Critical Programming: Toward a Philosophy of Computing

Beliefs about the relationship between human beings and computing machines and their destinies have alternated from heroic counterparts to conspirators of automated genocide, from apocalyptic extinction events to evolutionary cyborg convergences. Many fear that people are losing key intellectual and social abilities as tasks are offloaded to the everywhere of the built environment, which is developing a mind of its own. If digital technologies have contributed to forming a dumbest generation and ushering in a robotic moment, we all have a stake in addressing this collective intelligence problem. While digital humanities continue to flourish and introduce new uses for computer technologies, the basic modes of philosophical inquiry remain in the grip of print media, and default philosophies of computing prevail, or experimental ones propagate false hopes. I cast this as-is situation as the post-postmodern network dividual cyborg, recognizing that the rational enlightenment of modernism and regressive subjectivity of postmodernism now operate in an empire of extended mind cybernetics combined with techno-capitalist networks forming societies of control. Recent critical theorists identify a justificatory scheme foregrounding participation in projects, valorizing social network linkages over heroic individualism, and commending flexibility and adaptability through life long learning over stable career paths. It seems to reify one possible, contingent configuration of global capitalism as if it was the reflection of a deterministic evolution of commingled technogenesis and synaptogenesis. To counter this trend I offer a theoretical framework to focus on the phenomenology of software and code, joining social critiques with textuality and media studies, the former proposing that theory be done through practice, and the latter seeking to understand their schematism of perceptibility by taking into account engineering techniques like time axis manipulation. The social construction of technology makes additional theoretical contributions dispelling closed world, deterministic historical narratives and requiring voices be given to the engineers and technologists that best know their subject area. This theoretical slate has been recently deployed to produce rich histories of computing, networking, and software, inform the nascent disciplines of software studies and code studies, as well as guide ethnographers of software development communities. I call my syncretism of these approaches the procedural rhetoric of diachrony in synchrony, recognizing that multiple explanatory layers operating in their individual temporal and physical orders of magnitude simultaneously undergird post-postmodern network phenomena. Its touchstone is that the human-machine situation is best contemplated by doing, which as a methodology for digital humanities research I call critical programming. Philosophers of computing explore working code places by designing, coding, and executing complex software projects as an integral part of their intellectual activity, reflecting on how developing theoretical understanding necessitates iterative development of code as it does other texts, and how resolving coding dilemmas may clarify or modify provisional theories as our minds struggle to intuit the alien temporalities of machine processes

Care Robotics in Aging Japan: Creating Technical Solutions for the World’s Demographic Problem?

Japan is an ideal country for studying the effects of population aging that cause a wide range of societal issues, ranging from labor shortages and increasing pressure on the welfare state, to growing old age-related poverty and the need for improving productivity to sustain economic prosperity. The research question, which the scientific exploration at hand addresses, is what kind of technologies, generically referred to as robots, may be able to mitigate care problems and generate new solutions, and even further, improve the general health of the Japanese population or serve as a blueprint for other aging societies. Therefore, the case of Japan can be utilized to describe which strategies decision-makers face, as well as the challenges and opportunities caused by such a demographic transition to cope with the effects. The Japanese government prioritizes the large-scale introduction of robotics in areas of worsening labor shortages and daily life. The New Robot Strategy (NRS), a five-year policy-action plan compiled in 2015, is the new tool to coordinate the support for actors in the robotics industry, to finally leverage the predicted large market potential. Whereas policy-makers are concerned with creating a better infrastructure for the creation of versatile robots (e.g. regulative considerations, channeling of subsidies), the bureaucracy (e.g. METI, MHLW) is supposed to supervise the policy implementation and to link important public and private actors of robotics development (e.g. universities, robot-makers, research institutes). The coordination of this triangle of three stakeholder groups will be vital for the success of large-scale implementation of robotics to lessen the burden on caregivers, improve average health and wellbeing and exploit the economic potential of the silver market. Rapidly aging societies are a worldwide demographic phenomenon. Whatever feasible technical solution for care Japan invents for its own society is likely to have an impact elsewhere in the world. If the development of care robots works in Japan, it will likely be of fundamental relevance to other aging societies and may incidentally come to be one of the next export successes for Japan. It might be a chance for the government to kill two birds with one stone: taking care of Japan’s elderly and the Japanese economy at the same time. Whether there is a realistic chance this unique technical-driven approach to solving social problems to work out will be at the heart of this academic inquiry

The effective management of information overload within shipping companies in South Africa.

Doctoral degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.For time immemorial, humans have shared information – from cave wall paintings to modern computing devices. The medium and channels of communication have evolved and improved. The ever-growing number of information sources coupled with the development of the Internet and other electronic communication technologies has resulted in escalating amounts of data and information that users need to process. This has resulted in a situation commonly known as information overload. Information overload can be described as a situation where people are inundated with more information than they are able to usefully use. The overall aim of this study was to establish whether information overload exists in South African shipping companies and if it is being formally managed. Although a growing body of empirical research has assessed the impact of information overload in organisations, little is known about its effect on shipping companies. To fully understand the problem, the impact of information overload was assessed in 12 shipping organisations located in Durban. Quantitative data was gathered using an online questionnaire from a sample of 491 employees in the 12 organisations. Twelve decision makers, one in each organisation, were interviewed by means of semi-structured interviews. The quantitative data showed that employees are overloaded with information and the level of information overload varies across the different organisations. Qualitative data from the interviews showed that the decision makers are overloaded and admit that their staff are also overloaded. Furthermore, none of the companies had specific initiatives in place to help staff who were overloaded with information. Several countermeasures to reduce information overload have been suggested in the literature; however, none of them have been proven to eliminate the problem. By integrating the findings from the literature review, quantitative data and qualitative data, this study suggests some guidelines of good practice for managing information overload which includes information management training, information personal management system, good office ergonomics practices, technology, external service providers, correct communication technologies and monitoring of information

Critical point of view: a Wikipedia reader

For millions of internet users around the globe, the search for new knowledge begins with Wikipedia. The encyclopedia’s rapid rise, novel organization, and freely offered content have been marveled at and denounced by a host of commentators. Critical Point of View moves beyond unflagging praise, well-worn facts, and questions about its reliability and accuracy, to unveil the complex, messy, and controversial realities of a distributed knowledge platform. The essays, interviews and artworks brought together in this reader form part of the overarching Critical Point of View research initiative, which began with a conference in Bangalore (January 2010), followed by events in Amsterdam (March 2010) and Leipzig (September 2010). With an emphasis on theoretical reflection, cultural difference and indeed, critique, contributions to this collection ask: What values are embedded in Wikipedia’s software? On what basis are Wikipedia’s claims to neutrality made? How can Wikipedia give voice to those outside the Western tradition of Enlightenment, or even its own administrative hierarchies? Critical Point of View collects original insights on the next generation of wiki-related research, from radical artistic interventions and the significant role of bots to hidden trajectories of encyclopedic knowledge and the politics of agency and exclusion