[Sociam-soton] Re: Is email a social machine?

Tue Oct 29 11:58:53 GMT 2013

Right, and this is where we need to see the fundamental difference between a machine, a computation, and a machine designed to run a computation.

Is there consensus within the group as to the definition of the terms “social machine”, “social computation” and “social computer”? I doubt it.

Darren..

On 29 Oct 2013, at 11:24, Hugh Glaser <hg at ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:

> This thread could be considered an interesting little social machine using email that has come into existence and will halt if (or when?!) the participants grow tired of it?
> 
> I think halting conditions and task finishing are not an issue for machines.
> Machines stop when they break or if the task they have has an endpoint or is finished.
> 
> I have my favourite little gem about over-specification which involves halting.
> In their brilliant paper setting out the von Neumann machine:
> "PRELIMINARY DISCUSSION OF THE LOGICAL DESIGN OF AN ELECTRONIC COMPUTING INSTRUMENT
> ARTHUR W. BURKS, HERMAN H. GOLDSTINE, JOHN VON NEUMANN”
> https://github.com/warrenm/von-neumann-papers/blob/master/Logical%20design%20of%20an%20electronic%20computing%20instrument/Logical%20design%20of%20an%20electronic%20computing%20instrument.pdf
> 
> the authors essentially describe every component of the modern computer (as I recall).
> But it ends in the very last paragraph with a bit it got wrong, because they worried about stopping:
> 
> "6.8.5. Finish signal. There is one further order that the control needs to execute. There should be some means by which the computer can signal to the operator when a computation has been concluded, or when the computation has reached a previously determined point. Hence an order is needed which will tell the computer to stop and to flash a light or ring a bell.”
> 
> Many modern computers never deliberately stop, and certainly having a bell or a light is no requirement, and in my view is actually a detriment, which is why I am a mac user. :-)
> 
> 
> 
> On 29 Oct 2013, at 11:03, rt506 <rt506 at ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
> 
>> Good question, but does a social machine such as Wikipedia have a halting condition (unless we say the final state [which would never be achieved] is to document ask knowledge)?
>> 
>> Ramine
>> 
>> 
>> Sent from Samsung Galaxy Note
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -------- Original message --------
>> From: Leslie Carr <lac at ecs.soton.ac.uk> 
>> Date: 29/10/2013 10:54 (GMT+00:00) 
>> To: "tinati r. (rt506)" <rt506 at ecs.soton.ac.uk> 
>> Cc: Hugh Glaser <hg at ecs.soton.ac.uk>,Kieron O'Hara <kmo at ecs.soton.ac.uk>,sociam-soton at ecs.soton.ac.uk 
>> Subject: Re: [Sociam-soton] Re: Is email a social machine? 
>> 
>> 
>> Does a mailing list have a halting condition? Can it ever finish its task?
>> 
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> 
>> On 29 Oct 2013, at 10:50, "rt506" <rt506 at ecs.soton.ac.uk<mailto:rt506 at ecs.soton.ac.uk>> wrote:
>> 
>> I agrees with Les, however, if we talk about having an agenda/purpose, would a mailing list with a specific purpose be a social machine where email is one if the tools within the social machinery network?
>> 
>> Ramine
>> 
>> 
>> Sent from Samsung Galaxy Note
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -------- Original message --------
>> From: Hugh Glaser <hg at ecs.soton.ac.uk<mailto:hg at ecs.soton.ac.uk>>
>> Date: 29/10/2013 10:35 (GMT+00:00)
>> To: Kieron O'Hara <kmo at ecs.soton.ac.uk<mailto:kmo at ecs.soton.ac.uk>>
>> Cc: sociam-soton at ecs.soton.ac.uk<mailto:sociam-soton at ecs.soton.ac.uk>
>> Subject: [Sociam-soton] Re: Is email a social machine?
>> 
>> 
>> Agreed.
>> Is a crowbar a machine?
>> Is steam power a machine?
>> They might be loosely referred to as such in use, but to people studying statics and dynamics and dynamics they aren't.
>> 
>> Hugh
>> 023 8061 5652
>> 
>> On 29 Oct 2013, at 10:27, "Kieron O'Hara" <kmo at ecs.soton.ac.uk<mailto:kmo at ecs.soton.ac.uk>> wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi Wendy,
>>> 
>>> I'm definitely with your initial reaction. We define a machine in
>>> general as something that does work to achieve a goal. A Turing machine
>>> has a set of final states. I don't see email as having anything like
>>> that kind of teleological goal-directedness, except at a very abstract
>>> level like it allows people to communicate with people.
>>> 
>>> To me it's much more like a component tool or platform. The point of
>>> social machines, it seems to me, is that whatever else they are, they
>>> are characterised by people getting together to do something. Email is
>>> something you would use for that in many circumstances, but it is not
>>> itself characterised by that. It's on the level of a mobile phone
>>> network, a railway system, or a social networking site, in my view. Once
>>> it starts to be used to achieve some kind of goal, then it becomes a
>>> component of a social machine.
>>> 
>>> Is my view.
>>> 
>>> Kieron
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 29/10/2013 10:10, Wendy Hall wrote:
>>>> Hi
>>>> 
>>>> I'm at dinner in Melbourne and the question has arisen - is email a social machine?
>>>> 
>>>> My initial reaction was no, because email is not of the Web. But there are people here who are persuading me otherwise
>>>> 
>>>> Thoughts?
>>>> 
>>>> Wendy
>>>> 
>>>> PS Apologies if this question is already answered in the SM classification work but I don't have all the information to hand
>>>> 
>>>> Sent from my iPhone
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> 
> --
> Hugh
> 023 8061 5652
> 
> 
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