Dr. Aarti Kawlra has a PhD in Social Anthropology from IIT Delhi and has more than twenty years experience in crafts development and research.
Currently she is a Consultant with the TeNeT Group at IIT Madras on crafts entrepreneurship development via the emergent Internet kiosk in Tamil Nadu. Her areas of interest traverse design, technology and society and in particular the adoption and adaptation of ICT's among rural users across diverse cultural and linguistic settings in India
Babbage, a professor of mathematics at Cambridge, was particularly interested in machines and is remembered as the inventor of a calculating engine, a kind of proto-computer.Ure was an industrial chemist and the author of a well-known dictionary of chemistry.
Never, in the history of technology has so long an interval separated the invention of a device and its realisation in hardware as that which elapsed between Charles Babbage's description, in 1837, of the Analytical Engine, a mechanical digital computer which, viewed with the benefit of a century and a half's hindsight, anticipated virtually every aspect of present-day computers.
During the World War 2, all tedious numerical calculations were carried out by human workers. These were performed mostly by female corps of young mathematicians, known as ‘computers’. Babbage’s Analytical engine was initially built to replace the human computers. He thought that the introduction of machine would increase accuracy. Babbage’s definition of intelligence is the combination of memory and foresight. He understood that intelligence is of the mind and not of the body. As Simon Schaffer aptly puts it,
"To make machines look intelligent it was necessary that the sources of their power, the labour force which surrounded and ran them, be rendered invisible”.
Babbage writes: "One great advantage which we may derive from machinery is from the check which it affords against the inattention, the idleness, or the dishonesty of human agents".
It is particularly important to foreground the ontological aspect of Babbage's and Ure's texts because it is here that their most important ideological move is made. Conventionally, ideology criticism has focused on discovering concealed relations to the economic base in apparently apolitical texts.
The inventiveness of Babbage's and Ure's arguments can only be understood, however, when their ostensible referentiality to any external real condition is first bracketed out. To thematize the ontological claims of these texts thus requires separating the economic base and the ideological superstructure.
It purely once gain emphasizes on the dominance of intelligence over strength and the concept of separation of body and mind. Therefore intelligence lies in the mind and not in the physical body.
This post gives a brief discussion about how babbage have viewed "intelligence".The post starts with how i think about intelligence,who is babbage? and what are his views on "intelligence" with reference to articles by Schaffer and Zimmerman
Let me start with my aspect of intelligence!!!
Intelligence is in mind or in crafting body??
Answer to this question can’t be answered directly, but it would be appropriate if define intelligence by TIME…
Growing with the evolution, man started to produce “goods” which started for his own requirements. At this time, the crafting body was thought as intelligence. Since there was no machine then to replace the “bodily labour” it’s the crafting body which has to do the work.
Slowly he entered in producing in large scale and the “profit” stimulated production lead to what is called as INDUSTRIES and always in greed of producing the most he could.
That is where the division of classes and gender got triggered and the word “supervisor” forcefully entered into the dictionary of human race. The adjective forcefully is added because of “discipline” which entered because of the “investment” wasn’t by the “labourer”
And still it continues… intelligence is defined by the “mind” because the bodily labour can be done by a “machine” and Charles Babbage was one among then who wanted to “substitute” “mind” using a machine.
Charles Babbage difference engine has become a water mark in the history of automata.
The difference engine is given significance because In other cases, mechanical devices have substituted machines for simpler tools or for bodily labour. But difference engine substitutes mechanical performance for an intellectual process.
Obviously intelligence lies in the mind or else we would have remembered Joseph Clement as the inventor or the difference engine rather than the “mind” behind the invention (Charles Babbage).
Let’s start peeping into the history of Charles Babbage.
Charles Babbage is a English mathematician, pseudo philosopher (analytic philosopher) ,inventor(mind) of the First mechanical computer which eventually led into complex designs.
Babbage was embarrassed with the British negligence over his machine, its clear from the following example :
“Propose to an Englishman any principle, or any instrument, however admirable, and you will observe that the whole effort of the English mind is directed to find a difficulty, a defect, or an impossibility in it. If you speak to him of a machine for peeling a potato, he will pronounce it impossible: if you peel a potato with it before his eyes, he will declare it useless, because it will not slice a pineapple. [...] Impart the same principle or show the same machine to an American or to one of our Colonists, and you will observe that the whole effort of his mind is to find some new application of the principle, some new use for the instrument“. ~ Charles Babbage quoted in Richard H. Babbage (1948), “The Work of Charles Babbage“, Annals of the Computation Laboratory of Harvard University, vol. 16.
