"Agents" from Interface Culture
In 1997, Steven Johnson published Interface Culture: How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate. In chapter 6 he discusses "intelligent agents": software designed to make choices and take actions for users without continuous oversight. His main interest is in "collaborative filtering," which allows software to make intelligent guesses about a particular person's likes and dislikes, based on similar patterns in the likes and dislikes of others.
The Sparknotes.com Gender Test is a simple example of pattern-matching software. (You have to complete a free registration if you want to take this test.) More sophisticated versions are used by Amazon and Netflix to recommend purchases and DVD rentals. Probably the most widely used example right now is Ebay's feedback/reputation ratings system.
"Listening to Feedback" from Emergence
In 2002 Johnson published Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software. As its title suggests, the book is about emergent, self-organizing systems. In the first chapter, "The Myth of the Ant Queen," Johnson points out that the ant "queen" has no power and no means of communicating with the rest of the colony. Ant colonies are highly structured, but this order emerges from the independent actions of the individual ants.
In this class, we are most interested in what Johnson has to say about the Internet, and about strategies for organizing and sifting through this massive, global publishing project. Our reading is from chapter 4, "Listening to Feedback." In it, Johnson extends the insights he began to develop in the "Agents" section of Interface Culture.
His reference to "the Flowers affair" in the fourth paragraph refers to media coverage of Bill Clinton's alleged affair with Gennifer Flowers. At first, the national media ignored the story, but it soon turned into a feeding frenzy, as reports on the "controversy" and the media's response to it resulted in further coverage.
Johnson's key example of emergent behavior is Slashdot, which demonstrates an even more "bottom-up" pattern of organization and selection than his earlier MTV example. CmdrTaco still ran Slashdot in Jan. 2005, and the site had begun to generate revenue through subscriptions and advertising. Current details about its moderation system are available on its FAQ. On a more massive scale, Google uses a similar system to rank the quality of web pages that it returns to searchers. As detailed on its technology page, Google's algorithm counts every link to a particular page as a "vote" for that page. (It also measures the quality of the linking page.) Pages with more links will appear higher in the search results.
Is collaborative filtering an antidote to "data smog" as Shenk defines it?
"Desktop" from Interface Culture
Johnson thinks by analogy, and much of Interface Culture consists of high-level, abstract connections between seemingly very different things. Probably the most important analogy in chapter two compares the cathedrals built by medieval Europeans and the virtual environments that we are building on our computers.
In what ways are Gothic cathedrals and computer interfaces similar? If you can answer this question in a thoughtful and detailed way, you will have "gotten" the main point of chapter 2.
The society that produced the cathedrals was structured by a deep and comprehensive faith in Christianity. This was the glue that held the society together; the authority of its rulers stemmed directly from God. The quote from Coleridge connects this society's architecture to its belief systems: their buildings were designed to remind people constantly of the infinite power of God (42).
Johnson's first and second paragraphs describe briefly how these churches worked. He refers to Chartes [picture], one of the world's great buildings.
Today, of course, our secular society no longer builds monumental churches that dominate our landscapes. What do we build instead? Do our great buildings reveal the powers and beliefs that structure today's society, in the same way that Gothic cathedrals structured life in medieval Europe?
Johnson believes that they do, as he states in this key sentence: "All works of architecture imply a worldview, which means that all architecture is in some deeper sense political" (44). To help you understand his point, try applying it to other built environments. For example, what "worldview" does a public park imply? In what sense is a park "political"? Can you think of other examples of built spaces that imply a particular worldview and, therefore, a politics?
Here's another good summary sentence: "The way we choose to organize our space says an enormous amount about the society we live in--perhaps more than any other component of our cultural habits" (44).
Johnson states that we should be humbled by the Macintosh-DOS debates of the middle and late 1980s (57). What does he mean?
What is the difference between a metaphor and a simulation (58-59)? In these terms, what was wrong with Microsoft's Bob?
What is The Palace? According to Johnson, what is exciting about it (67-68)? What disappoints Johnson about the ways it is used (68-69)?
Since 1997, many new virtual environments have been created. Four of the most notable are Ultima Online, The Sims Online, There, and Second Life.
Johnson writes, "Mediated conversations are not by definition shallow..." (70). Do you agree? Do you have "deep" exchanges using email, IM, chat, etc.? Is the telephone still the best "depth" technology?
In your opinion, is Quake the model for future interfaces? What are this metaphor's strengths? What are its limitations?