entities’: elementary information (bits), data and knowledge. The computerization of society (or, better, of culture) in terms of the first level, ie according to a data philosophy of life and a dataflow philosophy of mind, poses problems which are relatively easy to solve, owing to the homogeneity of the areas and of the roles in which computers are to be used. At the third level, that of knowledge, we should look at computers as open problems, both in hard and in soft terms. At this level, certainty disappears and the question arises whether we are dealing with a device that, like engines, radios or televisions, will have some influence on limited, though important, dimensions of our life, or rather, with a device that per se is a vehicle of culture that is quite different from the mass media because its very messages are not manifest ideas or opinions but models of reasoning, methodologies of mind and of intellect. Specifically these messages are formal and not substantial ones. FUTURES February 1994
More clearly, my view is that, paraphrasing McLuhan, the real knowledge we can get from a computer resides in its form, that is, eventually, its algorithm, and not in the data or information it gives us. In this sense it is evident that a global network of computers oriented to delivering not only trivial economic or utilitarian data but also ‘intelligent’ procedures or services is, today, not simply difficult but impossible, as it would be an unattainable ideal to impose a universal system of values. It should be enough here to refer to the debate between inductivists and deductivists, empiricists and rationalists, to conclude that at present we lack both a universal form of intellect and also tend, according to our particular culture and opinions, to conceive knowledge itself in different and sometimes incompatible terms. Towards an intellectique If the diffusion of informatics, and, particularly, that of micro, home and personal computers, follows the style and the patterns of perception and use that have characterized until now the diffusion of traditional technical tools, we shall on the one hand lose the possibility of enhancing our knowledge of man both in the mental and intellectual senses, and, on the other, we shall introduce new kinds of conflict between cultures and subcultures. Freedom in interpreting the data flowing in our home computers will be limited by the logic implied in their structure and organization, and, even more, in their form of data representation. When we speak of computer literacy, we speak of something that implies set standards in dataflow and data processing (which do actually exist), but we disregard the human attitude towards personal processing -man’s lack of correct methodologies in inferring, his sensitivity towards numbers, his analytic or synthetic disposition and so on. Freedom in reading and commenting on the news that flows daily through newspapers is granted by the fact that the language (eg English) is the only link between the source and the receiver, and flows according to well known syntactical and semantic rules. But between man and computer or, better, between man and an artificial intelligence device, there is a syntactics of mind and, above it, one of intellect. But whose mind? And whose intellect? From which culture? This is the problem. If I were able to suggest an original task to the artificial intelligence device I would propose that it should standardize not the logic, say, of the questionanswering system, but, rather, the method by which everyone could teach his own computer, or ‘intelligent’ videotex terminal, how to think, what logical conditions and models it used to think, according to a personally chosen definition of what understanding is. If computers are defined as devices that should be able to amplify our capabilities in problem identification and not simply problem-solving, then they must be designed in such a way that they could be actually personally perceived and operated. There is today a meaningful separation between two trends that deal with the real production and diffusion of hardware and software informatics -first, tools, and second the research on AI and related areas. While the former propagates a ready-to-use informatics whose appeal is inversely proportional to the degree of involvement of mind (and, obviously of the intellect), the latter is FUTURES February 1984
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searching for models of the human mind to enhance the human-like features of the computer itself. The separation is not dysfunctional, but, in a sense, our future depends on the effectiveness and the appeal of the achievements in AI and related fields. My opinion is that the direct involvement of the human mind in the use of informatics is the only way to improve our natural abilities and, at the same time, our intellectual freedom in interpreting reality. But such an involvement requires the discovery of standards of human mind that are unavailable today and that, in any case, are dependent on our intellectual and cultural traditions. Provocative books such as the recent Mind’s I by Hofstadter and Dennett, give us the exact measure of the development and status of AI. Typically, in these books there are frequent discussions on the intrinsic capabilities of present and future hard and soft tools to understand, to have real mental statuses, consciousness, intentionality and so on. Yet all these problems are posed as important obstacles in building true ‘thinking’ machines and not as philosophical problems. That