Babbage had anticipated the impact of his Engine when he wrote in his memoirs: “As soon as an Analytical Engine exists, it will necessarily guide the future course of science.“
And yet it had a very high impact or else why will we consider some one as “Father of computers”
My eyes on Schaffer and Zimmerman’s views
Schaffer viewed that the machine’s intelligence is highlighted if the labour running the machine is seen “invisible”(of no/low significane).
Babbage gave importance to the result rather than the process by which it is done. The end result was identical if it was a machine or a human who does the work. He equalized the machine and the power needed to the skilled labour. This made the skilled labour to be seen as a equivalent to the machine handled by an unskilled labour(to be given less wage).As I have mentioned above the shift from the multiple “small” scale enterprises to “capitalist” “large” enterprise has forced the “supervising” term to check the discipline made the labour to do work in a “programmed ” fashion without using his “own knowledge”, by this we can say intelligence exists in mind rather than the skillful artisan,because there is no use of his skill as “all the thinking” is done by the inventor or the supervisor and the “skillful” does a work of low significance.According Babbage the owner of an article is the person who designs rather than a person who crafts it.
'My right to dispose, as I will, of such inventions cannot be contested; it is more sacred in its nature than any hereditary or acquired property, for they are the absolute creations of my own mind'
This concretes that the according to Babbage the owner of an article is one who designs it rather than who crafts it.So it clearly states the importance he gives to the mind than “crafting body”.
Babbage supports division of labour,he thinks that process of division of labour decreases the cost and increases the productivity.By this he gives priority to the machine(mind who invented the machine) rather than the crafting body.
For Babbage the intelligence is limited to the mind of the inventor.
Babbageconstructednot merelya politicaleconomic theoryof machines,but also an ontology,an understandingof realitypriortomachines,humans,andtheeconomy,and,indeed, priorto bothhistoryandnature.Hereconceivedthemechanicalasapolitical ontologicalcategorypriortohistoricalandeconomicreality.BabbageandUrecentertheirrepresentationsofthefactory onrepresentationsof machinery;for both,the machineis a means ofdisciplininglabor, andthefactoryanassemblageofsuchmachines. Babbage writes: "One great advantage which we may derivefrom machineryisfromthecheck whichit affordsagainsttheinattention,theidleness,orthedishonestyofhumanagents"
Mechanizedfactorylabor tendsto makeitself obsolete,assuminga steadydemandfor, and a steadyvalueof,goods.Theproblemof disciplinebecomescenteredonleisurerather thanlabor to theextentthat labor can produceenoughleisureto makeitself mostly obsolete.
Thistheory of value meansthat laborers must always work thesame amountof time no matter how efficient production becomes,becausethelesstheyhaveto worktoproduceagood, thelessthat goodis worth,andthelesstheyare paidforit.Machineryreducesthe amountof work necessaryto producea givencommodity,thus reducingthe price of that commodity, which meansthat demandincreases: insteadof labor fulfilling a needandthen beingcomplete,needitself continuallyexpands.
Babbage writesthat evenif a machinesaved half-an-hour's work,the worker wouldnotgaina half hourofleisure,butinsteadwouldusethehalfhourtofulfilla previouslyunfulfilleddemand.Evenif demandfor a commoditywere somehowfinally satisfied, a new demandwouldarise,so that labor still wouldgain noleisure.Becausedemandcan never besatisfied, work can neverend.Both Babbage's and Ure's politicaleconomiestendtowards thetotalinductionofthe humanintoa mechanizedlabor process.
For Babbage,thedivisionoflabor alsoallows eachtask to bedivided upintosubtasksthatrequiredifferentlevelsofskill,sothatno onelabors beneathhis or herlevelofskill.Babbageseesinthedivision of labor the possibility of an inclusive distributionof skill that incorporatesallvarietiesof workersintothefactory, For Babbage,the calculabilityand the mechanicalqualityof both humans and machinesare merelyinstancesof the calculability andthe mechanicalquality ofthe universeitself.Babbage'smost famousproject,his attemptto build a "calculating engine,"relied onsuch a conception of the calculableand rule-governednatureof reality. Babbagehoped this engine would mechanicallyproduceand printlogarithmicand other mathematicaltables(used at the time, for example,in navigation,astronomy,and surveying).
Babbagetransformeda conventionalview of a mechanisticuniverseby presentingthe universeas a machine that humanscan constructandcontrol.Theythus understandthe worlditself as an automaton,as a mechanicalreproductionof anapparentlynonmechanicalbeing.Theybothunderstandautomata and productivemachineryas existingon a singlecontinuum .
Therefore from reference to the article by ziemmerman the intelligence is not in the crafting body(labor) but in the mind (machines) which controls the labour.
