Interfacing the human/machine

ABSTRACT

Contemporary discourse on information and communication technology suggests that humans and machines are increasingly converging. However, in this article, we argue that for analysts of digital society it is necessary to understand the simultaneity with which humans and machines are both interconnected and separated from one another. Here, we propose to follow and trace human/machine interfacing, i.e. the manifold practices, by which humans and machines become interconnected, by being kept apart. Drawing on theoretical resources from feminist science and technology studies and the philosophy of technology, we extend common ‘objective’ notions of the interface and propose a performative and ecological framework for human-machine interfacing. We illustrate this framework with two contrasting cases, embodied social robotics and communicative software bots. Social robots denote a rather fragile technology, showing the precariousness of efforts to engender phenomena of human-machine communication. By contrast, communicative software bots can rely on vast digital infrastructures, which create the impression of symmetry between humans and machines by rendering ontological differences invisible.

KEYWORDS:

• Interfacing
• human-machine communication
• hybridity
• difference
• social robotics
• communicative AI
• intra-action
• milieu

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In computing, the notion of the interface is broader than simply user interfaces. It denotes any shared boundary of two or more entities inside or outside a digital system (e.g. the computer vision component or simply some object in the physical environment). Effectively, interfaces are standards for how such entities can communicate with one another. For a genealogy of the term, (see Hookway 2014).

2 We restrict our analysis to the question of human/machine relations for now. Our theoretical suggestion might, however, also contribute to reflections of other instances of boundary-making, both between machines but also between whole social fields (see eg. Karafillidis 2018; Shields 2006, White 1982).

3 ‘Out of synch’ refers to terminology used by roboticists to describe situations where what the robot’s dialogue manager expects the user to say and what they actually say diverges and thus causes the interaction to break down or take unexpected (‘wrong’) turns.

4 One may argue that communicative bots also rely on an ‘infrastructural embodiment’ (Hepp 2020, 3). In contrast to the social robots described above (which can be identified with a specific physical artefact that operates in the physical world), communicative bots are however first and foremost software agents that enact the impression of a disembodied presence. Nevertheless Hepp (2020) suggest ‘communicative robots’ as an umbrella term for intelligent assistants, chatbots and social bots. We decided to speak of ‘communicative bots’ instead to better differentiate these phenomena from social robots.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Benjamin Lipp

Benjamin Lipp studied sociology, economics and criminology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich. In 2019, he defended his thesis investigating the interconnection of social robotics and elderly care within the context of European innovation politics. Since October 2021, he is a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Hamburg and Cornell University studying the interface of neuro-technology and chronic pain management. In his research he combines sociology, Science and Technology Studies and new materialist thinking to theorize the human-machine interface especially in arrangements of care.

Sascha Dickel

Sascha Dickel studied political science, sociology and philosophy of law at the Goethe University Frankfurt. He received his doctorate in sociology at Bielefeld University in 2010. He worked as a post-doc at the Institute for Ecological Economy Research in Berlin and TU Munich. His international research and teaching activities took him to Cardiff, Washington DC and Vienna. In 2021 he was appointed Full Professor for Sociology of Media and Theory of Society at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. His work explores socio-technical futures, implications of digital communication and new modes of public engagement in science and technology.