The Shape of Actions – What Humans & Machines Can Do: What Humans and Machines Can Do - Hardcover

Collins, Harry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262032570 ISBN 13: 9780262032575

Publisher: MIT Press, 1999

Synopsis

What can humans do? What can machines do? How do humans delegate actions to machines? In this book, Harry Collins and Martin Kusch combine insights from sociology and philosophy to provide a novel answer to these increasingly important questions.The authors begin by distinguishing between two basic types of intentional behavior, which they call polimorphic actions and mimeomorphic actions. Polimorphic actions (such as writing a love letter) are ones that community members expect to vary with social context. Mimeomorphic actions (such a swinging a golf club) do not vary. Although machines cannot act, they can mimic mimeomorphic actions. Mimeomorphic actions are thus the crucial link between what humans can do and what machines can do. Following a presentation of their detailed categorization of actions, the authors apply their approach to a broad range of human-machine interactions and to learning. Key examples include bicycle riding and the many varieties of writing machines. They also show how their theory can be used to explain the operation of organizations such as restaurants and armies. Finally, they look at a historical case -- the technological development of the air pump -- applying their categorization of actions to the processes of mechanization and automation. Automation, they argue, can occur only where what we want to bring about can be brought about through mimeomorphic action.

About this title

Review

"In this unusual, challenging, interdisciplinary book, Collins andKusch have provided us with the best analysis we currently have of thedeterminants of the possibilities of automation." Donald MacKenzie , Department of Sociology, University of Edinburgh

Synopsis

What can humans do? What can machines do? How do humans delegate actions to machines? In this text, Harry Collins and Martin Kush combine insights from sociology and philosophy to provide an answer to these questions. The authors begin by distinguishing between two basic types of intentional behaviour, which they call polimorphic actions and mimeomorphic actions. Although machines cannot "act", they can mimic mimeomorphic actions, and thus mimeomorhpic actions are the crucial link between what humans can do and what machines can do. Following a presentation of their detailed categorization of actions, the authors apply their approach to a broad range of human-machine interactions and to learning. They also seek to show how their theory can be used to explain the operation of organizations such as restaurants and armies. Finally the text looks at a historical case - the technological development of the air pump - appying their categorization of actions to the processes of mechanization and automation. Automation, argue the authors, can occur only where what we want to bring about can be brought about through mimeomorphic action.

Edition details

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262032570
• ISBN 13: 9780262032575
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240