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diff --git a/books/sociedade/age-of-the-smart-machine.md b/books/sociedade/age-of-the-smart-machine.md index df60c93..19f53db 100644 --- a/books/sociedade/age-of-the-smart-machine.md +++ b/books/sociedade/age-of-the-smart-machine.md @@ -2,11 +2,204 @@ ## Index -* Taylor, 41, 42. +* Deskilling, diplacement of "the human body and its know-how" and reskilling, 57. * Body's dual role in production: effort and skill. +* Rebellion against the automated door, 21-23. +* Humanization (Marx) as "tempering animality with rationality" in the progress of civilization, 30. +* Uncivilized, savage worker's "spontaneous, instinctually gratifying behavior" + in the past, signaling the problem of "how to get the human body to remain in one place, + pay attention, and perform consistently over a fixed period of time", 31-34. +* Paradox of the body, 36. +* "Singer Sewing Machine Company was not able to produce perfectly interchangeable parts. + As a result, they relied on skilled fitters to assemble each product.", 39. +* Continous Process as a possible way to break the effort-skill body paradox and the U-curve + of social integration, 50-56 + +## Impressions + +The transition from manual to automated, the process of transferring knowledged +from the body to the machine is a sistematization of the transference of +knowledge from art (work whose reproduction is challenging) to technics +(pramatized art, the art of practical, efficient life): + + However, the term transfer must be doubly laden if it is to adequately describe + this process. Knowledge was first transferred from one quality of knowing to + another-from knowing that was sentient, embedded, and experience-based to know- + ing that was explicit and thus subject to rational analysis and perpetual + reformulation. The mechanisms used to accomplish this transfer were themselves + labor intensive (that is, they depended upon first-hand ob- servation of + time-study experts) and were designed solely in the con- text of, and with the + express purpose of, enabling a second transfer- one that entailed the migration + of knowledge from labor to manage- ment with its pointed implications for the + distribution of authority and the division of labor in the industrial + organization. + + -- 56-57 + +Intro mentions a control room like the Star Trek bridge. It makes me relate +to the skilled worker at one of its limits - those of the austronaut. Highly +skilled and disciplined, could be an interesting comparison. ## Excerpts +### Choices on knowledge, authority and collaboration + + The choices that we face concern the conception and distribution of + knowledge in the workplace. Imagine the following scenario: Intelli- + gence is lodged in the smart machine at the expense of the human + capacity for critical judgment. Organizational members become ever + more dependent, docile, and secretly cynical. As more tasks must be + accomplished through the medium of information technology (I call + this "computer-mediated work"), the sentient body loses its salience + as a source of knowledge, resulting in profound disorientation and loss + of meaning. People intensify their search for avenues of escape through + drugs, apathy, or adversarial conflict, as the majority of jobs in our + offices and factories become increasingly isolated, remote, routine, and + perfunctory. Al ternativel y, imagine this scenario: Organizational lead- + ers recognize the new forms of skill and knowledge needed to truly + exploit the potential of an intelligent technology. They direct their + resources toward creating a work force that can exercise critical judg- + ment as it manages the surrounding machine systems. Work becomes + more abstract as it depends upon understanding and manipulating infor- + mation. This marks the beginning of new forms of mastery and provides + an opportunity to imbue jobs with more comprehensive meaning. A + new array of work tasks offer unprecedented opportunities for a wide + range of employees to add value to products and services. + + [...] + + The choices that we make will shape relations of authority in the + workplace. Once more, imagine: Managers struggle to retain their tra- + ditional sources of authority, which have depended in an important + way upon their exclusive control of the organization's knowledge base. + They use the new technology to structure organizational experience + in ways that help reproduce the legitimacy of their traditional roles. + Managers insist on the prerogatives of command and seek methods that + protect the hierarchical distance that distinguishes them from their + subordinates. Employees barred from the new forms of mastery relin- + quish their sense of responsibility for the organization's work and use + obedience to authority as a means of expressing their resentment. + Imagine an alternative: This technological transformation engenders a + new approach to organizational behavior, one in which relationships + are more intricate, collaborative, and bound by the mutual responsibili- + ties of colleagues. As the new technology integrates information across + time and space, managers and workers each overcome their narrow + functional perspectives and create new roles that are better suited to + enhancing value-adding activities in a data-rich environment. As the + quality of