3 ms·

From what I can understand, the original finding is along the lines of when the computer says "insert floppy disc 3", people instinctively responded as if it wa

From what I can understand, the original finding is along the lines of when the computer says "insert floppy disc 3", people instinctively responded as if it was a person giving them that order and subconsciously went through all the usual social processing for that response - do they have authority over me? is anyone else watching? etc. Not that they thought the computer actually was capable of human interaction at a conscious level. This is more believable than the way most people are interpreting it but I still have doubts. I was an adult in that era, and what I remember is computers were just so much more mechanical then. It was more like operating a microwave oven than today's much more sophisticated machines. It's hard to imagine those simple error codes triggering human social reactions.

layer8 3y ago
True. Though I would argue that people nowadays are generally less submissive to authority than 30 years ago, hence that might not be specific to computers.
- aksss 3y ago
  It's hard to make out what you're saying through the plexiglass and the double masks.
cbsmith 3y ago
I have very different memories of the early 90's. While, even as a programmer, while I very much interacted with computers as a tool, I tended to treat interactions with it as a conversation with the engineer who designed the hardware or software I was interacting with. Most non-programmers weren't really conscious of the engineer on the other side of the conversation, so the other side of the conversation was the "stupid computer". I'm not sure the key change over time here is the about "emergent technology". My observation is that, as computers were increasingly networked (particularly after the explosion of the Internet), perception of computers shifted much more to being a communication tool... and that's now literally true as the primary computer people interact with is their phone. Even before smartphones, once the networking became ubiquitous things started changing. Email was initially the primary use for networked computers, and then with the web they became tools to interact with remote people/organizations, and with the explosion of social media they became tools primarily for interacting with other people. Before networking, the person at the other end of the conversation was just so much more removed/abstract, so most people's mental models were left with only the device itself in the interaction.

layer8 3y ago

True. Though I would argue that people nowadays are generally less submissive to authority than 30 years ago, hence that might not be specific to computers.

aksss 3y ago
It's hard to make out what you're saying through the plexiglass and the double masks.

cbsmith 3y ago

I have very different memories of the early 90's. While, even as a programmer, while I very much interacted with computers as a tool, I tended to treat interactions with it as a conversation with the engineer who designed the hardware or software I was interacting with. Most non-programmers weren't really conscious of the engineer on the other side of the conversation, so the other side of the conversation was the "stupid computer". I'm not sure the key change over time here is the about "emergent technology". My observation is that, as computers were increasingly networked (particularly after the explosion of the Internet), perception of computers shifted much more to being a communication tool... and that's now literally true as the primary computer people interact with is their phone. Even before smartphones, once the networking became ubiquitous things started changing. Email was initially the primary use for networked computers, and then with the web they became tools to interact with remote people/organizations, and with the explosion of social media they became tools primarily for interacting with other people. Before networking, the person at the other end of the conversation was just so much more removed/abstract, so most people's mental models were left with only the device itself in the interaction.