Anthropology Based Computing

We have always built tools to improve our productivity and help us lead better lives; however we find ourselves constantly battling against our new computerized tools, making us less productive and putting our health and our lives at risk. This book looks at Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) from a truly human-centred perspective; focusing on human physiology and psychology rather than the motley series of brilliant innovations, glorified mistakes, and cross-generational habits that comprise the computer-centred HCI that we practice today. This three-part guide argues that human interest and calm technology need to be at the heart of HCI. It begins by exposing the inherent dangers in past and present HCI. Using his past experiences within Anthropology, Linguistics, Education, Ergonomics, Human Factors, and Computer Science the author introduces and explores the theory of ‘Anthropology-Based Computing’ (ABC) as well as a new ideas like Dynamic Environmental Focus (DEF), a new model of General Human Interaction (GHI), and a new triune model of the brain: Brown’s Representation of Anthropogenic Interaction in Natural Settings (BRAINS). Detailed illustrations show how HCI can be improved by considering how human bodies and brains actually work. The final part is a series of simple illustrated experiments, each applying an aspect of ABC to improve the way our computers and computerized devices treat us. Anthropology-Based Computing is written for those who work with computers, not just those who work on them. Students and researchers in Design and Psychology, and Computer Scientists as well, will benefit from seeing what is missing from the devices that are already in place, why that is, and how to make the practical changes that will immediately improve the physiological and psychological experience of using phones, on-board navigation systems, and the countless other computers we use at work and at home today and will continue to use in the future.

As increasing numbers of social anthropologists use a computer for wordprocessing, interest in other applications inevitably follows, Computer Applications in Social Anthropology covers research activities shared by all social anthropologists and introduces new methods for organizing and interpreting data. Lucidly written, and sympathetic to the particular needs of social anthropologists, it will be of immense value to researchers and professionals in anthropology, development studies and sociology

This book aims to deconstruct ethnography to alert systems designers, and other stakeholders, to the issues presented by new approaches that move beyond the studies of ‘work’ and ‘work practice’ within the social sciences (in particular anthropology and sociology). The theoretical and methodological apparatus of the social sciences distort the social and cultural world as lived in and understood by ordinary members, whose common-sense understandings shape the actual milieu into which systems are placed and used. In Deconstructing Ethnography the authors show how ‘new’ calls are returning systems design to ‘old’ and problematic ways of understanding the social. They argue that systems design can be appropriately grounded in the social through the ordinary methods that members use to order their actions and interactions. This work is written for post-graduate students and researchers alike, as well as design practitioners who have an interest in bringing the social to bear on design in a systematic rather than a piecemeal way. This is not a ‘how to’ book, but instead elaborates the foundations upon which the social can be systematically built into the design of ubiquitous and interactive systems.

Diana E. Forsythe was a leading anthropologist of science, technology, and work, and especially of the field of artificial intelligence. This volume collects her best-known essays, along with other major works that remained unpublished upon her death in 1997. The essays proceed as a series of developing variations on the key questions that still confront science and technology studies today. What assumptions do expert systems designers make about users, and about knowledge more broadly, when they build software? How should humans interact with computers, and how do they, really? Why do computing firms hire anthropologists to study human-computer interaction, and what do anthropologists find once they are hired? And how and why are traditional power asymmetries between men and women produced and maintained in engineering firms and laboratories? The book is not only a significant anthropological study of artificial intelligence and informatics, but is also an exemplar of how reflexive ethnography should be done. Among several pioneering strands of thought, it investigates the roles of gender and power in computer engineering, looking at the cultural mechanisms that support the persistent male domination of engineering, and analyzing the laboratory as a fictive kin group that reproduces gender asymmetries.

This book attempts to connect artificial intelligence to primitive intelligence. It explores the idea that a genuinely intelligent computer will be able to interact naturally with humans. To form this bridge, computers need the ability to recognize, understand and even have instincts similar to humans. The author organizes the book into three parts. He starts by describing primitive problem-solving, discussing topics like default mode, learning, tool-making, pheromones and foraging. Part two then explores behavioral models of instinctive cognition by looking at the perception of motion and event patterns, appearance and gesture, behavioral dynamics, figurative thinking, and creativity. The book concludes by exploring instinctive computing in modern cybernetics, including models of self-awareness, stealth, visual privacy, navigation, autonomy, and survivability. Instinctive Computing reflects upon systematic thinking for designing cyber-physical systems and it would be a stimulating reading for those who are interested in artificial intelligence, cybernetics, ethology, human-computer interaction, data science, computer science, security and privacy, social media, or autonomous robots.