skills at each organizational level becomes similar, hierarchi- + cal distinctions begin to blur. Authority comes to depend more upon + an appropriate fit between knowledge and responsibility than upon the + ranking rules of the traditional organizational pyramid. + + [...] + + Imagine this scenario: The new technology becomes the source of surveillance + techniques that are used to ensnare organizational members or to subtly bully + them into confor- mity. Managers employ the technology to circumvent the + demanding work of face-to-face engagement, substituting instead techniques of + remote management and automated administration. The new techno- logical + infrastructure becomes a battlefield of techniques, with manag- ers inventing + novel ways to enhance certainty and control while em- ployees discover new + methods of self-protection and even sabotage. Imagine the alternative: The new + technological milieu becomes a re- source from which are fashioned innovative + methods of information sharing and social exchange. These methods in turn + produce a deep- ened sense of collective responsibility and joint ownership, as + access to ever-broader domains of information lend new objectivity to data and + preempt the dictates of hierarchical authority. + + -- 5-7 + +### A paradox + + From the unmanned factory to the automated cockpit, visions of the future hail + information technology as the final answer to "the labor question," the + ultimate opportunity to rid our- selves of the thorny problems associated with + training and managing a competent and committed work force. These very same + technologies have been applauded as the hallmark of a second industrial + revolution, in which the classic conflicts of knowledge and power associated + with an earlier age will be synthesized in an array of organizational inno- + vations and new procedures for the production of goods and services, all + characterized by an unprecedented degree of labor harmony and widespread + participation in management process. I Why the paradox? + + -- 7-8 + +### Informate and automate: the duality of Information Technology + + Thus, information technology, even when it is applied to automati- + cally reproduce a finite activity, is not mute. It not only imposes infor- + mation (in the form of programmed instructions) but also produces + information. It both accomplishes tasks and translates them into infor- + mation. The action of a machine is entirely invested in its object, the + product. Information technology, on the other hand, introduces an ad- + ditional dimension of reflexivity: it makes its contribution to the prod- + uct, but it also reflects back on its activities and on the system of activi- + ties to which it is related. Information technology not only produces + action but also produces a voice that symbolically renders events, ob- + jects, and processes so that they become visible, knowable, and share- + able in a new way. + + -- 9 + + [...] + + An emphasis on the informating capacity of intelligent technology can provide a + point of origin for new conceptions of work and power. A more re- stricted + emphasis on its automating capacity can provide the occasion for that second + kind of revolution-a return to the familiar grounds of industrial society with + divergent interests battling for control, aug- mented by an array of new + material resources with which to attack and defend. + + -- 11-12 + +### The natural attitude + + The most treacherous enemy of such research is what philosophers + call "the natural attitude," our capacity to live daily life in a way that + takes for granted the objects and activities that surround us. Even when + we encounter new objects in our environment, our tendency is to expe- + rience them in terms of categories and qualities with which we are + already familiar. The natural attitude allows us to assume and predict a + great many things about each other's behavior without first establishing + premises at the outset of every interaction. The natural attitude can + also stand in the way of awareness, for ordinary experience has to be + made extraordinary in order to become accessible to reflection. This + occurs when we encounter a problem: when our actions do not yield + the expected results, we are caught by surprise and so are motivated + to reflect upon our initial assumptions. 2 Awareness requires a rupture + with the world we take for granted; then old categories of experience + are called into question and revised. For example, in the early days of + photography, the discrepancies between the camera's eye and the hu- + man eye were avidly discussed, but, "once they began to think photo- + graphically, people stopped talking about photographic distortion, as it + was called.,,3 + + -- 13 + +### The Control Room + +Whoa, the description of the Control Room from the Piney Wood Mill recalled me +the Cybersyn Control Room built -- and then destroyed -- less than a decade +before: + + Workers sit on orthopedically designed swivel chairs covered with a royal blue + fabric, facing video display ter- minals. The terminals, which display process + information for the purposes of monitoring and control, are built into polished + oak cabi- nets. Their screens glow with numbers, letters, and graphics in vivid + red, green, and blue. The floor here is covered with slate-gray