Hamlet and the computer: an anthropological view of automation in the new generation aircrafts

摘要

From socio-anthropological observations made inside the cockpit of new generation aircrafts, flying with the crew, and from a survey made among French pilots we draw main conclusions concerning what can be called the process of "digitalization" of modern society. First, users (pilots) react negatively to any automation which gives them the impression that they loose intellectual mastery of the process. Second, a new kind of failure, "true-false failures", creates a new category in philosophical ontology. That gives a new answer to Hamlet : an event can be and not be at the same time. Third, man-machine-operation has become a man-machine interface where it is impossible to find out the limit between human and non human. Fourth, technological tendencies are not only results of technical improvement and economical conditions. They also depend of symbolic expectations of actors and conflictual future oriented representations of social groups involved in the process of innovation.