From c9ffcc0a81a620d5495f26c8a64454dd5720d7c3 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Silvio Rhatto Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2018 18:58:30 -0300 Subject: Books: In the Age of the Smart Machine: chapter two --- books/sociedade/age-of-the-smart-machine.md | 117 +++++++++++++++++++++++----- 1 file changed, 96 insertions(+), 21 deletions(-) (limited to 'books/sociedade') diff --git a/books/sociedade/age-of-the-smart-machine.md b/books/sociedade/age-of-the-smart-machine.md index 19f53db..6bc6ce6 100644 --- a/books/sociedade/age-of-the-smart-machine.md +++ b/books/sociedade/age-of-the-smart-machine.md @@ -3,13 +3,12 @@ ## Index * 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. +* Paradox of the body; body's dual role in production: effort and skill (No Pain no Gain), 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 @@ -17,28 +16,21 @@ ## 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): +* 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. - 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. +* The pathway from motor knowledge to abstract knowledge recalls Piaget's discussion + about intelligence. - -- 56-57 +* Also some bridges can be built with Nicolelis' discussion of technology + transforming itself in extensions of the brain. + +* I to, sometimes, can feel my systems. How they're running, which are + the bottlenecks, what should I look for. Load average from a server is + something you can "feel" just by delays in your terminal. -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. +* Transitional generations might feel a strange feeling. ## Excerpts @@ -413,3 +405,86 @@ Effects: bl ... 85 -- 48-49 + +### The Transfer + +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 + + The worker's capacity "to know" has been lodged in sentience and + displayed in action. The physical presence of the process equipment + has been the setting that corresponded to this knowledge, which could, + in turn, be displayed only in that context. As long as the action context + remained intact, it was possible for knowledge to remain implicit. In + this sense, the worker knew a great deal, but very little of that knowl- + edge was ever articulated, written down, or made explicit in any fash- + ion. Instead, operators went about their business, displaying their + know-how and rarely attempting to translate that knowledge into terms + that were publicly accessible. This is what managers mean when they + speak of the "art" involved in operating these plants. + + -- 59 + +### From action-centered to intellective skill + + This does not imply that action-centered skills exist independent + of cognitive activity. Rather, it means that the processes of learning, + remembering, and displaying action-centered skills do not necessarily + require that the knowledge they contain be made explicit. Physical + cues do not require inference; learning in an action-centered context is + more likely to be analogical than analytical. In contrast, the abstract + cues available through the data interface do require explicit inferential + reasoning, particularly in the early phases of the learning process. It is + necessary to reason out the meaning of those cues-what is their rela- + tion to each other and to the world "out there"? + + -- 73 + + As information technology restructures the work situation, it ab- + stracts thought from action. Absorption, immediacy, and organic re- + sponsiveness are superseded by distance, coolness, and remoteness. + Such distance brings an opportunity for reflection. + + [...] + + The thinking this operator refers to is of a different quality from the + thinking that attended the display of action-centered skills. It combines + abstraction, explicit inference, and procedural reasoning. Taken to- + gether, these elements make possible a new set of competencies that I + call intellective skills. As long as the new technology signals only deskil- + ling-the diminished importance of action-centered skills-there will + be little probability of developing critical judgment at the data inter- + face. To rekindle such judgment, though on a new, more abstract foot- + ing, a reskilling process is required. Mastery in a computer-mediated + environment depends upon developing intellective skills. + + -- 75-76 + + [...] + + The second dimension of this crisis involves the ambiguity of action. + It is conveyed in the question, what have I done? The computer system + now interpolates between the worker and the action context, and as it + does so, it represents to the worker his or her effects on the world. + However, reading symbols does not provoke the same feeling of having + done something as one gets from more direct, organic involvement in + execution. There is a continual questioning of action-Have I done + anything? How can I be sure? + + -- 81 -- cgit v1.2.3