For Work / Against Work
Debates on the centrality of work

"Calculation and the Division of Labor, 1750-1950"

by Daston, L (2018)

Abstract

Calculating machines placed new demands on human intelligence, but did they pave the way for Artificial Intelligence? They did arguably expand the domain of algorithms, by forcing a rethinking of how to optimize Big Calculation at every level, from the innards of the machines to the organization of work fl ow to the attentive interaction with the machines. But making calculation even more algorithmic, in the sense of following standardized, step-by-step procedures, is a long way from making intelligence algorithmic. For that to happen, the reduction of intelligence to a form of calculation had to seem both possible and desirable.

Keywords

Calculation, Artificial Intelligence, Division Of Labor, Algorithms, Computerisation

Themes

History of Work, Automation

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