> Your story from the social service department illustrates, I think, that
> the question whether computers can think or will is, for many
> purposes much
> less urgent that the question where is responsibility placed, and how.
I think you are right that the question is about where and how
responsibility is placed. However, it is not completely the issue of
responsibility being misplaced (I'm not saying that you claimed that, just
want to clarify). It is easy to accuse low-paid social service officers and
their supervisors in misplacing responsibility. But, in my view, it would
be misleading. Computer in social service is an intersection of different
agencies, actions, events, practices, and processes such as: State and
Federal regulators and politicians, social service workers and
administration, families, poverty, relatives, network, politics, computer
programmers and computer producers, unemployment, economy, cheating, drugs,
abuse, dehumanization, health, hunger, and so on. Computer is a boundary
object (in terms of Lee Star) or a hybrid (in terms of Bruno Latour). It is
"bigger" or, at least, "different" from all the parts that are crossing on
the computer. When a social worker was telling, "Let me consult with a
computer if you are eligible for the support," she (but sometimes he) was
not metaphorical. There was literally a negotiation.
> Incidentally(?) this shifts analytic attention to the collective,
> away from
> the innards of the individual (person or computer).
Yes, I agree.
Eugene