carpet- ing; + the angled countertops on which the terminals sit are rust brown and edged in + black. The walls are covered with a wheat-colored fabric and the molding + repeats the polished oak of the cabinetry. The dropped ceiling is of a bronzed + metal, and from it is suspended a three dimen- sional structure into which + lights have been recessed and angled to provide the right amount of + illumination without creating glare on the screens. The color scheme is + repeated on the ceiling-soft tones of beige, rust, brown, and gray in a + geometric design. + + -- 20-21 + +### Technology, work and the body + Technology represents intelligence systematically applied to the problem of the body. It functions to amplify and surpass the organic limits of the body; it compensates for the body's fragility and vulnera- @@ -112,6 +305,99 @@ -- 40 +### The Scientific management + +Taylor, when "worker's know-how was expropriated to the ranks of management", +using information technology -- that _automates_ and _informates_ -- before +computer adoption, 41-44. + + Scientific management frequently meant not only that individual effort was + simplified (either because of labor-saving equipment or new organizational + methods that fragmented tasks into their simplest components), but also that + the pace of effort was intensified, thus raising the level of fatigue and + stress. Effort was purified-stripped of waste-but not yet eased, and resis- + tance to scientific management harkened back to the age-old issue of the + intensity and degree of physical exertion to which the body should be subject. + As long as effort was organized by the traditional practices of a craft, it + could be experienced as within one's own control and, being inextricably linked + to skill, as a source of considerable pride, satisfaction, and independence. + Stripped of this context and mean- ing, demands for greater effort only + intensified the desire for self- . 69 protectIon. + + Taylor had believed that the transcendent logic of science, together + with easier work and better, more fairly determined wages, could inte- + grate the worker into the organization and inspire a zest for production. + Instead, the forms of work organization that emerged with scientific + management tended to amplify the divergence of interests between + management and workers. Scientific management revised many of the + assumptions that had guided the traditional employer-employee rela- + tionship in that it allowed a minimal connection between the organiza- + tion and the individual in terms of skill, training, and the centrality of + the worker's contribution. It also permitted a new flexibility in work + force management, promoting the maximum interchangeability of per- + sonnel and the minimum dependence on their ability, availability, or + motivation. 70 + + [...] + + A machinist gained prominence when he debated Taylor in 1 914 and + remarked, "we don't want to work as fast as we are able to. We want + to work as fast as we think it's comfortable for us to work. We haven't + come into existence for the purpose of seeing how great a task we can + perform through a lifetime. We are trying to regulate our work so as + to make it auxiliary to our lives. ,,73 + + -- 45-46 + +Fordism: + + "The instruction cards on which Taylor set so much value, Ford was able to + discard. The conveyor belt, the traveling platform, the overhead rails and + material conveyors take their place. . . . Motion analysis has become largely + unnecessary, for the task of the assembly line worker is reduced to a few + manipulations. Taylor's stop-watch nevertheless remains measuring the time of + operations to the fraction of a second. ,,74 + + The fragmentation of tasks characteristic of the new Ford assembly + line achieved dramatic increases in productivity due to the detailed + time study of thousands of operations and the invention of the conveyor + belt and other equipment that maximized the continuity of assembly. + + [...] + + Effort is simplified (though its pace is frequently intensified) while skill + demands are reduced by new methods of task organization and new forms of + machinery. + + The continuity of assembly depended upon the production of interchangeable + parts for uniform products. + + -- 47 + +Effects: + + For the majority of industrial workers in the generations that followed, there + would be fewer opportunities to develop or maintain craft skills. Mass + production depended upon interchangeability for the standardization of + production; this principle required manufacturing operations to free themselves + from the particularistic know-how of the craftsworker. + + [...] + + Thus, applications of industrial technology have simplified, and gen- + erally reduced, physical effort, but because of the bond between effort + and skill, they have also tended to reduce or eliminate know-how. 78 + + [...] + + Self-preservation would induce the worker to accept automation. + + [...] + + the machine assumes responsibility + + [...] + In Braverman's influential critique of what he called the "degradation of work" in this century, he used Bright's study to make a very different point. Where Bright saw the glass half full because the physical demands @@ -126,4 +412,4 @@ development, it would become progressively less capable and, thus, less bl ... 85 - -- 49 + -- 48-49 |