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Requirement
“Within modern computing, every actant acts on or is acted upon by at least one other actant, in order to fulfil the aims of the assemblage.” Discuss this statement by following the tasks below. Select TWO computing news stories of your choice, published anytime between
01/02/2016 and 15/04/2016. Analyse these using Actor Network Theory. Your analysis should be written as an essay, and include the following points:
? Describe why Actor-Network Theory is a relevant theory for studying computing.
? Name and categorise the actants in your stories. Describe how they are “acting” upon other actants in the assemblage. Include the connection
between the hardware and software actants, as well as other categories of actants.
? Discuss how the actions of the software actants can enhance management functions within the computing news stories.
? How can you link your analysis to some of the larger issues/questions raised due to the constant use of computing within modern society. Discuss some of advantages/disadvantages of contemporary computing. To achieve this,compare and contrast the viewpoints of a range of theorists and critics such
as techno pessimist- Evgeny Morozov, Nicholas Carr. And optimist such as Mark Stevenson and Clay shirky
? Conclude by summarising how your answers relate to the statement “Withinmodern computing, every actant acts on or is acted upon by at least one other actant, in order to fulfil the aims of the assemblage”.
? Add an appendix which includes definitions of at least four computing terms orconcepts used in your assignment. One of these terms MUST be software.This not is not a descriptive essay on ACTOR NETWORK THEORY BUT ACTOR NETWORK THEORY SHOULD BE USED TO ANALYSIS THE TWO RECENT COMPUTER STORY IN 2016
Solution
"Within modern computing, every actant acts on or is acted upon by at least one other actant, to fulfill the aims of the assemblage."
To start off with we have techniques and ourselves, humans. When studying networks there often is a focus that's its purely technological or social aspect which is set to form a network. For example, technological determinism approaches assume that all technological change (Plesner, 2009) can be attributed to the technological instead of social. On the other hand, social determinism argues that technological changes can only be explained by social categories. To overcome this, actor-network theory considers both technical and social determinism to be dropped and proposes a socio-technical account instead where social and technical positions are not privileged.
The actor-network theory (Blok & Jensen, 2011) derives from Bruno Latour's work and others to treat human or non-human agents called actors as equal since the separation between elements is difficult. ANT is regarded as a conceptual frame for exploration of collective socio-technical procedures, spokespersons of these have paid specific attention to activities related to science and technology.
ANT has advanced three basic methodological principles i.e. generalized symmetry, agnosticism and free association which means in short that there is no difference in approach followed between social, natural and the technological. (Holmes, 2014)
Agnosticism advocates abandoning of priori assumptions made for the nature of networks. ANT provides impartiality, and all interpretations are unprivileged. The second is generalized symmetry (Blok & Jensen, 2011), which implies a single frame when actants are interpreted being human or nonhuman. And the last one corresponds to free association, which advocates abandoning any difference present between natural and social phenomenon.
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The Actants in ANT (Blok & Jensen, 2011):
The agency of nonhumans when taken seriously, the heterogeneous amalgamation of textual, social, conceptual, and technical actors the ANT network is conceived. Any agent, collective or individual, who can associate or disassociate with other agents is termed as the actor by the "volitional actor" for ANT. The entering of actants into the networked associations helps to define them, name them, and further provides them with action, intention, substance, and subjectivity.
The Network in ANT:
The terms namely network and actor when linked for bypassing the difference between the agency and structure, that is a core preoccupation in sociology.
ANALYSIS OF COMPUTING STORIES USING ANT
I have chosen two stories published between Feb 2016 and April 2016.
First, one is with the title "Digital Baby Project's Aim: Computers That See Like Humans" published on 15 Feb 2016.
The story was based on the query "Does the artificial intelligence has the capability to evolve as a human baby, who learns regarding the world merely by seeing and interacting with the surrounding?"
This study tests the limitations of human and computer vision merely by investigating each one's ability for recognizing the partial or fuzzy photos of objects like airplanes, horses, cars, eagles, and eyeglasses. The human brains have proved better than the computers in order to recognize these minimal photos even when they become smaller and extremely harder for identification. However, the results have offered tantalizing clues regarding the quirks of human vision. These clues have improvised the computer vision algorithms and have led to artificial intelligence for learning to understand the world from the point of view of a toddler. The study conducted 3,553 images patches where around 14,000 human participants were involved. Due to the confounding number of participants, it was impractical to bring every person to the laboratory. Then the results were verified by the researchers where a comparison was drawn between them and a smaller group of volunteers into the lab.
