The "Dead" Machine and the Identity-Tranforming Tool

While it was uncommon in the 1980s to think of a machine in human terms, the computer is more and more regarded as an intimate machine or a social object today (Turkle Life on the Screen 24-26; Suchman 11). Even earlier, in the 1960s, Weizenbaum realized that users of his programs ELIZA built emotional relationships with the computer, to which they ascribed human properties (Weizenbaum 19).⁴⁰ One reason for this shift may be today's "user-friendly" interfaces. On the other side of the coin, humans have also recognized their similarities with machines. Not only is human DNA now understood as a key to "programming" humans, but computer chips are also expected to play an important role in building artificial limbs. In addition, culture has contributed to this notion, be it Kraftwerk's Man-Machine in the 1970s, William Gibson's Neuromancer in the 1980s, and Star Trek's Cyborgs in the 1990s.⁴¹
According to Turkle, computers can be regarded as "dead" machines, dictating the rhythm of work to humans, but also as tools, which extend human capabilities (Die Wunschmaschine 209). Furthermore, Turkle emphasizes that computers can be extensions of the mind's construction of thought (30). The notion of a technology as "dead" is not a new one; Ong points out that Plato's critique of the technology of writing is the same as that which is applied to computers today (82). Ong, however, emphasizes that these "dead" technologies have a deep impact on how humans think:

Technologien bieten nicht nur äußerliche Hilfe, sondern sie haben auch eine innere Komponente, sie sind innerliche Bewußtseinsentwicklungen, und sie sind es besonders dann, wenn sie sich auf das Wort auswirken [...] Das Schreiben steigert die Bewußtheit. Entfernung vom natürlichen Milieu kann uns nützen, sie ist in vieler Hinsicht unabdingbar für das menschliche Leben. [...]

Technologien sind künstlich, aber - paradox genug - Künstlichkeit ist dem Menschen wesentlich. Sorgfältig interiorisierte Technologie degradiert das menschliche Leben nicht etwa, sondern erhöht es im Gegenteil. (Ong 85)

Although Ong's argument mainly refers to writing, his thoughts can be transferred to the discussion of human-computer relationships, too, as pointed out by Turkle:

At one level, the computer is a tool [..] Beyond this, the computer offers us both new models of mind and a new medium on which to project our ideas and fantasies. (Life on the Screen 9)⁴²

This identity-transforming relationship has not the same influence on every single user: two individuals having to do the same work on the same computer differ in the way in which they communicate with the computer (Turkle Die Wunschmaschine 12). Also, while Turkle ascribes her observations mainly to intermediate users and children, Brand describes similar relations to power users at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (262-263). In other words, there is no "typical" user (see section 3.3.7), and there is no typical relationship to computers (11).