timBoucher » Animism and magic in computing

Animism and magic in computing

Some quotes collected on the subject. This sort of relates to the “unpredictable tools” post of a few days ago:

I really don’t want any magic mumbo-jumbo in the technical documents produced by the aeronautical engineers who are trying to work out how a 617 ton Airbus A380 will actually get off the ground and stay off the ground in a controlled manner for the duration of its 9,000 mile flight. That’s just not funny or helpful. Same goes for the civil engineer’s bridge, the politician’s environmental action plan, or the prostate surgeon’s procedures.

Magic and animism works well-enough for me as a way to describe the quirky personality traits of a cranky laptop, for example…

And later on in the conversation at that site comes another tidbit:

I was at Ubicomp and apart from being pleased that people were talking about animism and magic (things I’ve been looking at lately), I was initially a bit surprised at Sterling’s strong stance against it. Then I interpreted his criticism, as you explain, as being against the use of magic as coersion. His point is that that there’s enough history of the developers of technology cloaking the functionality of technology for there to be concern that animism and magic as a metaphor would make it too easy.

Interesting subject. Would like to collect more quotes and resources on this subject if anyone has anything to contribute! It’s in research for an article on ambient computing I’ve been asked to write.