In such a situation the Activity Network Theory(Boshears, 2012) applies to it perfectly as it is a material-semiotic method. In this case, the non-human actants are the knowledge base, interface engine, and user interface while the human actants involve humans for research. ANT establishes a network between them which helps in better understanding of the research. Hence, one actant acts on or is acted upon by at least one other actant, to fulfill the aims of the assemblage. (Plesner, 2009)
The second story titled "Robo-Recycling: Apple's Liam Robot" published on 21st March 2016. Recently, a technical development was introduced by Apple that would not be included in a product in coming time i.e. the recycling robot, Liam. The engineer of the company in the Silicon Valley was responsible for developing a recycling robot called Liam, that could recognize the key parts of iPhone taking handset apart, and could pull out the valued materials like silver, lithium, cobalt, gold, platinum, copper, and tungsten.
There was a team with Liam in place that could mine phones for precious metals; a free recycling program was announced for iPhones by Jackson. The customers can easily drop their phones at the Apple stores and can even print their prepaid mailing label at home. The customers were urged by Apple for recycling devices in a way that was safe for data and safe for the planet as well and would keep Liam as well his friends busy.
Siri was asked, "How do you feel about recycling?" later in the event. "I love the Apple renew the program, but Liam tears me apart." She had wisecracked.
In this story, Activity Network Theory fits as it comprises of hardware and software actants. Hardware actants (Boshears, 2012) include various parts of the robot while the software actants include the code which runs the robot. Hence, software actant acts on the hardware actant, and a network is formed between them.
Software code does make a difference and enhances management in the course of some actant activities as without its implementation the hardware actants wouldn't know what and when to perform a predefined task. ANT serves an important purpose in highlighting the relevance and role of nonhuman actors. (Holmes, 2014)
Whereas the constant use of computing within modern society raises a larger issue of deteriorating health as heavy technology use links to fatigue, stress, and depression in young adults. Overuse of technology can also lead to ‘Digital Dementia' which helps to describe the breakdown of cognitive abilities in a manner where more commonly seen in people suffering from a head injury or psychiatric illness, resulting from the overuse of digital technology.
Individuals relying on the technology may suffer from the deterioration in cerebral performance that includes short term memory dysfunction. Most of the kids grew up remembering their phone numbers along with the other key information simply by memorizing it but most of the kids today have grown up without any need for remembering things like phone numbers as we have devices that do it for us.
Now, let's compare and contrast different viewpoints of a range of theorists and critics. For instance, Evgeny Morozov's review of latest book by Nicholas Carr was given as "Carr's basic premise is sound: a little bit of technology and automation can go a long way in enabling human emancipation but, once used excessively, they might result in ‘an erosion of skills, a dulling of perceptions, and a slowing of reactions."
While views of optimists like Clay Shirky are somewhat different, in his book "Here Comes Everybody", Shirky enlightens about his experience with speaking on crowdsourcing as well as collaborative efforts online. He has used the phrase "the Internet runs on love" for describing the nature of collaborations like these.
Shirky has further asserted that the collaborative, crowdsourced work has been resulted from "operative tool and a suitable bargain with the users and a successful fusion of a plausible promise."
He further states that what the user receives from the promise made to him out of participating in the project leading to the desire of the person for getting involved. The one which should be designed for fitting the job being done and it should further help the people for doing something they want.
According to the Mark Stevenson's book "An Optimist's Tour of the Future", the impetus for writing the survey of cutting-edge computing, environmental trends, medical, scientific and robotics, was an impulsive appreciation of his mortality along with his subsequent desire for learning more regarding the kind of world where the rest of life is going to be played.
To conclude this article, in modern computing every actant acts on or is acted upon by at least one other actant, in order to fulfill the aims of the assemblage. (Holmes, 2014)
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Robot: a machine that has the capability to carry out a multifaceted series of actions in an automatic manner, especially the one that can be programmable by a computer.
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Digital Dementia: it means worsening of the cognitive abilities that are more frequently seen in people suffering from a head injury or psychiatric illness.
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Siri: It is a built-in "intelligent assistant" enabling the users of Apple iPhone 4s along with the newer iPad and iPod Touch devices for speaking the natural language voice commands to operate the mobile devices along with the apps.
References
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Plesner, U. (2009). An actor-network perspective on changing work practices: Communication technologies as actants in newswork. Journalism, 10(5), 604-626. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1464884909106535 [This is a journal article citation.]
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Boshears, P. (2012). Addiction and Actants: The Autonomy Possible in Assemblages. AJOB Neuroscience, 3(2), 59-61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21507740.2012.666328 [This is a journal article citation.]
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Blok, A., & Jensen, T. (2011). Bruno Latour. New York, NY: Routledge. [This is a book citation.]
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Holmes, S. (2014). Multiple Bodies, Actants, and a Composition Classroom: Actor-Network Theory in Practice. Rhetoric Review, 33(4), 421-438. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07350198.2014.947232 [This is a journal article citation.]
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