Coming to the origin of this comment, when one of the workers, who are making the analytical engine wanted to produce more such machines, then Babbage thwarted his attempts, emphasizing that the location of intelligence is in mind and not in crafting body.
So, What is Intelligence? We try to deduce that from the article in consideration by Simon Schaffer ,
He quotes that "the word intelligence refers both to signals received from without and to the capacity to register and interpret these signals".
Let's try to fit this definition of Schaffer in our argument now, take the example of a human brain, it has the capacity to register the signals but to interpret the stored signals we require help from mind ,and some of the reserves of the mind should have been from the experience the person has, which in-turn requires the skill of crafting body,in some cases.This is about the intelligence of humans.
Now, can we say anything about the 'intelligence' of machines ? Machines also both requires the craftiness of body and creativeness of mind of a human, to 'make' that machine to be able to perform its tasks it is assigned to do, and if there are any mistakes ,to 'improve' it further.
Well,calculating some tables and having some creative thoughts does not necessarily define mind as center of intelligence,since even Sir Thomas Alva Edison required many trials to produce a long-lasting electric bulb.So, we can see that the mere mental rigorous work failed to create the required end product of bulb but constant experience gained through repeated trials and by the craftiness of body to be able to craft tinier details, on collaboration with the mind is what that is able to produce the required end product.
So it can be said that the unification of mind and body stands as the location of intelligence. So here, in this case Edison is able to make his own bulb, But for complex designs,such as in the case of Charles Babbage,
the mind is of one person, and the crafting body is of another person.This is the start of conflict.
In this context we can say, the faculties of memory and foresight with which Babbage sought to endow the Analytical Engine characterize his self-presentation as the unique author of the machine. They embodied control over the engine while they disembodied skills and camouflaged the work force on which it depended.
Babbage says about his work,Difference Engine as -
'My right to dispose, as I will, of such inventions cannot be contested; it is more sacred in its nature than any hereditary or acquired property, for they are the absolute creations of my own mind'
The design of Analytical Engine is a very complex one, it requires a large amount of skill as Schaffer in his article quotes-
'in all those parts of the Machine where the nicest precision is required, the wheelwork only brings them by a first approximation (though a very nice one), to
their destined places: they are then settled into accurate adjustment by peculiar contrivances, which admit of no shake or latitude of any kind'
This problem of the geography of intelligence depended on the fetishisation of machines and the reification of the labour power exerted around them.
Under the new orthodoxies of political economy, the surplus value extracted from the machines was the product of the intelligence of capital made real in the force of steam-driven engines. On this showing, intelligence itself was easily identified with just those qualities displayed by manufacturing capital and the subordinate 'servants of the machine', notably foresight and vigilance. As we have seen, these were also the virtues which Babbage reckoned made his engines think. The aim of this polemic was to make the identity of intelligence and capitalist machine management self-evident.
Conclusion:
I end with the following quote:
"It should be borne in mind that the inventor of a machine and the maker of it have two distinct ends to obtain. The object of the first is to make the machine as
complete as possible. The object of the second-and we have no right to expect he will be influenced by any other feeling-is to gain as much as possible by making
the machine,and it is in his interest to make it as complicated as possible."
Thus ,certainly when speaking of two different persons, the location of Intelligence is confined to mind but not to the crafting body.
References:
Simon Schaffer's article on Babbage's Intelligence
The topic for the discussion is about Babbage’s view on where is intelligence located – min or the crafting body. Let discuss this with reference to Simon Schaffer and Zimmerman’s article.
The development of the modern computer woes a debt to Babbage . He developed planes for an analytical engine to compute.
He was not very comfortable with computations done by the human computers. He wanted this to be replaced by mechanical engine. This can sensed from his quote
“I wish to the God these calculations had been executed by steam”
Babbage began to turn his ideas to reality.
However in the mid 1800’s the idea of a machine replacing human calculators (Computers) must have seemed a unreal.
In the defecating Duck, by vaucancon tries to stimulate the physical and mechanical of a duck.
In other words, mechanical devices have substituted machine fir simpler tools or for bodily labor. But the invention by Babbage (analytical engine) sub substitutes mechanical performances fira ba intellectual process.
In other words Babbage’s invention puts a mechanical engine in the place of the Human Calculator.
Intelligence is defines by the ‘mind’ because the bodily labour can be done by machines and Babbage was the one who wanted to substitute mind using machine.
Schafer viewed the machine intelligence is highlighted if the labour running is seen invisible or of low significance.
From another quote from Babbage life
“My right to dispose, ass I will , of such intensions cannot be contested; it is more scared in its nature than any hereditary of acquired property, for they are the absolute creations of my own mind”
By this he makes a worker in the factory a ‘Slave if the machines ’
Babbage outs machines between the mind and body, as the workers are its slave while mind triumphs over the machine.
