Interfacing the human/machine

Abstract

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.