Making Sense of Intelligent Systems, From Conception Practices to Interaction Studies
Résumé
In a text wrote in 1988, Susan Leigh Star noted that artificial intelligence research pursues two main goals. The first is to understand intelligence by simulating biological functions, and the second is to produce intelligible objects that can easily be used by humans. It seems therefore important to grasp these two dynamics of the animation of objects (which is technical and mental) in order to better understand the relationships in which machines place us today and the role that they are intended to see us play. The aim of this contribution is to explore these two aspects jointly as they illustrate two different ways to deal with intelligence. The presentation will thus focus on both the conception of artificial life forms and the interactions we have with them. It will pay a particular attention to the analogies which characterize intelligent systems design and to the mental processes they give rise to. Leaning on ethnographic case studies, the contribution will try to show that intelligent systems are devices of a recursive kind which convey norms, representations and various ideas about the life processes and the social relations they intend to imitate.