Babbage gave more importance to data and did not care about where is comes from.
This clearly shows that according to Babbage the owner if an article is one who designs it rather than who crafts it so it clearly states the importance he gives to the mint than the crafting body.
In this blogpost, I’ll explain about the Computation & Intelligence not only bearing marks of class but also of gender by starting from the history of women & weaving, and then taking the life of Ada Lovelace, as discussed in the articles by Plant & Schaffer.
History of Women & Weaving - Modern Computation:
The connection between women and weaving runs deep: even Athena and Isis wove their own veils. “The traditional picture of the wife was one in which she spun by the village fire at night, listening to the children’s riddles, and to the myth-telling of the men, eventually making cloth which her husband could sell to make wealth for the family; cloth-making was a service from a wife to a husband.” This is from Margaret Mead’s research from the Tiv of Nigeria, but it is a pattern repeated in many societies before manufactured cloth and automated weaving made their marks. It is weaving by which woman is known; the activity of weaving which defines her. But, it seems to be foolish to suggest that weaving is women’s only contribution to “the discoveries and inventions of the history of civilisation?”
The computer is described to be emerged out of the history of weaving, the process so often said to be the quintessence of women’s work. The loom is the vanguard site of software development. Indeed, it is from the loom, or rather the process of weaving, that this paper takes another cue. Perhaps this paper is an instance of this process of weaving as well, for tales and texts are woven as surely as threads and fabrics. It is a yarn in both senses. It is about weaving women and cybernetics, and is also weaving women and cybernetics. Perhaps, weaving is even the fabric of every other discovery and invention, perhaps the beginning and the end of their history. The loom is a fatal innovation which weaves its way from squared paper to the data net.
Life of Ada Lovelace:
Ada Lovelace, with whom the histories of computing and women’s liberation are first directly woven together, is central to this post. She is, moreover, often remembered as Charles Babbage’s voice, expressing his ideas with levels of clarity, efficiency, and accuracy he could never have mustered himself. Babbage had a tendency to flit between obsessions; a remarkably prolific explorer of the most fascinating questions of science and technology, he nevertheless rarely managed to complete his studies; neither the Difference Engine nor the Analytical Engine were developed to his satisfaction. Ada, on the other hand, was determined to see things through; perhaps her own commitment to Babbage’s machine was greater than his own. Knowing that the Difference Engine had suffered for lack of funding, publicity, and organisation, she was convinced that the Analytical Engine would be better served by her own attentions. She was often annoyed by what she perceived as Babbage’s sloppiness, and after an argument in 1843, she laid down several conditions for the continuation of their collaboration.
Ada Lovelace herself worked with a mixture of coyness and confidence; attributes which often extended to terrible losses of self-esteem and megalomaniac delight in her own brilliance. Sometimes she was convinced of her own immortal genius as a mathematician. At other times, she lost all confidence, and often wondered whether she should not have pursued her musical abilities. Ada was always trapped by the duty to be dutiful; caught in a cleft stick of moral obligations she did not understand. Ada’s letters—and indeed her scientific papers—are full of suspicions of her own strange relation to humanity. Babbage called her his fairy, because of her dexterous mind and light presence, and this appealed to Ada’s inherited romanticism.
Ada may have been Babbage’s fairy, but she was not allowed to forget that she was also a wife, mother, and victim of countless ‘female disorders’. She was often described her strange intimacy with death; it was rather the constraints of life with which she had to struggle. “I mean to do what I mean to do,” she once wrote, but there is no doubt that Ada was horribly confined by the familiar—her marriage, her children, and her indomitable mother conspired against her independence, and it was no wonder that she was so attracted to the unfamiliar expanses of mathematical worlds.
Ada was not really Ada Byron, but Ada Lovelace, and her father was never Prime Minister: these are the fictions of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, whose book The Difference Engine sets its tale in a Victorian England in which the software she designed was already running; a country in which the Luddites were defeated, the Prime Minister was a poet, and Ada Lovelace still bore her maiden name. And one still grander: Queen of Engines. Set in the mid-1850s, the novel takes Ada into a middle-age she never saw: the real Ada died in 1852 while she was still in her thirties. Much of her life with unspecified disorders, she was eventually diagnosed as suffering from cancer of the womb, and she died after months of extraordinary pain.
Conclusion:
In this way, women suffered from the male dominance society by forcing them to have weaving as their profession & recognition regarding it to be a mechanical process rather than an intellectual supporting my initial argument of gender bias in terms of Computation & Intelligence.
11:51 PM
Jam Jacobs