means that the final aim is considered to be quite obvious, that is to build duplicates of the human mind: but that aim itself could be, and perhaps should be, discussed. Replication of the brain Does artificial intelligence answer real and universal human needs or not? If our need for knowledge is a need for novelty, why should we be interested in the availability of a simple duplicate of our mind or even of our intellect? I personally would prefer a computer whose ‘personality’ was different from my own, and which could be helpful to me just because it is different from my mental or, better, my intellectual habits. It should help me, for example, to look at things in alternative ways to my own, and I am perfectly sure that this point of view of mine, expresses an exact, though implicit, philosophy of life, aiming at pointing out in the choice (or creation) of problems, rather than in their solution, the real purpose of AI. Others may, on the contrary, prefer a computer whose ‘personality’ could be a tool through which it would be possible only to verify models or possible choices, as normally happens in the use of simulation programs. At this point, there is only one name for the whole problem: human creativity. There is not sufficient space here to review the several definitions already proposed for this matter, but one point should be emphasized: no creativity is possible without an ability in the use of concepts, that is without the use of all that is performable with intellectual rather than mental procedures. According to a diffused analogy, the brain should be our hardware, while the mind should be our software. To complete, or rectify, this analogy we might say that our true software resides in our intellect, that is in the place where concepts and ideas give form and substance to our thought, to our way of looking at reality, to creating and solving problems. The mental procedures whereby symbols act as a means of representing reality and communicating our models of it, have nothing to say if no ideas have been formulated previously by the intellect. Hence a datajlow philosophy of mind could be accepted if and only if it refers to non-creative activities and if it only tries to find the most plausible model man FUTURES February 1984
follows to represent and communicate something that has been already created by intellect. When my colleague Professor Mario Borillo, of the French CNRS, speaks of intellectique, I think he is on the right lines. The intellectique, viz the attempt to connect. epistemology to informatics, is perhaps the most useful attempt at giving us informatic tools which enable us to express our cultural and individual differences, rather than merely imposing on us a standardization of mental procedures. The improvement of our creativity, and the future of our cultures does not depend on the standardization of brain and mind models but on the improvements in our intellectual efficiency that standardization at the mental level will enable. The intellectique, at least in my opinion, should be directed towards placing the formal structures at the mind’s disposal in such a way that intellect could be interfaced with computers. Data and symbols work at the mental level, while concepts and ideas (and, obviously, theories) work at the intellectual level. A datajlow philosophy of mind (or of life) could perhaps be accepted as a technical approach to communication and processing problems, but not as a set of theories concerning the intellectual dimensions of man. My criticism on current tendencies in informatics must not be misunderstood: I am sure that informatics is a great source of opportunities for the future. I only wish those working in informatics to be aware of the various levels of the matter they deal with. Too many people consider computers as solving vast and long-standing problems about human nature: others think that computers are only tools to simplify our everyday life. A third group, finally, think that informatics is a science of man that is sometimes able to simulate human behaviour, giving us useful hypotheses about what really happens in the human mind. I agree with this last group and I hope that a growing possibility for creativity and intellectual freedom will derive from a deeper knowledge of our mind. But in saying this, I am sure that I am influenced by my culture, and I am also sure that this is an intellectual problem, not a physiological or mental one. References e comunicazione nelle scienze dell’uomo e della societa”, in M. M. Borillo, “Formalizzazione Negrotti and D. Bertasio, Lafowra e iljuturo (Milano, 1982). A. Comte, Corso di Filosofia Positiva (Torino, 1967). D. R. Hofstadter and D. C. Dennett, The Mind’s Z(Brighton, 1981). L. Lerner, A. R. T. H. U. R. The Life and Opinions oja Digital Computer (Brighton, 1974). M. McLuhan, GliStrumentidel Comunicare(Milano, 1967). J, Moore and A. Newell, “How can Merlin understand? ” in Knowledge and Cognition, Lee W. Gregg (ed) (Potomac, 1974). S. Nora and A. Mint, L’Informatization de la Soci&(Paris, 1978). M. Scheler, Sociologia del Sapem (Roma, 1976). in Perspectives on Computer Science, Anita K. Jones H. Simon, “On the nature of understanding”, (ed) (New York, 1977); TheShapeojA utomationfor Men and Management (New York, 1966). A. Sloman, The Computer Revolution in Philosophy (Stanford Terrace, 1978). P. Sorokin, Dinamica Sociale e Culturale (Torino, 1975). M. Weber, I1 Metodo delle Scienze Storico Sociali (Torino, 1958). H. G. Wells, Antic&zioni(Milano, 1922).
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